Hot on the heels of the surprise reveal of Star Wars 1313 earlier this month, LucasArts is seeing one of their key employees leaving the company which in turn could mean the worse for an unannounced project. Former Ubisoft creative director Clint Hocking has announced that he is departing LucasArts.
Clint didn’t seem bitter about his departure from LucasArts as he said, “I recently left my job at LucasArts and am moving on to something new. Unlike last time, (and mercifully less wordy) I already have something lined up and I am currently in the process of dealing with the living hell of relocation.” So in some ways it seems like the split between LucasArts and Clint was amicable unless Clint was simply in the state of mind that he simply didn’t care anymore.
The arrival of Clint Hocking at LucasArts initially was met with nothing but excitement seeing as how Clint is a talented chap and how it showed LucasArts was serious about making proper games again. While we never learned any details on what Clint was working on while he was at LucasArts it was still exciting to know that at some point down the road we were going to receive some goodness. Now with Clint’s departure does that mean LucasArts is trimming back on some of their unannounced projects?
First off it should be noted that Clint wasn’t working on Star Wars 1313 as the Creative Director of that project is Dominic Robilliard. So with that said, does Clint’s departure mean that whatever project he was working on is in flux? It’s not too often that development leads on a project will leave while it’s still being developed unless some shady stuff is going on or the creative forces are butting heads. We haven’t heard too many horror stories about LucasArts in recent months so it appeared that the studio was back on track after the debacle that was Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II but apparently there’s a disturbance in the force that may not result in the best scenario for gamers.
It’s unknown where Clint could be heading to next, but I’m sure he’ll make a splash wherever he lands since he’s a man that knows how to make a good game. Given the silence on what LucasArts has in the pipeline and the somewhat odd nature of Star Wars: 1313 (what game actually has placeholder characters?), I’m feeling a bit skeptical about the future of LucasArts since we could just see the same thing we’ve already seen this generation; mismanagement and ho-hum games.
