Far Cry 2 and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory director Clint Hocking returns to Ubisoft
But not to work on the next Splinter Cell.
Clint Hocking, key designer on Far Cry 2 and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, has returned to Ubisoft after leaving the company in 2010.
Hocking joins Ubisoft Toronto not to work on the next Splinter Cell, he said, but something else that remains unannounced for now.
"When I stopped working on Splinter Cell after Chaos Theory... the honest truth is I didn't think I could make a better one," Hocking said in an interview published on the Ubisoft blog.
"I feel like I had made the very best Splinter Cell I could ever make and the best thing for me to do for Ubisoft and for Splinter Cell fans was to hand it off and let someone else try to figure out how to make that game differently or better and bring a new vision and a new flavour to it.
"Maybe one day, five or even 10 years from now, it will be the right time and the right place for me to make another Splinter Cell game, but that time is not now."
In the five years since leaving Ubisoft Montreal, Hocking worked at LucasArts, Valve and, most recently, Amazon's new internal video game studio.
Writing on his personal blog, Hocking said his realisation that he hadn't shipped a game in seven years contributed to a change, and that led him back home to Canada.