The idea of being a Hollywood stunt driver has always had a certain appeal. While the average racing game asks players to cross the finish line first, the Stuntman series has always been more interested in what happens between the starting line and the end credits. After almost two decades away, Saber Interactive is bringing the franchise back with Stuntman: Hollywood, putting players behind the wheel for a collection of spectacular movie sequences. After getting some hands-on time with the game at Gamescom, it already looks like the return could offer a very different kind of arcade driving experience.
What we know
Stuntman: Hollywood is an arcade-focused driving game in which players take on the role of a professional stunt performer working on major movie productions. Rather than simply racing around a circuit, each level presents a carefully choreographed sequence of objectives that have to be completed while driving at speed. Players may need to drift around corners, squeeze past other vehicles, smash through obstacles, hit ramps, perform jumps, avoid hazards or make particularly close passes, all while responding to instructions from the director. The goal is not merely to survive the sequence, but to execute the individual stunts accurately enough to produce a convincing take.
The game draws heavily on licensed properties from Universal Pictures and NBCUniversal, bringing recognizable vehicles and settings from franchises such as Fast & Furious, Back to the Future, Knight Rider, Miami Vice and Death Race into the Stuntman formula. Vehicles include famous machines such as K.I.T.T. and the DeLorean Time Machine alongside more conventional sports cars, muscle cars and motorcycles. The levels are designed around these different vehicles and movie worlds, with progression expected to introduce increasingly elaborate stunt sequences and new challenges. There will also be original material rather than every sequence being tied to an existing film or television property.
Performance is measured by how accurately each stunt is executed, with better runs earning higher scores and encouraging players to return to previous levels in pursuit of a more polished take. This structure gives the short stunt sequences a replay-focused design, with mastery coming from learning the sequence and gradually improving execution. Saber has not yet announced a release date for Stuntman: Hollywood, although the game is planned for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
What we saw
Our preview is based on a demo build of Stuntman: Hollywood that we played during Gamescom after meeting with Saber Interactive. The demo featured several levels drawn from different licensed properties, including a Jurassic World-themed sequence. This gave us a chance to experience the game’s core driving and stunt mechanics across multiple environments and vehicles, while also seeing how Saber is using recognizable movie settings to give each sequence its own identity.
What we thought
The basic premise remains one of the strongest things about Stuntman: Hollywood. There is something inherently entertaining about being told exactly what needs to happen during an action scene and then trying to execute those instructions while everything around the vehicle is falling apart. The director effectively turns each level into a sequence of rapid-fire commands: drift here, get close to that vehicle, hit the ramp, avoid this obstacle and make sure the landing is clean. On a first attempt, this can be surprisingly hectic, but there is a satisfying rhythm to gradually understanding what a level expects. It sits somewhere between an arcade driving game and a reaction-based challenge, although the emphasis is firmly on precision rather than simply reaching the destination as quickly as possible.
That precision is also where much of the replay value comes from. Completing a stunt is one thing; executing it perfectly while maintaining the correct speed and hitting every subsequent instruction is another. The demo suggested that Stuntman: Hollywood is considerably more forgiving than the earlier games, which should make the experience less frustrating without removing the challenge entirely. The controls felt responsive during the demo, and when a stunt went wrong, it generally felt like the result of mistiming or failing to react rather than the game arbitrarily working against the player. The arcade-style handling also makes drifting and throwing a vehicle around corners immediately enjoyable. At the same time, the fixed nature of the sequences could become a limitation over a longer campaign. Once the pattern of a level has been memorised, the challenge naturally shifts from figuring out what to do to executing it perfectly, so the variety and difficulty of the later stages will be important.
The licensed material could give that repetition an additional reason to keep playing. The Jurassic World sequence was particularly effective because it combined the stunt-driving mechanics with a setting that is immediately recognizable, with dinosaurs and environmental chaos creating a much more memorable backdrop than a generic racing circuit. The visual presentation is clean and suitably cinematic, with collapsing structures, explosions, traffic and other set pieces filling the screen without overwhelming the driving itself. The Jurassic World level also stood out sonically, using licensed music from the films during the sequence. That is a small detail, but it adds considerably to the feeling of actually participating in a movie production. If Saber is able to give other licensed properties the same attention to their music and sound design, sequences featuring K.I.T.T. or the DeLorean could become particularly enjoyable fan-service moments. The prospect of iconic Back to the Future sound effects and, ideally, music from the films would fit this approach extremely well.
There are still some questions that the demo could not answer. The short levels are inherently replayable, but whether that remains compelling across a full game will depend on how much variation Saber can introduce in the vehicles, objectives, environments and difficulty. The ability to improve a mediocre take into a near-perfect one is already satisfying, but the formula could become predictable if too many stages simply repeat the same sequence of instructions with different scenery. The inclusion of different types of vehicles, licensed properties and original scenarios should help, while the more forgiving approach makes the game much easier to appreciate than a system that demands perfection from the outset. For now, though, Stuntman: Hollywood has captured the most appealing part of the original concept: the feeling of being handed a ridiculous action scene and being given one job – make it look spectacular. If Saber can maintain that sense of variety throughout the full game, this comeback could be worth watching.