Update: It has been revealed that Clint Hocking, whose notable works include Far Cry 2 and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, has returned to Ubisoft after five years away. He is now a creative director at Ubisoft Toronto. The original story can be found below.
Amazon Game Studios has lost three of its highest-profile employees, all gaming industry veterans. Clint Hocking, Eric Nylund, and Jonathan Hamel have all left the company.
Hocking joined the company alongside Kim Swift—the famed designer of Portal. He had spent a decade at Ubisoft, working on hits such as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Far Cry 2. He had then worked at Valve and LucasArts on unannounced projects before joining Amazon Game Studios. Hocking was working at Amazon’s gaming division as a senior game designer for an unspecified project.
Nylund was working as the narrative director at Amazon. He was meant to lead the “effort to create and manage the story of multiple game titles, create new intellectual properties, and develop connected media strategies for proprietary platfroms.”
Hamel had also joined Amazon Game Studios in 2014 after having spent more than five years at Crystal Dynamics, of Tomb Raider fame.
Is this a bad omen for Amazon’s gaming division? Or is the normal ebb and flow of game development? Let us know in the comments and keep checking back with Gamespresso.