Alex Hutchinson, director on Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed 3, says the games industry needs to adopt a more pragmatic approach to reuse in order to cut what he described as "pointless work" and free up resources for genuinely new content. Speaking to Rock Paper Shotgun, Hutchinson argued that studios should learn from recent successes such as FromSoftware's Elden Ring and RGG Studio's Like a Dragon series.

Hutchinson pointed to the way both studios lean on familiar territory and repeated design elements to maximise creative return. Like a Dragon's recurring Kamurocho districts and Elden Ring's skilful permutation of shared assets demonstrate how revisiting and reworking existing material can yield larger, richer worlds without proportionally larger budgets or longer schedules.

Sponsored
"We don't reuse enough," Hutchinson said, adding that excessive reinvention often translates into wasted hours and diminishing returns. "There is a lot of pointless work that could be avoided by being more deliberate about reuse and modular design."

He recommended modular asset creation and smarter pipeline choices so teams can spend less time rebuilding commonly used pieces and more time polishing systems, narrative beats and player-facing features. Hutchinson framed reuse not as laziness but as a strategic tool to prioritise development effort and reduce unnecessary repetition across projects.

Commentary from Hutchinson follows a broader discussion within the industry about balancing originality with practicality. Advocates of reuse highlight benefits including faster iteration, lower cost, reduced crunch and the ability to direct saved resources towards new mechanics, bigger set-pieces or improved live-service support. Critics warn that excessive reuse risks homogenisation if not handled thoughtfully.

Hutchinson's perspective reflects a shift in how successful AAA titles are built: reuse and variation can be combined to create the impression of scale while preserving the capacity to innovate where it matters most. The full interview appears on Rock Paper Shotgun's website.

Source: Rock Paper Shotgun — Read the original interview.