"It's good that people were hungry for content."
It wasn't just his suit drawing criticism - the game's cover art shows the hand of the pale-faced Min resting on the head of a dark-skinned soldier, leading to accusations of racism.
They were unjustified, explains Hutchinson, who tweeted at the time: "Just so it's clear for those jumping to conclusions: He's not white and that's not the player."
"It felt kneejerk to jump on things so quickly based on a single picture," Hutchinson says. "Luckily for us, all their assumptions were wrong."
So far, the villains have stolen the show in the Far Cry series, so fans will be hoping Min - the Hong Kong-born son of a low-level drug boss - can rival Far Cry 3's excellent duo: slave trader Hoyt Volker and his psychopathic sidekick Vaas Montenegro.
Playing as Ajay Ghale, gamers are tasked with bringing down Min, the brutal leader of the fictional Himalayan country of Kyrat. Ghale gets caught up in the region's civil war when his bus is brutally hijacked and he's kidnapped by a blood-stained Min, all to the soundtrack of the Clash's Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
When Hutchinson says they tried to include plenty of "black humour," he's talking about moments like that.
"I wanted to make a black comedy, almost a Bollywood version of a shooter: bright, loud, brash and a bit funny, with almost a musical flavour to it."
The setting - the mountainous ranges, lush foliage and teeming lakes and rivers of Himalaya - was chosen because it felt like "a holiday destination". "We wanted somewhere exotic and colourful and fresh. It's about the same size in terms of land mass as Far Cry 3, but it's far more dense, so there's more ambient life, more explorable locations, more animals, more things going on around you."
The addition of mountains and clifftops meant developers could introduce new weapons and gadgets too, including grapples, wingsuits, hovercrafts, crossbows and gyrocopters.
Gamers will also find elephants useful, and getting to grips with riding them is key to busting through gates, riding through lakes and, if required, charging enemy soldiers.
Hutchinson says Far Cry 3 players will notice "new content at every corner" and he advises gamers to explore every inch of Far Cry 4's 19sq km map to discover all the hidden activities, mini-missions and bonus content they've included in the game.
To do so, he warns, could take gamers up to 30 hours, and decisions players make during that time will affect the outcome, with the possibility of five different endings.
That's to give gamers more ownership of the story, and Hutchinson says even side missions are tied back to the main story.
Hutchinson: "We tried to link everything together. One side mission is about destroying Min's propaganda. The guy giving it to you is a rebel DJ on the radio. As you clear out the map of propaganda, you get into vehicles and hear him ranting away at the radio.
"There's lots of crossover between the narrative and the side content and the ambient life. We tried to make it feel like a real place as much as possible."
Hutchinson hopes the controversy over Pagan Min doesn't detract from what Far Cry 4 achieves.
"I feel like we hit the right balance between satisfying those people who like the franchise as well as including plenty of new stuff to hopefully bring in new people as well. I think we got there."
What: Far Cry 4
Release date: November 18
Platforms: PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC
- TimeOut
