Yesterday, news about writer and director Amy Hennig leaving Naughty Dog was made public; Amy has served as writer and director for all the Uncharted games. On top of this, for her work on Uncharted 2: Among Thieves she won a Writers Guild of America award for Best Videogame writing and a BAFTA for Best Audio. It is actually quite shocking that she would leave now, because Naughty Dog is in the middle of developing the new Uncharted for the Playstation 4; supposedly, she was writing and directing the new game until her departure.
On top of this, her departure from Naughty Dog was rumored to be an unhappy one; sources claim that she was ‘pushed out’ by Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley: the writer and director team of The Last of Us. As of now they have taken over Amy’s duties and creative control for the new Uncharted game.
While Amy Hennig is not a household name, she helped make the games that made me a gamer. The Uncharted series is my favorite trilogy of all time; if these rumors are true, it troubles me that Naughty Dog would force her out like this, because she brought one of the coolest characters since Indiana Jones to life. Yes, Druckmann and Straley did a wonderful job with The Last of Us, but that was a very dark script. The bleakness would not translate well to the Uncharted series, which has a light and charming tone; for now, let’s hope for the best and patiently wait to see what happens with the next game.
Lastly, IGN reached out to Naughty Dog for a comment and the developer responded:”We can confirm that Amy Hennig has left Naughty Dog. Amy has made significant contributions to the game industry and we appreciate all she has done for Naughty Dog. The development timeline of Uncharted will not be impacted.”
Source: IGN