There is understandably a good chance many of you are not aware of who Amy Hennig is. She is an industry veteran who is most known for her work as creative director on the Uncharted series. The PS3 Uncharted trilogy remains to this day one of the most commercially and critically successful franchises Playstation has had, largely due to the game’s excellent team behind it. As Creative Director, Amy Hennig was one of the main forces to keep the games moving in the direction they were. Now with a fourth entry already being teased and the team hard at work on it, I can only be puzzled as to why one of the big bosses has left before the game is even finished.
Since I’m in no position to speculate, I won’t go into whether or not she chose to leave or was forced. Nevertheless there is still something to take away from the situation. The very fact she has departed arguably one of the most talented teams in video game development after 10 years of service brings up alarms. We can only assume that there were some sort of creative differences and that they could not come to an agreement. In spite of this, development for the untitled Uncharted sequel moves on. I can’t help but wonder how Hennig’s departure will affect the project.
Amy Hennig
We don’t know who will be assuming the role of Creative Director but it will likely be either Neil Druckmann or Bruce Straley, the creative minds behind The Last of Us. If so, then their success in creating The Last of Us gives me total confidence that they will do an amazing job. Neil Druckmann is no stranger to Nathan Drake and Co., having worked on the first two games in the series. This experience provides a sense of familiarity and understanding of where the franchise is going. In addition, Bruce Straley is also a long time Naughty Dog employee having served as the Art Director and Game Director for the first and second games respectively.
Bruce Strahley and Neil Druckmannt
Uncharted 4 has been in development for some time now, despite no game footage shown there is no doubt the team has been toiling away for awhile. It’s not every day a big budget game to lose it’s Creative Director while a game is still in development. Nope, yet I don’t feel worried or concerned for the franchise. Naughty Dog is a large studio composed of two seperate teams. While one team was working on The Last of Us and its DLC the other was hard at work on the sequel to Uncharted 3, meaning a vision of the game has already been established with all the ground work being laid. No doubt there are many creative choices yet to be made, despite this I don’t feel concerned or worried for the untitled game. The crew at Naughty Dog are experienced professionals, I’m sure they now what they’re doing.