Following her departure from Naughty Dog, where she recently celebrated her 10th anniversary at the studio, Amy Hennig joins Visceral Games as the creative director on their upcoming Star Wars project.
“It’s a privilege to have the opportunity to contribute to the Star Wars universe, after it’s had such a formative influence on my life.” Hennig said on Twitter following the announcement, “I vividly remember sitting in a theater with my buddy Matthew Rockloff in 1976, seeing the Star Wars trailer for the first time and feeling like the universe clicked into place for me in that moment.”
Hennig began her career as an artist at Electronic Arts before moving on to Crystal Dynamics as a director of Soul Reaver series. She later joined Naughty Dog, contributing to Jak and Daxter series before working as writer and creative director on the Uncharted series.
Visceral Games is one of the three named studios developing new Star Wars games from last year’s exclusivity deal between EA and Disney. According to the deal, EA has exclusive rights to publish new Star Wars games for the next 10 years. The other two studios currently in development of future Star Wars games are DICE, who is working on Battlefront, and BioWare.
It’s currently unknown exactly what project Visceral is working on, as well as when in the Star Wars universe it takes place. Speculation led to believe Visceral might have picked up Star Wars 1313 and continued work on it, and Hennig joining the studio certainly adds weight to that idea (During previews, Star Wars 1313 looked to undoubtedly take inspiration from the Uncharted series with the way it looked and played). But Star Wars 1313 was a collaborative effort between LucasArts and Lucasfilm, and with LucasArts gone, and Lucasfilm working on production of Episode VII, Star Wars 1313 is assuredly cancelled and gone completely.
Regarding her return to EA, Hennig said on Twitter, “I began my career at EA almost a quarter century ago (I have the 1991 Rising Star award from Trip Hawkins to prove it). It might’ve taken me 23 years, but I’m back – and it’s good to be home at EA.”
Steve Papoutsis, vice president and general manager of Visceral Games, said, “Over the last few weeks, Amy and I have spent a lot of time talking about what her first project would be. There are a lot of different directions we could have gone, but I could sense that what really excited her about this opportunity […] was Star Wars. Amy’s a huge fan. We happen to be making a Star Wars game. Just thinking about the possibilities made both of us even more excited about having her join the team.
SOURCE Electronic Arts
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