Uncharted writer departs Naughty Dog

Uncharted PS4 development will march on despite the loss of the creative director and writer Amy Hennig, who some say was “pushed out” of the company.

Well… just about a day after I was talking with a few people about how excited I was for the next game in the series and here we are with Amy Hennig taking her leave from Naughty Dog and the developer’s owner Sony. Just why she left is something of a mystery, but sources have told gaming website IGN that it wasn’t voluntary.

Getting deeper into the intrigue that broke out today; IGN says that Last of Us’ Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley actually forced Hennig out of Naughty Dog and will be taking over the exploits of Nathan Drake and friends themselves for the next game in the series, which’ll be appearing on the PlayStation 4. If that’s true, that’s a potentially explosive development that could leave a lot of fans cold. I know it does me.

I’ve been hooked on the Uncharted games since I played through the Vita installment and subsequently played the PS3 editions in rapid fire fashion. More than half of why they’re good though has to do with the characters that they feature and the direction and writing behind them. Lets face it, without the historically-influenced quests that they went on and a Drake and Sully that were written as well as they were, the Uncharted games were kind of just average action/adventure titles.

Where these developments will take the series, now under the control of Druckmann and Straley, is anyone’s guess. With development presumably well underway on Uncharted 4 though, there’s a good chance that much of Hennig’s influence will still be there for the next game; it’s down the line that I’m worried about.

As for the writer herself, there’s no word yet on where she might end up, but we’ll keep you posted as always.

Source: IGN