Amy Hennig Is Headed to Visceral Games

Maybe we'll finally get a modern Star Wars game with some worthwhile CHARACTERS out of all this!

Eh, I think battlefront is the only Star Wars game that seems to be well into its development. I think the Visceral game was still in its conception phase. I think they were trying to develop game mechanics. I don't think much had been established in terms of story.

I'd like to see Giant Bomb have Amy Henning on the Giant Bombcast. :)

All of a sudden Visceral Games is no longer a peripheral developer.

I certainly wish her the best of luck and can't wait to see what she works on next.

Interesting.

Fuck yeah!

@the_nubster said:

I'm with you on this one. The possibilities are endless, and falling back on oldies but goldies would kind of ruin it again. I do have belief in Hennig though, so I don't think that's where they are heading with this.

Or at least on Bombin' The Am!

oh my fucking god you guys

It might happen.

Someone could make an awesome Star Wars game again.

That's wrong.

She is a game director, which in her career has meant equal parts director, designer, writer and planner, and if she's on the game it's more than likely she's driving the vision.

Either way you're right, plenty of other factors could fuck it up, but Amy doesn't just write scripts.

This seems like good news all around.

I hope EA gives her the freedom she needs! Amy Hennig working on a Star Wars game is extremely exciting.

Ok this could be awesome.

Well this story sure turned out okay.

Hhhhhmmmmm... nice , I would prefer an new IP but given the circumstances this is great as well.

@geraltitude: If she's coming on board after development already started, it's doubtful she's running it. She might have a prominent supporting role, but unless there were some big shifts in the dev structure after she joined, she is not behind the wheel.

She is creative Director. She will have to say a lot about this. What Visceral needed was such a person.

Dante's Inferno 2: Dante's Purgatory, I'm waiting for you!

Nah I disagree, if you're Amy you don't leave Naught Dog twiddle your thumbs. Probably Visceral needed a director to come in and pull it together, reorient the ship as it were, hence her jumping on board - plus from what I understand they are very early still... Timing makes sense considering 2015 is year 1 for most of this Star Wars stuff, and her role in the press release is Creative Director.

Sure some things have already been decided along the lines of "it's a third person Star Wars action adventure game" and maybe even the time it happens but you don't hire one of the most famous and accomplished Creative Directors in videogames to not creatively direct your game.

this is good this is good this is good this is good this is good this is good this is good this is good this is good this is good

So someone IS making 1313!

So, how does the Iron Sheik feel about all this?

I had my doubts on EA taking star wars, but who gives a shit, this is fantastic.

@geraltitude: But how long has the game Breen in development? 2015 is next year, after all. Was the game such a clusterfuck up to this point that they needed a new creative director? Did the project just not have one until now?

Drake in space !

I'm now not excited at all, can't stand any of the uncharted games but I have a few friends who work for visceral. Hopefully she doesnt rub off on them.

There's so much we don't know about this to be fair.. I don't think it needs to be a clusterfuck though.

EA only got the Star Wars license in May of 2013. So it hasn't even been one year of development if we assume they started the very next day.

As I remember you're a QA dude so I don't need to tell you 1 year is not a long time for a massive ass big budget, AAA Star Wars game.

I'm sure they've been concepting and cranking out 3D assets (buildings, ships, who knows) and - mostly - tuning Frostbite for the game. Like I said if they knew it was going to be a 3rd person shooter they'd have tons to work on with or without a creative director.

Considering the dates I feel it makes a lot of sense they were still early enough for a new Creative Director to come on board. I think of course it will be a little messy - it always is coming into a project that's already begun - but nothing to be concerned about.

Glad to see she landed alright. Too bad she's not at Naughty Dog anymore. I'm more interested in this game now. She seems to really know how to put the cinematic into games, which could be a perfect match for Star Wars.

A star Wars game with someone behind it that can WRITE A STORY? I'm gobsmacked...what a good idea.

@humanity said:

I really like the way you put that.. Alright I'm excited.

Then again.. this is a story based on enormous lore. Do you think she has a good chance of writing a Star Wars story that won't put off the fans?

:D

Wow, a Star Wars game from Dead Space creators; the lead writer and creative director from some of the best adventure games ever produced... the opportunity is there for greatness! MAKE IT HAPPEN!

EA's first Star Wars game will probably fall in November 2015 given they'll want to use Episode 7 as co-marketing. So if this is that game then there is still a ton of time for Amy Hennig to help creatively on the project.

Very cool and I'm interested in what her input towards the Star Wars brand will be now that she'll be the creative director for this game.

Those books by Timothy Zahn about Admiral Thrawn (yes I read some Star Wars books!) were actually pretty good for the most part - showing that a decent writer can make something out of that universe I guess.

Iron Sheik's Twitter had the most relevant comments:

@the_ironsheik: "The Amy Hennig never be Mr Perfect Curt Hennig I love him and miss him forever"

Sounds a lot like what Star Wars 1313 was supposed to be.

Talk about landing on your feet, good job!

After Dead Space 3 and Uncharted 3 I will wait and see what happens because I didn't think either of those games were very good.

Even though there wasn't a doubt in my mind that she would land herself a sweet job somewhere, this is nonetheless pretty impressive. Good for her.

I am very excited to hear this. She could bring some Uncharted magic to a Star Wars game. Hmm, anyone remember Star Wars 1313?

Man in about two years or so the world is going to be so packed with Star Wars. Someone should make a thread of all they upcoming star wars games. Personally I'm really excited for Battlefront 3. Hopefully EA doesn't force it out in time for the movies or something dumb as fuck like that. They can't have another Battlefield 4. But since the first new Star Wars movie comes out in the holiday season of 2015 that seams like something EA would do.

This is a great fit, I am excited to see what she does with Star Wars.

If Visceral games and Amy can find a way to make me care about story in Star Wars again I will be the first in line on the day of release.

yep exactly what I was going to post...

Welp! This is incredible news! Congrats!!

Guys, this is exactly why I switched to Giantbomb from Gamespot.. there was an article about Amy on GS awhile back and 85% of the comments were dogging her out either because she was female or because she had "no talent" which is ridiculous. It's nice to see gamers that appreciate somebody that makes playing our games so much better.

@aaron_g: Yeah man I was really bummed out when they scrapped that.