Amy Hennig Leaves EA to Found Indie Studio, Her Star Wars Game is “On the Shelf”

We’ve learned (via Eurogamer) that former Uncharted lead developer Amy Hennig has departed Electronic Arts, only to start her own indie studio.

The veteran developer had been working on a Star Wars game for Electronic Arts, which she now reveals has been quietly shelved – news confirmed at this year’s Gamelab conference in Barcelona. She was naturally asked if she was still involved with the project as creative director.


“I’m not, I have not worked at EA since January, technically, legally. Yes. This is the problem, it was hard enough for them, but people were immediately asking them ‘is Amy working with you?’ and the answer was ‘well, we’re in negotiations…’ like, hmm. It was, sort of the soft pedal answer.”

The game, codenamed “Ragtag,” had reportedly been too linear for EA, with development being pivoted to EA Vancouver.

“I haven’t been in, but look – I get along with all those people, I consider even the guys on the exec team friends,” Hennig said. “But it made it awkward because it was like, ‘I never got the chance to announce that I’m not at EA so I need to just pull off that band-aid at some point – but also had nothing to announce. It makes it sound like I just went home! But I’m doing all this stuff, working on all kinds of things.”

Hennig went further into what she’s been up to since departing EA:

“I’m working independently and staying independent. I just started my own small little independent studio and am consulting with some people. I’m hoping to bring some people on board, I would love to have a little company of about six to eight people, 15 at the most, and do some more projects, do some VR stuff – I’m consulting with some VR companies and doing a ton of research because I haven’t played a lot to immerse myself in it,” she said.

When asked for a real status to the Star Wars game she worked on at EA, she replied:

“So yeah, I’m not doing anything Star Wars. And, who knows what the future may hold, but that project is on the shelf now. The Vancouver studio is working on something pretty different. It’s really not… Y’know, once you go more open world it’s such a different game to the one we were making. Everybody loved what we were doing and I’d love to see us resurrect that somehow, but it’s complicated.”

Regardless of what her next title is — we’re excited to see more from Amy Hennig. What kind of game would you like to see from Hennig and her new team? Sound off in the comments below!

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