Amy Hennig

Amy Hennig (born August 19, 1964) is an American video game designer, writer, and director. She is best known as the creator of the Uncharted series. She currently serves as studio creative director for Paramount Games Studio.

Life Hennig graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in English literature. Most of her early jobs involved games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, where she was primarily employed as an artist and animator. Her first job was as a freelance artist for Electrocop, an unreleased Atari 7800 game, based on the Atari Lynx launch title.

Two years after being hired at Electronic Arts, Hennig worked as an artist on Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City. She also directed and wrote Soul Reaver 2 and Legacy of Kain: Defiance.

Hennig departed Crystal Dynamics to act as the creative director for Naughty Dog. She contributed to the Jak and Daxter series before working as the game director for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and as head writer and creative director for the Uncharted series. With Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Hennig led the 150-person team who created the game, as well as acting as writer. After directing and writing Uncharted 3 and beginning work on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End for the PlayStation 4, Hennig left Naughty Dog in 2014.

In April 2014, Hennig joined Visceral Games with Todd Stashwick to work on Project Ragtag, a Star Wars game. It was reported in October 2017, that EA was shutting down Visceral Games and that their Star Wars project was delayed and moved to another studio to allow for "significant change". A representative of EA told Polygon that EA are "in discussions with Amy about her next move". Hennig announced the following June that she had left EA in January and started a small studio to explore options involving virtual reality games.

In November 2019, Hennig announced she had joined Skydance Media to start a new division there, Skydance New Media, for "new story-focused experiences [that] will employ state-of-the-art computer graphics to provide the visual fidelity of television and film, but with an active, lean-in experience that puts the audience in the driver's seat". Stashwick said in May 2021 that he was working with Hennig on an action-adventure game; in September, this was revealed to be Forspoken. Hennig and Stashwick are part of the writing team alongside Gary Whitta and Allison Rymer.

In October 2021, Skydance New Media later announced that it was working with Marvel Entertainment to produce a new action-adventure game that will take place in the Marvel Universe. In September 2022, it was revealed that it was an untitled Captain America and Black Panther game. In March 2024, the game's name was revealed as Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra.

In April 2022, Skydance New Media and Lucasfilm Games announced they are working on a narrative-driven, action-adventure game "featuring an original story in the Star Wars galaxy", with Hennig at the helm.

In June 2026, Paramount Skydance announced that Paramount Games Studio was a new publisher and developer resulted from the merger between Skydance New Media, Skydance Interactive and Paramount Game Studios, with Amy Hennig acting as creative director for the studio.

Style Hennig believes the term "platformer" is outdated and misused with many modern games, preferring a different term like "traversal" for some. In 2007 she said that video game developers were too obsessed with graphical realism. She predicted that as game technology improves, developers would explore using graphics for creative expression instead of realism.

She often uses supporting characters to highlight personality aspects of other characters through interactions within the script. For example, Chloe Frazer acts as a foil for Nathan Drake, highlighting the darker aspects of his personality and past. With her work in the Uncharted series, Hennig described the writing and plot as on the "bleeding edge" of the genre of cinematic video games. Hennig herself says that she has not encountered sexism in the industry, but that differing perspective from men in the industry has helped on some occasions. She received the Lifetime Achievement award at the Game Developers Choice Awards in March 2019.

Works Name Year Credited with Publisher Electrocop 1989 Artist Atari Corporation The Bard's Tale IV Canceled Electronic Arts Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf 1992 Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City 1994 Designer, artist 3D Baseball 1996 Artist Crystal Dynamics Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain 1996 Design manager Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1999 Director, producer, writer Sony Computer Entertainment Uncharted: Drake's Fortune 2007 Creative director, writer Uncharted 2: Among Thieves 2009 Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception 2011 Uncharted: Golden Abyss 2011 Story consultant Battlefield Hardline 2015 Writer Electronic ArtsForspoken 2023 Story concept Paramount Games Studio