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Former Uncharted director Amy Hennig joins Skydance Media

Hennig will be working with Skydance Media to explore "new frontiers in interactive storytelling."

TJ Denzer

November 19, 2019 10:15 AM

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Skydance Media has been on the move in the gaming space recently. Though their efforts are largely confined to film media such as Terminator: Dark Fate and the upcoming Top Gun film, they have started to show interest in games as well, working on VR titles such as The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. Now it seems they’ve enlisted the aid of former Uncharted director and writer Amy Hennig to work on new interactive media projects.

Hennig and Skydance Media announced their collaboration on November 18, 2019. Reportedly, Hennig will be heading up a new interactive media division of the group to “explore new frontiers in interactive storytelling.”

"I've been in the game industry for 30 years now," Hennig said in the announcement. "I've seen so many different evolution and revolutions of creative content… But it’s been harder recently. To want to tell for the finite author crafted stories, it’s something that you see more in a linear medium like TV and film. To marry that with interactive, that’s what I’ve been doing in my career.”

Hennig is joined by former Electronic Arts executive producer Julian Beak at Skydance’s new story-driven game studio. The two worked together on a Star Wars game that would eventually and unfortunately be canceled. Hennig and Beak will base their new studio out of San Francisco with further support in Santa Monica, California where Skydance Media’s headquarters are located.

Even before the Star Wars project and Uncharted, Hennig had director and writer credits running the gamut of series like Jak and Daxter, Legacy of Kain, and a stint with Battlefield Hardline. On the flipside, Skydance has shown they’re willing to go all-in on quality. The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is shaping up to be an extremely promising dive into the TWD universe, bringing elements of horror and survival together in a ruined New Orleans set in the Walking Dead canon.

It will be interesting to see what comes of Hennig and Beak’s efforts with Skydance, but with a stellar track record behind them, the new studio sounds like it’s in good hands.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.