Amy Hennig confirms EA departure

Amy Hennig is no longer at Electronic Arts. Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz and Eurogamer at Gamelab today, Hennig confirmed to Robert Purchese at our sister site that she stopped working with EA in January, a few months after the company closed the studio she'd been working at, Visceral Games, and shelved the Star Wars project she had been working on as creative director.

"I get along with all those people, I consider even the guys on the executive team friends, but it made it awkward because I never got a chance to announce that I'm not at EA," Hennig explained. "So I needed to pull off that band aid at some point, but it's weird because I have nothing to announce and it makes it sound like I just went home but I'm not. I'm working on all this stuff and I'm working on all kind of things.

"I've started my own little independent studio, I'm 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 then do smaller projects. I'm exploring a lot of VR stuff, and consulting with some VR companies, and just doing a tonne of research."

The move to a smaller studio is not entirely surprising. When asked in 2016 if she thought making AAA games was worth the lifestyle that so often goes along with it, Hennig said it wasn't.

"We have to get our act figured out as an industry, and the problem is that the ante keeps getting upped," she said at the time. "It's an arms race that is unwinnable and is destroying people."