Amy Hennig Returns For New Star Wars Game, Leaker Claims It Could Be Adapted From A Previously Cancelled EA Title
Amy Hennig is once again involved with Star Wars, on a new video game that is allegedly a reboot of a cancelled game by EA.
Skydance New Media announced they were working with Lucasfilm Games via the official Star Wars website “to develop and produce a narrative-driven, action-adventure game featuring an original story in the Star Wars galaxy.”
At the head of the project will be Amy Hennig. Hennig is the director and writer on several Legacy of Kain titles including Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Legacy of Kain: Defiance. She was also the creative director and writer for the Uncharted series including Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and Uncharted 3: Drake Deception. Hennig is also the writer on the upcoming Forspoken game.
Hennig is also President of Skydance New Media, formed in 2019 as a video game and streaming focused subsidiary of Skydance Media. They are also working on a new Marvel game as of October 2021.
“I’ve often described how seeing Star Wars in 1977 essentially rewired my 12-year-old brain,” Hennig stated, “shaping my creative life and future indelibly. I’m elated to be working with Lucasfilm Games again to tell interactive stories in this galaxy that I love.”
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to be working again with Amy,” Lucasfilm Games Vice President Douglas Reilly added. “She and the Skydance New Media team have the talent and ambition to create a unique Star Wars adventure. Their vision for making narrative driven and engaging interactive entertainment makes this collaboration very exciting.”
“We’re working hard with their team of experienced and talented developers,” Reilly concluded, “and we’re looking forward to sharing more with Star Wars fans when the time is right.”
While other details about this new Star Wars game haven’t been officially announced, leaker @accngt (via DualShockers) has claimed the project is a revival of a cancelled EA and Visceral Games’ narrative-driven, action-adventure Star Wars game that Hennig was also involved with.
Allegedly, the new Star Wars game — dubbed “Project Walton” and a revival of the canceled Project Ragtag — will be set during the original trilogy, also known as the Classic or Rebel Alliance era.
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Making Star Wars reports — based on the game’s pitch, scripts, and concept art they obtained —Star Wars Ragtag was set before The Empire Strikes Back, and inspired by the aftermath of A New Hope.
The Empire would aim for greater control of the galaxy, especially the Outer Rim territories where the rebel attack came from. This in turn would hinder the work of “scoundrels” — the rogues, thieves, smugglers, and profiteers of the Star Wars universe who either aided the rebels, or remained neutral or self-serving.
As different crime families thrived and struggled amid the Empire’s increased attention, the Rang Clan from Coruscant worked with them, helping expand their influence to Tatooine.
Meanwhile underboss Korzan Sable, possibly out of desperation to climb the ranks, goes rogue and risks a turf war with Jabba the Hutt.
The story featured Dodger Boon — survivor of Alderaan — heading to Tatooine with partner Robie Mattox in tow. Mattox was the co-protagonist raised by the Wandering Star crime family, droid-phobic, and potential sequel protagonist.
Needing the money to buy a new identity to avoid scrutiny from the Empire, Dodger was tasked by Jabba to kidnap Sable’s daughter, Oona. Not only would this push Korzan off Tatooine, but Oona could be used to seize Korxan’s Imperial contracts from the Rangs for Jabba.
While the initial kidnapping from an Imperial mansion goes off without a hitch, Dodger witnesses the Empire use a new experimental petrifying gas weapon on his adoptive home.
Despite initially blaming the rebels for putting Alderaan in harms way and trying to remain neutral, Dodger charges head-first into stopping the Empire’s new weapon. This meant kidnapping Oona back from Jabba to use her status to get onto an illicit pleasure station and further adventures.
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Armed with a variety of guns and a light-whip, players would have plenty of firepower and gadgets to take on gangs and Stormtroopers, with light puzzle solving and unique ways to tackle foes.
Other characters would have included field medic droid Doc, alien mechanic Lunak, elderly thief Buck Freeborn who took orphans under his wing, and scoundrel and friend of Dodger’s Wil Nightstar. The latter may even have been related to Luke Skywalker’s childhood friend Biggs Darklighter in some iterations.
Another ally of Dodger’s would have been Zanni, a force-sensitive crook who never had Jedi Order training. His con-artistry and petty thievery was despised by Dodger, but ultimately Dodger needed his help, and in turn Zanni found a greater purpose.
Dodger also received support from singer and Baldamiro underboss Ananda Sirena as well as Major General Pilaf, who was a Clone War officer marooned at an old colonial plantation. Pilaf was accompanied by a reprogrammed droid named I-ZK (Issac).
All of the above details should be taken with a grain of salt, as ultimately that game never materialized. Developer Visceral Games was shut down in October 2017, with the project cancelled in 2019.
The decision came at a time when EA had proposed there wasn’t as much demand for single-player games as there used to be, instead crashing headlong into monetization and lootboxes with Star Wars Battlefront II, arguably kick-starting numerous world governments’ discussions of regulating them.
“The assertion that single-player linear games are going to disappear is totally absurd,” former Visceral Games developer Zach Wilson told GamesIndustry.biz, “EA might not be the company that carries that torch, but there are so many groups out there that are passionate about this kind of game that they won’t go away.”
“Personally I’d like to see fewer games with higher quality across the board, which is probably what will happen.”
Could Amy Hennig’s new Star Wars game under Skydance New Media be one of those games? Will this be a Ragtag revival?
Let us know what you think on social media and in the comments below.
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