Following a number of damaging allegations that emerged yesterday, developer Naughty Dog has taken to its website to offer clarity on the situation surrounding the departure of Creative Director Amy Hennig earlier this week.
In a statement released on Naughty Dog’s website, Co-Presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra have stressed that allegations that two employees, Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley, had a hand in "forcing out" Amy Hennig are wholly unfounded and completely untrue.
Naughty Dog ends the statement by reiterating the necessity to put the debacle to bed and get back to focusing on video game development.
Two days ago Sony did attempt to offer some clarification on the issue by saying, "We can confirm that Amy Hennig has left Naughty Dog. Amy has made significant contributions to the game industry and we appreciate all she has done for Naughty Dog. The development timeline of Uncharted will not be impacted."
You can check out the entire transcript of Naughty Dog’s statement below.
‘’Earlier this week we had to confirm the regrettable news that Amy Hennig has left Naughty Dog. She will be missed and, as we stated before, we appreciate the significant contributions that she has made to Naughty Dog and the industry in general. We wish her the best.
However, we feel it necessary to clear up a very important point that was unprofessionally misreported when the story broke. Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann were NOT involved in what transpired. It was very upsetting to us that dozens of stories were run, linking back to the same hurtful accusations in the original report. As co-presidents of Naughty Dog, we are responsible for all studio affairs.
Normally, we wouldn’t respond to rumors and speculation on matters that are internal to Naughty Dog, but because the personal reputation of two of our employees is being damaged we needed to set the record straight. There is nothing left to be said on this subject. Now we’re going back to what we should be focused on – making games.’’
Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra.
Naughty Dog is currently developing the next iteration in the smash-hit PlayStation series, Uncharted. As ever, give us your views below.