After EA shuttered Visceral Studios, who where working on a new, linear, single-player Star Wars videogame, Amy Hennig's situation never was cleared up by the publisher. Doubts remained on whether the developer, best known for her work at Naughty Dog with the Uncharted series, was still attached, in any capacity, to the newly-pivoted development of the aforementioned Star Wars videogame in EA Vancouver. Now, at the Gamelab conference in Barcelone, the air has been cleared: Amy Hennig has confirmed she hasn't been working with EA since January of this year. And the linear, single-player experience she was developing has been shelved by EA.

Hennig says that she is staying independent, now, and is in the process of setting up her own indie studio - and is likely taking a VR spin with her next creations. We wish her all the best, and hope that the indie liberty gives her enough room - and funds - to develop that dying breed of videogames that is the solo kind. Meanwhile, Henig's also confirmed that EA Vancouver's pivoting of the Star Wars videogame is reworking it into a - can you guess? - open world approach that is barely recognizable from her own work - so it does seem a game in the likes of Destiny and Anthem will be the end product.

The death knell is sounding in Visceral Games (creators of the Dead Space series), courtesy of EA. The publishing company has shuttered another one of its studios, and is looking to move employees from Visceral to what others remain. Apparently, the Star Wars game, which had a tentative release date for 2019, was shaping up as a "story-based, linear adventure game": not that much of a surprise, considering it was being helmed by Uncharted series veteran Amy Hennig. A development team from across EA Worldwide Studios will take over development, led by a team from EA Vancouver that was already working on the project.

Apparently, EA wasn't much enjoying the way the game was developing; usually, linear, story-based games don't lend themselves much for microtransactions or loot boxes, now do they? Citing "shifts in the marketplace", EA says that "It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design," so that it "allows for more variety and player agency." All in all, this sounds much like Destiny, or upcoming Bioware game Anthem. But it will also certainly lend itself better to further monetization, considering how it's one of the industry's most important sources of revenue.