Naughty Dog comment on Hennig's departure

Earlier this week we reported that longtime writer and creative director on the Uncharted series Amy Hennig had left Naughty Dog in the middle of Uncharted 4 development. IGN first broke the story and referred to confidential sources claiming Hennig was "forced out" by The Last of Us creative duo Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley. Naughty Dog co-presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra now felt it necessary to set the record straight.

The full statement reads as follows:

"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."

As is often the case with these kind of stories there is more than one "truth" around, people fairly close to the situation can get the wrong impression of the sequence of events and the nature of anonymous sources makes it hard to really weigh in on how credible the original report was. If there was some sort of conflict at Naughty Dog, it's likely one that none of the involved parties has any interest in airing publicly.