Uncharted 4 may have been a well-received game but it wasn’t without its developmental hiccups. Or at least, that was how it was perceived when Amy Hennig suddenly left Naughty Dog in March 2014. While sources at the time had allegedly stated that it was some sort of a hostile takeover, ex-IGN editor and current EA Motive writer Mitch Dyer is claiming that old IGN management had forced those fabricated allegations into the story.
Dyer tweeted this out in a long thread on Tuesday. In it, he alleges that Tal Blevins and Steve Butts, former higher ups at IGN, “forced gossip into the story” and “heard it was a hostile takeover.” Dyer didn’t want to publish the unsubstantiated hearsay but his bosses wanted to “protect their relationship with Sony.” The story went up (and is still up in the same form today) with the following line:
“Sources claim Hennig was “forced out” by The Last of Us’ Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley, and explained that Uncharted may now come under their control.”
ALSO: Pokemon Let’s Go Johto trends as fans hope for Nintendo Switch sequel
Despite the team refuting the claim when it came out, it also didn’t hold much weight when back in 2014. While not the ultimate litmus test, Hennig has since congratulated Druckmann and the team a few times and also stuck up for him when he was attacked by a random online user using bigoted language.
Dyer then went on to speak about how those same editors published an off-base rumor stating that The Last Guardian had been canceled. Butts later issued an apology as Sony quickly debunked the false story. While it was repeatedly delayed, the game ended up releasing in December 2016 on the PS4.
This comes as part of a whirlwind of tweets accusing those same IGN bosses of misconduct and abuse over the years. Multiple former and current IGN staff members have also shared how those same bosses abused their powers or were otherwise toxic. Butts was fired in 2018 for alleged misconduct and Blevins left in 2016.
