Speaking during a panel at Star Wars Celebration, Hennig explained that her process involved deconstructing the movies and understanding how they could be adapted to video games. This, Hennig added, was the same method she used when working on Uncharted while at Naughty Dog.
"The reason [we're collaborating with Lucasfilm so closely is] we're writing an original Star Wars story with new characters, locations, tech, creatures, you name it. All of it has to sit authentically alongside the stuff people know now," she said.
"The process that I've been using is really similar to what I did with Uncharted, to be honest. If you're trying to re-create that classic--in [Uncharted's] case--pulp action adventure experience, you need to deconstruct the films so you know how to reconstruct them in an interactive context as gameplay."
She continued: "The end goal is by the time the player has finished playing they feel like they really did play a Star Wars film. So I've done the same thing for Star Wars. What does that mean? It's getting the structure right. It means you have to understand where the act breaks fall, where all the obstacles and reversals fall, and the set-pieces. [You need to know] what are all the component parts that make up a Star Wars story."
Although Hennig didn't reveal any specific details about the Star Wars game, she hinted at the tone, which sounds to be quite similar to Uncharted.
"It means getting the tone right. It's what my writing partner Todd [Stashwick] calls breezy urgency. It's the idea that there's sort of a swash-buckling charm to the thing. There's humor and buoyancy but at the same time there's stakes and jeopardy."
The "humor and buoyancy" she refers to is a key characteristic of the Uncharted series and the Indiana Jones movies they draw inspiration from. Of course, it's also a key part of the Star Wars movies.
Another detail about the game that Hennig alluded to, by way of her analysis of the movies, was that it'd have an ensemble cast. This, she explained, was the essence of the film series and something developer Visceral was focusing on bringing to the game.
"What I was really eager to discover is what distinguished Star Wars films from the others I'd been studying in the action adventure genre. The first thing that jumped out was these are always ensemble stories ... People would say there's other characters in something like Indiana Jones, but they're side characters. In Star Wars they're co-protagonists, so if you think about the original trilogy it's as much Leia's, Han's, and Vader's story as it is Luke's.
