Sega cancels Hyenas, Creative Assembly layoffs expected
Creative Assembly's first-person shooter has been canned by Sega.
About a year and a half ago, Sega subsidiary Creative Assembly announced Hyenas, a new sci-fi multiplayer shooter. The game was set to be Sega’s first shooter in years, and recently went into its Alpha this past summer. Plans for Hyenas were abruptly thrown out of the window this morning when Sega announced the game had been canceled as a result of restructuring.
Sega announced the cancellation of Hyenas in a press release. Attributed to the dreaded “restructuring,” Sega says that Hyenas was canned alongside some other unannounced projects. “In response to the lower profitability of the European region, we have reviewed the title portfolio of each development base in Europe and the resulting action will be to cancel 'HYENAS' and some unannounced titles under development. Accordingly, we will implement a write-down of work-in-progress for titles under development.” The post also includes an update to Sega’s outlook for the upcoming fiscal quarter.
Source: Sega
Hyenas was revealed back in the summer of 2022, showcasing an original roster of characters shooting it out in space. In the time since, Creative Assembly revealed some cosmetic crossovers with other Sega properties and put the game into Alpha so that players could get their hands on it. We here at Shacknews got to check out an early preview of Hyenas earlier this month and enjoyed it quite a bit, but held concern about how it would fare in the incredibly competitive multiplayer shooter market.
Following the news of Hyenas’ cancellation, a Eurogamer report claimed that Sega is also expected to lay off several members of the Creative Assembly team. It’s unclear how many employees will be affected, but the layoffs are said to impact “positions across the studio.” It’s the second video game industry layoff story in as many days, as Blizzard let go a chunk of the Hearthstone team yesterday.
-
Shacknews
replyDonovan Erskine posted a new article, Sega cancels Hyenas, Creative Assembly layoffs expected
-
Sega cancels Creative Assembly's Hyenas after only seeing a two-week beta period.
https://www.ign.com/articles/sega-cancels-creative-assemblys-hyenas-
I know some guys who played it at Gamescom and thought it was awesome. This is so weird.
-
I remember people playing Lawbreakers and saying it was good and fun but it wasn't enough, even with veteran shooter devs behind it.
The problem with Lawbreakers was the same as with HYENAS - it had no identity.
-
-
Probably a good thing. I dont get the feeling extraction shooters are a super popular or growing part of the market. Tarkov still seems to be the top one with maybe Hunt Showdown a distant second.
Also a hero based extraction shooter with Fortnite or Overwatch style art? Sounds like trend chasing to me. -
-
-
I feel bad for Creative Assembly because they are trying to break out of the strategy genre which they have been in for...well...forever.
After 10+ years Total Warhammer was finally a big enough hit to give them some money to play with and take a chance at branching out. They go with Hyenas only to see the project get shutdown shortly before its finished. All that hard earned money gone with nothing to show for it but layoffs for the Hyena developers. The entertainment industry is brutal.
Same thing could have happened to Larian if Baldur's Gate 3 had tanked; so relieved it's a megahit.
-
-
-
Creative Assembly does good stuff, but I think eight variations of this genre are coming out soon. Sega is right to be concerned no one is going to notice this one, especially if they want to ask for money upfront. Ironically, cancelling it probably generated the buzz to save it.
There’s the gameshow one. The Division one. The one from that Swedish studio that’s doing another live service game simultaneously. Marathon, which is the one I’m most interested in. Plus a handful shown during the summer events that I don’t remember in any real way. -
Situation is just a huge bummer all around. Hyenas looked like a guaranteed flop, and now CA faces layoffs in addition to not even getting to release the game. It already seemed like there were some problems there because of how inexplicably weak Total War: WARHAMMER III's launch and post-launch support have been. I love the recent Total War games, especially the WARHAMMER series, and I want to see them succeed and get the love and care they deserve!
-
-
Yeah man. A 40K Total War game would be amazing. The bones are all there. They mostly just need to work on their battle map terrain and more robust line of fire rules and such. I can imagine a charging squad of assault marines firing bolt pistols just before smashing into a pack of tyranids, and it's beautiful. They added units with precursor weapons (fire during a charge animation) late in WH2's DLC cycle and I keep holding out hope they were thinking ahead to 40K ...
-
-
-
Sega have cancelled HYENAS, robbing the gaming community of a potentially entertaining shitshow launch:
https://www.ign.com/articles/sega-cancels-creative-assemblys-hyenas
A lot of you are probably asking "what the fuck is HYENAS" which us understandable because the game had zero hype and looked like a generic hero shooter from 2016. I only knew about of it because of people griping in the Total War subreddit, and had given it a conservative three months post-release before the servers were shut down. I'm glad I didn't put money on it because the game didn't even make it that far.
Sadly, the news also came with word of staff restructing at developer Creative Assembly, on the HYENAS team and elsewhere.
-
