This certainly is not The Creative Assembly’s finest hour. Their all new multiplayer shooter (And the subject of one of my first written articles here on SegaBits) Hyenas has been unceremoniously cancelled in a brief recent SegaSammy financial report. Citing “lower profitability in the European region”, the decision was made from on high to axe Hyenas, along with several unannounced titles being developed there. As if to throw salt on the wound, Hyenas’s UK-based developer The Creative Assembly, known for Alien Isolation and the Total War series, is also suffering layoffs. All this comes according to a report from Eurogamer, which you can read here. The above message was also taken from the official Hyenas Twitter page.
This comes as a shock as Hyenas was just demoed at Gamescom only last month and in a recent closed PC beta just this month, along with a few all new trailers getting released. The developers even seemed rather enthusiastic about the game’s reception, in spite of any challenges with development, as referenced in an interview Eurogamer did with representatives of Creative Assembly at that very same Gamescom event. It truly goes to show that you can never be too certain what will happen behind closed doors in the world of game development. I can only hope the staff being let go have little trouble finding new jobs and supporting themselves and their families.
Are you sad to see Hyenas canned? I know I am, especially cause I never even got to participate in any of the betas. Maybe any of you who did can tell us about your experiences in the comments below? I’d especially appreciate it.
Ad:
I can’t say I was. Multiplayer shooters like this are a dime a dozen lately and this seemed just like another one.
From what I’ve heard others in the Hyenas Discord server say and other testers in different servers, the game played fine but was bogged down with bad writing and unappealing character designs.
This game looked horrible and Creative Assembly’s idiotic marketing made things worse.
Who thought going to a big IGN event in June of 2022 and claiming that “SEGA WAS GOING TO STEAL THE SHOW!” then reveal this terrible looking game with game play mechanics and ideas that were already done and used by better and more established games was a good idea?
Who thought British Leftist Boomers trying to act “HOW ARE YOU DOING FELLOW KIDS?” and trying to flex on everyone at the same IGN event was a good idea?
Who thought ugly character designs, with the main star being a transsexual, and cringe writing was a good idea?
No wonder Sega pulled the plug, they were about to be in another Randy Pitchford situation where the devs are just taking money. Which was $100 million USD. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/cancelled-hyenas-was-segas-biggest-budget-game-ever-its-claimed/
Well, you are bias…
Bias against what? Bad games? Bad marketing choices?
Are you going to pull the “Hurr you just hate SEGA” when I grew up a SEGA fan and I hate what’s been happening to SEGA over the years? Even when my post even supports SEGA for pulling the plug on this horrible looking game?
You can’t be this stupid, but from what I’ve been seeing from SEGA fans lately, I’m not surprised with how they’re going full propaganda mode from SEGA thinking anything they release will be good, even if it a game that rips off other games in Hyenas.
Talk about a way to tank a company. No opportunity to recoup any of the development cost. And this close to launch. Sounds like a tank job to me. But what do I know…Bernie…
Not saying it was going to be a decent game but dang another bad business decision that affects the brand we all know and love. This leaves little to no room for titles other than the blue blur. Unless somehow Sammy helps foot the bill…
In a peculiar way I’m happy that the game is cancelled. Certainly not happy for the people that loose the job, neither for SEGA loss of money, but, man, the game was horrible, and as someone prior to me wroted, also the gameplay is a meltin-pot of rip-off of other games. Not a SEGA Style. For Sure.