Sega Cancels Creative Assembly's Hyenas

ign.com:

Sega has cancelled Hyenas, the multiplayer extraction shooter in development at UK studio Creative Assembly.

Issuing a warning to investors that it will record a loss for the financial year, Sega said "profitability has been lowered mainly in European bases". As a result, it has implemented "structural reforms aimed at increasing efficiency", and reviewed in-development games. "We have made the difficult decision to cancel some titles under the development as well as to reduce the fixed expenses," Sega said.

"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," Sega continued. "Accordingly, we will implement a write-down of work-in-progress for titles under development."

It sounds like Creative Assembly staff face the threat of redundancy. "We will implement reduction of various fixed expenses at several group companies in relevant region, centered on the Creative Assembly Ltd," Sega said. "We expect to incur one-time expenses related to reduction of fixed expenses.

"We will continue to consider measures to improve profitability in European bases apart from above. We will announce the specific details and impact from them as soon as we make decision."

Creative Assembly, best known for the Total War series, recently brought Hyenas to German show gamescom for the public to play. A beta concluded mid-September.

Last month Sega admitted Hyenas was a “challenging” title. “We are unable to talk about this title because the details have not yet been announced at this time,” Sega said at the time. “As this is a challenging title, we are striving to improve