Sega cancels live-service shooter Hyenas
By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.
Sega is canceling the live-service shooter Hyenas before the game’s launch. Sega announced the news in a press release, stating the cancellation was due to “the lower profitability of the European region.” In addition to Hyenas, Sega will also cancel other unannounced in-development projects.
Hyenas was billed as a live-service extraction shooter that looked similar to the Payday games. However, instead of robbing banks for cash, players in Hyenas would steal high-value collectibles, some of which were based on various video game properties, including a Sonic the Hedgehog doll or an Atari 2600.
Hyenas was apparently a source of friction within Sega. During a quarterly earnings call back in August, Sega executives said they were finalizing the game’s business model and characterized Hyenas’ development as “challenging.”
In addition to canceling Hyenas, Sega will also implement layoffs at the game’s developer, Creative Assembly. A post from Creative Assembly on X (formerly Twitter) read: “We have made the incredibly difficult decision to begin a redundancy consultation process in some areas of our UK operations alongside ending development of Hyenas. This may, unfortunately, result in job losses.” Creative Assembly was founded in 1987 and is known for porting Amiga games as well as developing the Total War strategy game series and Alien: Isolation.
“While this is a difficult moment across CA,” the company’s statement continued, “we look forward to sharing more about our plans in the future.”
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