Sega’s Hyenas Game Shut Down Before It Even Launched
Hyenas battle scene
Sega Sammy, the corporate parent company of Sega and its subsidiaries, has announced that it has canceled the release of British developer Creative Assembly’s upcoming extraction shooter, Hyenas. The game was said to be launching in 2023 on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and by all accounts was close to completion, but now won’t see the light of day.
Hyenas was first announced in June 2022 as a first-person extraction shooter, a relatively new genre seen in games like Escape From Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown. Following the announcement, Sega held a number of closed betas for the game, with the most recent beta ending just two weeks ago.
Sega released an official statement announcing the cancellation on its Japanese corporate website, citing falling profits in Europe and the desire to reduce costs in the region.
“Due to falling profits in the European region, we are reviewing the portfolio of titles developed in Europe, and Hyenas as well as some unannounced titles have now been canceled,” Sega’s statement reads, as translated by GLHF’s Georgina Young, “We will be reviewing the reduction of games developed in Europe going forward.”
Creative Assembly has subsequently posted a statement to Twitter, confirming that the cancellation of Hyenas will result in job losses, and promising that it will attempt to minimize losses by re-allocating staff within the company where possible.
Following an internal announcement to our employees, please see the below statement: pic.twitter.com/b6LPonVagV
— Creative Assembly (@CAGames) September 28, 2023
Two GLHF sources said that staff at Creative Assembly were informed of the game’s cancellation at 9am BST on September 28, 2023, at roughly the same time as the release of the official statement from Sega Sammy. Multiple employees report hearing of the cancellation via Twitter or from friends and colleagues, rather than through the company itself.
Two other unannounced games have also been canceled, Sega confirmed, although it’s unclear at this stage if those games were also in development at Creative Assembly, or if they were being developed at one of Sega’s other European studios. Amplitude (Humankind, Endless) and Sports Interactive (Football Manager) are two Sega subsidiaries operating under the Sega Europe banner, but so far it seems like their games have not been affected.
