Hyenas from Creative Assembly was reportedly Sega's most expensive game to date before it was cancelled.
28.09.2023 - 09:57 / rockpapershotgun.com / Haruki Satomi
The Creative Assembly's Hyenas - a sci-fi extraction shooter about robbing Martian billionaires, which Ed deemed "a surprising amount of fun" when he saw it at Gamescom - is no more. Sega have cancelled the forthcoming looter FPS together with several unannounced titles - a stripping-down of the publisher's European business in response to financial losses Sega are blaming partly on Covid.
In a letter to investors from CEO and president Haruki Satomi, Sega announced that they expect to record a loss "in the Consumer area" for the fiscal year ending 31st March 2024, partly thanks to European social-distancing measures during the pandemic. "[T]he business environment surrounding the Consumer area has been rapidly changing, including reactionary decline from the stay-at-home demand in COVID-19 and the economic downturn due to inflation in European region, and profitability has been lowered mainly in European bases," the letter begins.
"To promptly adapt to these changes in the environment and improve profitability, we have decided to implement structural reforms aimed at increasing efficiency, mainly at our European bases and reviewed the title portfolio in those bases," it continues.
Hyenas is one of several titles from Sega's European outfits that are getting the axe. The statement doesn't specify whether the other, unannounced games are Creative Assembly projects. As a reminder, the publisher's European studios include Football Manager developer Sports Interactive, mobile game developer Hardlight, Endless Space developer Amplitude, Two Point Hospital developer Two Point Studios and Rovio, creator of ye olde Angry Birds, which Sega bought only last month.
The Sega statement adds that "we will implement reduction of various fixed expenses at several group companies in relevant region, centered on the Creative Assembly Ltd. We expect to incur one-time expenses related to reduction of fixed expenses." It's not clear whether job losses are part of the picture.
There could be more "reductions" to follow. "We will continue to consider measures to improve profitability in European bases apart from above," the letter goes on. "We will announce the specific details and impact from them as soon as we make [a] decision."
The Creative Assembly remain best-known for the Total War series - Total War: Pharaoh releases in October. Hyenas was their first big public stab at a brand new thing since 2014's very well-received Alien Isolation.
I've asked Sega for more comment. Thanks for passing it on, Eurogamer. Best of luck to any developers affected.
Hyenas from Creative Assembly was reportedly Sega's most expensive game to date before it was cancelled.
Sega announced its cancellation of last week, which developer Creative Assembly attributed to overambition and a saturated market. Reportedly the most expensive game Sega ever published, it briefly had a big-name Hollywood filmmaker on the project aswell. District 9 and Elysium director reportedly gave input on Hyenas’ story, massively influencing the game’s direction.
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Sega's Creative Assembly studio has killed development on the upcoming shooter Hyenas and has warned that redundancies are likely.
The live service business model is a tough cookie to crack, but every major publisher is giving it a go. We’re already very familiar with some of these titles shutting down after just a few months of support, but SEGA has pulled the plug on Creative Assembly’s HYENAS before it could even make it to launch. The cancellation has been unceremoniously confirmed in the minutes of a board of directors meeting.
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Sega has announced that they are cancelling Hyenas, the extraction shooter that was in development at Creative Assembly, as well as some other unannounced titles.
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 has canceled upcoming multiplayer shooter Hyenas and some other unannounced titles in a bid to improve profitability.