If you’re someone looking forward to playing Hyenas, the chaotic heist shooter sporting Zero-G gameplay and plunder aplenty, we have some very bad news for you. Publisher SEGA is cancelling the Creative Assembly developed game in an effort to combat declining profits in Europe – along with several unannounced projects from studios working with SEGA. That’s right, as of right now, Hyenas is cancelled and won’t be coming out.
On September 28, in an official notice regarding the implementation of structural reforms in the consumer area – namely, SEGA’s entertainment contents business – the SEGA confirms that “in response to the lower profitability of the European region…. the resulting action will be to cancel Hyenas and some unannounced titles under development”. With the eventual Hyenas release date expected in 2023, and the fact that hands-on Hyenas previews were held just over a month ago at Gamescom, this comes as quite the shock.
Hyenas, a shooter with the potential to be one of the best FPS games out there when it drops and a fresh take on the extraction shooter genre dominated by Escape From Tarkov, really does look like pure chaos in the best possible way. If you want to know what we’re talking about, and what we may all be missing out on now, you can check out gameplay below:
As SEGA explains in the aforementioned notice, it has seen a “reactionary decline” in the business environment surrounding the consumer area of the company due to the “stay-at-home demand in COVID-19 and the economic downturn due to inflation in [the] European region” – which has lowered profitability in Europe, for SEGA, significantly. So, with SEGA expected to record a loss for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, it has opted to cancel several unannounced titles and the seemingly nearly finished Hyenas.
Framed as something of a structural reform, this cancellation should enable SEGA to continue to deliver on it’s promises when it comes to new titles from mainstay IPs. So, things like the Like A Dragon Gaiden release date and the Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth release date should be fine. There’s just no telling what else was canceled right now.
Could we still see Hyenas as one of the upcoming Xbox games and upcoming PS5 games we have to look forward to? Well, that all depends on who owns the IP – so, there is a very slim chance that someone else could pick it up. However, SEGA is the parent company of Creative Assembly – the developers – which would suggest otherwise. Even if Creative Assembly did own the rights, SEGA owns Creative Assembly. We’re not going to pretend like we know the specifics of that sort of situation, but it doesn’t look good.
Hyenas looks like a lot of fun, and if we never get to play it, that will be a huge shame. It’s unlikely that this would be one of the best competitive FPS games out there when it drops, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t look like a lot of fun. If we hear any more about the future of this game, we’ll keep you posted.