Hyenas was supposed to be the new Extraction shooter from Creative Assembly and SEGA on Steam. Now, even before release, development has been stopped due to “low profitability”. This is accompanied by job cuts at the developer, which is expected to cost some jobs.
What kind of shooter is this?
This is what’s happening to Hyenas now: In a September 28 announcement, SEGA Sammy says there will be “structural changes” at its European stations (via segasammy.co.jp).
In the course of this, the development of Hyenas and other titles that have not yet been announced is to be discontinued. The Extraction Shooter was supposed to be released in the course of 2023, but has now been stalled in development.
The reason SEGA gives is the “low profitability” of the European region. The official X account of Hyenas twittered about it:
We know our plans were ambitious, and we knew we were jumping head first into competition with the big guys. […] We hope you remember with us the action-packed Zero-G mayhem and the tenacious community of players that made us special.
Creative Assembly explains that jobs will be cut
The developer of Hyenas, Creative Assembly, issued its own press release shortly after (via X). There it is said that the studio will probably have to cut jobs in the course of the changes.
The studio does not reveal how many jobs are involved and who would be affected. However, Creative Assembly emphasizes that they want to help the people whose jobs are in danger to find another position in the company, if possible.
The studio is also behind big titles like Total War: Warhammer 3, which recently received a lot of criticism for its latest DLC. In comments on X, for example, it is said that they could have now used this opportunity to use the freed up positions to improve Total War.
Hyenas itself, however, could probably never really build up the traction that was desired. At least that’s how MeinMMO author and shooter expert Dariusz Müller sees it:
There are only 2 types of new, successful PvP shooters left and both are crap