UPDATE: Creative Assembly has now issued a statement on the cancellation of Hyenas, as well as confirming the fate of those who worked on the project.
The statement, posted to the developer’s Twitter account, reads: “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.
We fully understand that this has a significant impact on our people whether they are directly affected or not – which we are truly sorry for. We have always aimed to operate as a ‘people-first’ studio, that is foundational to our values and culture. While we must go through this incredibly difficult process, we will prioritise supporting our people at every step. For those whose jobs are at risk we will work to re-allocate them into other available roles at CA wherever possible and ultimately minimise any job losses. Our commitment to our projects and players has not changed, we will deliver more incredible experiences to our players all over the world for decades to come. While this is a difficult moment across CA, we look forward to sharing more about our plans in the future.”
UPDATE 2: The Hyenas team has now offered their own statement to fans in the wake of the game’s cancellation. “We are so sorry to announce the end of Hyenas’ development before we were ever able to bring our full vision to you. While the decision to cancel the project has not been made lightly, we know that doesn’t make it any easier to accept – for you or for us.
We knew our plans were ambitious and we knew we were diving headfirst into competition with some of the greats. But we believed in the journey and we’re proud to have taken every step along the way. We hope you’ll join us in remembering the action-packed, zero-G chaos and the diehard community of players who helped us make it special. So many people poured their hearts into this project for many years. Please be kind and considerate to them as the news sinks in. We are working hard to find new roles within the business for the incredible talent that helped put Hyenas together. Thank you for your support.”
ORIGINAL STORY FOLLOWS: Sega has cancelled Hyenas, the upcoming multiplayer shooter by Alien Isolation developers Creative Assembly.
As per a press release from Sega Sammy, the company has said “In response to the lower profitability of the European region, we have reviewed the title portfolio of each development base in Europe and the resulting action will be to cancel “HYENAS” and some unannounced titles under development. Accordingly, we will implement a write-down of work-in-progress for titles under development.”
Despite the game recently having a fairly large presence at this year’s Gamescom (with us even giving the game a One to Watch award), and a recent closed beta as recently as around this time last month, it seems the hype around the game hasn’t been enough to help parent company Sega Sammy’s fortunes, with the statement going on to claim the move is part of Sega’s decision to “implement structural reforms aimed at increasing efficiency, mainly at our European bases and reviewed the title portfolio in those bases. Then we have made the difficult decision to cancel some titles under the development as well to reduce the fixed expenses.” These expenses, it seems, will be “centered on Creative Assembly” – who tragically seem to be taking the brunt of these cost-cutting measures.
Hyenas was set to be a multiplayer looter-shooter with the twist that fights would take place on various space stations, meaning zero gravity would come into play during fights five teams of three players in each squad – all of which who were trying to nab as much loot from the station as they could, before escaping with their ill gotten gains to win. In a cool twist, some of this loot would also include licensed items with pieces from Sega’s history as well some retro items like Rubik’s Cubes and Atari systems to name but a few.
At the present time it’s unclear what will become of Creative Assembly’s Hyenas team and those who were working on the project – though some (such as the game’s Senior Brand Manager David Burroughs) are already tweeting that they have been let go. The studio is also soon set to launch Total War Pharoah next month in its famous grand strategy series, though at the present time it doesn’t look like that game is effected by the news. Our thoughts at Videogamer go out to those affected at this time.
