Canned shooter ‘Hyenas’ was going to be one of Sega’s most expensive games ever

A few weeks ago, SEGA cancelled another of projects, the most surprising of which was Creative Assembly's announced shooter, Hyenas. Now we may know why Sega pulled the plug, as it was reportedly set to be the publisher's highest-budget game ever. 

As much as we love the creative side of game development, there is a business component to it that can't be ignored. Launching a new IP carries a certain amount of risk due to having to compete with established titles, and running anything resembling a live-service requires constant development work, which leads to higher operating costs.

According to VGC, as well as sources speaking with YouTuber Volound, Hyenas lacked direction and progress was slowed by an engine change partway through development. It is also claimed that Creative Assembly began working on Hyenas after Alien Isolation, which was a critical success but a commercial failure.

Most importantly, Hyenas was said to be eating up a lot of budget, with one developer estimating that it was perhaps Sega's most expensive game ever, a title previously held by Shenmue, which cost $70 million to make back in the 90s.

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KitGuru Says: The multiplayer shooter market is heavily saturated and there is constant competition from newcomers to established franchises getting year-round updates. With that in mind, I'm not too surprised Sega got cold feet here, although I do hope that Creative Assembly now swiftly gets put onto a new project without major lay-offs, we've had enough of those across the industry recently. 

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