Sega’s Canceled Looter Shooter Hyenas Was Its ‘Biggest Budget Game Ever’

Sega abruptly canceled its planned multiplayer shooter Hyenas this week, a game that a recent report suggests was the biggest budgeted game in the company’s history.

Last week, Sega announced that it would be canceling the game following its most recent beta on September 17. The news came as a shock, but according to a recent video published by Total War YouTuber Volound (via VGC, which corroborated the story), the behind-the-scenes development of the game was marred by issues for some time now.

“So what went wrong? Total lack of direction, many of the leadership asleep at the wheel but they never seem to lose their jobs,” said one anonymous developer from Creative Assembly about the project. “An engine change, part way through the process. Attempting to break into a saturated market, and not committing to do anything adventurous with the game.”

The video and report also mention that Hyenas was believed to be one of the high-budget, premium “Super Games” that Sega said it was hoping to create in 2021. While it’s unknown just how much Sega spent on the game, the report alleges that it was the company’s “biggest budget ever” for a game, beating the reported $70 million budget of 1999’s Shenmue.

Creative Assembly reportedly had issues developing from the start

Creative Assembly is best known for its work on the hit horror title Alien Isolation and various Total War games. In June 2022, it was announced that the team would be working on a sci-fi multiplayer FPS, which became known as Hyenas.

According to the video and VGC’s report, management at Creative Assembly hoped to make a console game with “broader commercial potential,” in the same vein as something like Destiny, Escape from Tarkov, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

Hyenas was planned as a PvPvE (player vs. player vs. environment) FPS, with players tasked with breaking into vaults across a map and battling against both AI enemies and other real players.

“In the early days, Hyenas aimed for a ‘lovable rogues’ vibe, surviving in a messed-up world controlled by the elite, channeling Han Solo with a bit of Firefly for good measure,” one anonymous developer told Volound in the video. “It sounded intriguing, but the details were vague. Earth was in ruins, the rich had everything, steal to survive, a gritty sci-fi setting with a touch of NASA.”