Canceled Hyenas came about because of COVID-19, admits Sega

With Sega’s live service shooter Hyenas no longer in development, the publisher has explained why it had Creative Assembly, a studio more experienced with offline real-time strategy games, take a crack at such a radically a different genre.

In a presentation covering the company’s financial results for the second quarter of its 2024 fiscal year, Sega Sammy Holdings president and CEO Haruki Satomi touched upon plans for structural reform, including the cancelation of Hyenas and other unannounced projects.

While Creative Assembly was unfortunately hit with layoffs, it sounds like Sega doesn’t intend to shut the studio down. The decision to “focus again on [the] strength of each studio” makes it sound like Sega’s playing things safe for now and letting its studios stick to their respective wheelhouses.

So, how come Creative Assembly was put in charge of Hyenas to begin with? In a surprising moment of candidness, Satomi said “Each studio has its own strengths and weaknesses, but the favorable winds of the early COVID-19 period, coupled with the strong performance of each title, led us to adopt a strategy of accelerating more, even in areas where those studios have not tried yet for further growth.”

The entire games industry saw a huge boon due to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during lockdown periods where more and more people turned to video games to keep themselves entertained. However, it seems that lot of companies got overly confident and expected these increased profits to keep up even after lockdown restrictions lifted.

With things returning to normal and those juicy profits dropping as people pursue other hobbies that don’t involve sitting inside, companies are panicking and trying to save as much money as possible. It’s perhaps the main reason for all the layoffs happening this year; companies grew too quickly.

As for Creative Assembly, while unconfirmed by Sega, it may be safe to assume it’s sticking with familiar ground and working on a new RTS. Hopefully, it pans out better than its latest title, Total War: Pharoah, which was met with mixed reviews.