Sega cancels Hyenas shooter, kills projects and will reduce operations

Developer Sega announced this Thursday (28) a restructuring of the company’s European division. This means a series of internal changes to ongoing projects, including cancellations.

The main change is the cancellation of Hyena, a multiplayer first-person shooter for PC and consoles, initially revealed in the middle of last year. In matches for up to 15 players, you would control an antihero competing against other squads and security forces to steal valuable goods in microgravity environments.

One of the released images of Hyenas.Source: Sega

The title underwent a closed Beta test for PC a few weeks ago and had a relatively positive reception, in addition to appearing to be well underway, with a release scheduled for the end of 2023.

In addition to Hyenas, “other unannounced games that were in development” were also discontinued, with no further details provided by the company.

More changes to Sega Europe

Furthermore, the Sega Sammy Holdings group, which involves the company, claims that Europe has been a region of “low profitability”.

Therefore, it will reduce expenses and reduce projects there, more specifically in the British studio Creative Assembly — responsible for the franchise Total War (from the recently announced Total War: Pharaoh, status now unknown) and the success Alien: Isolation. Layoffs have not yet been announced, but are expected by the company.

Other Sega divisions are performing satisfactorily.Fonte:  GettyImages

Sega also said that will record record operating losses of 14.3 billion yen — or R$483 million, in direct currency conversion — in the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2024.

One of the reasons given is the poor performance of the Consumer divisionwhich includes games, greatly impacted by sudden changes such as “the demand to stay at home due to covid-19 and the economic setback because of inflation in the European region”.

On the other hand, the company states that it will launch “several new titles, including consolidated franchises” In the next months. The Amusement Park Machines, Entertainment and Toys, Pachinko Machines and Resort Business divisions are performing well and solidly.

Recently, the Sega group announced the purchase of mobile developer Rovio, responsible for the franchise Angry Birds. Furthermore, last year, it closed one of its most traditional sectors: the arcade unit in Japan.