One other Excessive Profile Dwell Service Flop As SEGA Pulls the Plug on HYENAS Earlier than Launch

The reside service enterprise mannequin is a troublesome cookie to crack, however each main writer is giving it a go. We’re already very accustomed to a few of these titles shutting down after just some months of assist, however SEGA has pulled the plug on Inventive Meeting’s HYENAS earlier than it may even make it to launch. The cancellation has been unceremoniously confirmed in the minutes of a board of directors meeting.

“In response to the decrease profitability of the European area, now we have reviewed the title portfolio of every improvement base in Europe and the ensuing motion will likely be to cancel HYENAS and a few unannounced titles underneath improvement,” the doc reads. “Accordingly, we’ll implement a write-down of work-in-progress for titles underneath improvement.”

HYENAS was being billed as a sci-fi first-person shooter, with zero-gravity fight and references to wider SEGA lore. For instance, one of many recreation’s hero characters, Hiroki, wears a Sonic the Hedgehog swimsuit embellished with varied pin badges of characters from the basic platforming property. However it’ll be no extra, because the title’s been cancelled earlier than even being correctly put in gamers’ palms.

Curiously, we really performed the title a yr or so in the past, the place we described it as “baffling in a great way”. All of this inevitably places elevated scrutiny on Sony’s reside service push, the place titles like Fairgame$ wish to scratch an analogous itch. We surprise what number of extra failed makes an attempt it’ll take earlier than publishers cool on making an attempt to infiltrate this infamously crowded sector.