No More Sonic Hero - SEGA's Loot Shooter, Hyenas, is Cancelled

SEGA has announced a sudden cancellation of its upcoming first-person loot shooter, Hyenas. The game was being developed by Total War studio Creative Assembly, and would have featured a player character that cosplayed as Sonic the Hedgehog.

During a financial update to investors, SEGA Sammy revealed that the project - which had reportedly been facing something of an existential crisis for months - would be scrapped alongside "some unannounced titles under development" due to what it calls a "lower profitability of the European region".

Announced in mid-2022 and promising fast-paced shooting action with a comical flair, the game featured teams of space-raiders running derelict space environments and fighting each other for ownership of the stage's most valuable items. Some of the collectibles that players could loot included Sonic the Hedgehog-themed figurines, and there was even a Hero called 'Hero-ki' that would have taken on maps in full blue blur cosplay.

The move is somewhat surprising given the game was prominently available at Gamescom just last month for players to demo. However, it seemed that in the end, SEGA execs internally could not find a route to success for Hyenas, with discussions surrounding its business model and rumours of the game launching as a free-to-play experience (assumedly with micro-transactions). But alas, it was not to be.

A shame that such an interesting project would collapse in this way, particularly as it seemed that UK-based Creative Assembly had greater ambitions outside of its staple RTS Total War series following the critical acclaim of Alien Isolation, a first-person thriller that the studio released in 2014.

We hope Creative Assembly gets the chance to work on something else very soon - and we definitely hope that none of those other unannounced cancelled projects involved any hedgehog-based fun either!