Sega made a surprising decision this week to cancel its highly anticipated multiplayer shooter Hyenas. According to reports, this game had the largest budget in Sega’s history.

The cancellation announcement came after Hyenas’ most recent beta on September 17. However, a recent video published by Total War YouTuber Volound (via VGC) revealed that the development of the game had been plagued with issues for some time.

One anonymous developer from Creative Assembly, known for their work on Alien Isolation and Total War games, shed some light on the problems faced by the project. They stated, “So what went wrong? Total lack of direction, many of the leadership asleep at the wheel but they never seem to lose their jobs. 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 mentioned that Hyenas was intended to be one of Sega’s high-budgeted “Super Games” for 2021. While the exact amount spent on the game is unknown, it is speculated to have surpassed the reported $70 million budget of Shenmue, which held the record for Sega’s biggest budget game until now.

Creative Assembly reportedly had issues developing from the start

Creative Assembly was tasked with developing Hyenas, a sci-fi multiplayer FPS, following their success with Alien Isolation and Total War games. The aim was to create a console game with broad commercial potential, similar to Destiny, Escape from Tarkov, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

Hyenas was set to be a PvPvE (player vs. player vs. environment) FPS, where players would break into vaults across a map and face off against both AI enemies and other real players.

An anonymous developer shared some early details of the game, stating, “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. 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.”