Hero-based looter-shooter Hyenas from Creative Assembly was recently cancelled by its parent company SEGA, with layoffs said to follow as SEGA consolidates its teams in the EU.
The extent to which Hyenas struggled in its development was never totally clear, though reports since its cancellation claim that it was SEGA’s “biggest budget game ever.”
Now in a new video published by YouTuber Volound sheds more light on just how much Hyenas struggled, and how frustrated the developers were, with one even calling the game a “metaphorical turd.”
Volound’s videos paint a picture of a game the didn’t have direction for a large chunk of its development, with plenty of time and money wasted on key decisions like which engine to continue with taking far too long.
Neil Blomkamp’s consultation on the project according to Volound’s video was actually a “shot in the arm” as described by a developer, as a bit of direction for the game, while it mostly felt “rudderless.”
“I feel that because [Creative Assembly] had that corporate backing, it was very much a case of ignore the bad feedback and push towards polishing this metaphorical turd into what the publisher has invested in producing.
So much money was thrown at this project that ultimately SEGA must have thought it was going to be more beneficial to not have the negative press of another failed release versus trying to consolidate their financial loss.” said another developer.
What developers seem especially frustrated about though is how the fallout from Hyenas being cancelled and the money lost on the project is potentially effecting people at Creative Assembly who had nothing to do with Hyenas.
Members of the Total War team, or people in other departments getting cut as SEGA consolidates its EU teams because of how poorly Hyenas was handled.
This just adds on to an already difficult time in the industry, where layoffs seem to be prevalent across studios and publishers of all sizes.
You can check out Volound’s video below.
Source – [Volound on YouTube via Eurogamer]