It’s incredibly tough to launch a new live-service game. In 2023 we’ve already seen a bunch shut down for good, including Rumbleverse, CrossFireX and Knockout City. But at least they all got their shot in the limelight – Hyenas, the hero shooter from Creative Assembly, was canceled by publisher Sega last week, after years in development. It never even made it to open beta, let alone a full launch.
As someone who plays a lot of competitive shooters, Hyenas didn’t really grab my attention that much. I know friends who played the closed beta and had good things to say about it, but I didn’t really like the idea of fighting in zero G. I played Splitgate a fair bit when that came out, and that too had unique ways to get around by creating portals that allowed you to sneak around the back of the enemy. But I found it incredibly tricky to take advantage of, especially in the middle of a firefight when there wasn't time to plan a clever move. Rather than it being a unique feature that attracted a different audience, it became a barrier to entry for new players. And that’s exactly how I felt when they showed off Hyena’s zero G gameplay for the first time.
It’s an incredibly difficult balance to get right – a new live-service game has to offer something unique to get the audience interested, but if it’s too far removed from what they’re used to it could have the opposite effect. Fortnite is pretty much the only shooter I know that’s really succeeded in delivering an unusual game mechanic and survived – not just survived, thrived – in the live-service space. Of course, Fortnite’s building mechanic has been made fun of a lot but you cannot deny that it adds another dimension to the shooter experience and Fortnite has gone on to be one of the most-played shooters around.
