HYENAS
A year on, is Sega’s shooter ready to break free from the pack?
Developer Creative Assembly
Publisher Sega
Format Origin PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series UK
Release TBA
Christoph Will and Alex Hunnisett of the Horshambased Creative Assembly
Ushered through the prefab airlock system of Hyenas’ Gamescom booth, we’re presented with a video of the game’s tutorial that whizzes by at unhelpful speed, failing to compete with the volume of the show floor so that we have to rely on the subtitles. Which are, of course, in German. This is not the ideal way to meet any game, let alone one that stacks together as many ideas as Hyenas. Yet we can’t help but assume an advantage over the dozen rival thieves crammed into this briefing pen: after all, we saw the game at Creative Assembly’s HQ ahead of the previous Gamescom. This, surely, is tantamount to a 12-month head start. Three minutes and one squad wipe later, watching the last surviving team rampage through vaults of ’80s-themed loot, we’re forced to reconsider our optimism.