Sega has announced Hyenas, a flashy, new sci-fi multiplayer first-person shooter that comes courtesy of European developer Creative Assembly, the creator of Total War and Alien: Isolation.
Hyenas stole the show at IGN’s Summer of Gaming showcase on Wednesday, showing off a trailer packed with gunfights on the ground and in zero gravity — as well as some Sega Easter eggs. The game pits five teams of three against each other as they shoot and steal their way to become the best space pirates in the universe.
In Hyenas, billionaires take off for Mars, destroying Earth in the process and taking all the rare pop-culture merchandise with them in their spaceship shopping malls filled with the merch stolen from Earth’s remains, leaving ordinary class citizens drifting through space in a slum called the Taint. Players are tasked with assembling their crew of uniquely skilled and armed criminals to break into the Plunderships, exploit their environments, steal all the nostalgic merch that’s rightfully theirs — like the Rubix cube and a Sonic the Hedgehog keychain — and escape with their haul without getting caught by security.
To ensure that Hyenas is the best shooter game it can be, Sega launched the first wave of public alpha tests for players to sign up for after the game’s announcement.
“We believe the key to modern shooter success is understanding what players want to see and where they want to take their experience. We know we’ve got something interesting on our hands, but we also know the odds are stacked against us,” Hyenas executive producer David Nicholson said in a press release. “To take on the biggest games in the industry, we need to hear what players think, right upfront and early. If you’re in, we want to take you along for the ride.”
Since destroying capitalism is a running theme of Hyenas, the game won’t have any microtransactions. Any other details about what the game will include will be revealed in due time.
Hyenas will release on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC in 2023.
