29 August 2023 , 17:00
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Anyone who knows me will be aware I'm not the biggest fan of multiplayer games, and because of that I've missed the boat on extraction shooters, but Creative Assembly's Hyenas may make me jump into the genre.
Sega's Creative Assembly is best known for its strategy game chops, being the team responsible for the Total War series which has spanned multiple eras and conflicts (Most notably, Shogun, Rome, and Warhammer), while also taking up the reigns for Halo Wars 2. However, the team has also stepped out of its comfort zone too, releasing the equal parts fantastic and terrifying Alien: Isolation back in 2014. Now, for the first time since then, the studio is heading out of the strategy zone with Hyenas – a team-based extraction shooter in which you rob billionaires on Mars – which I had the chance to go hands-on with at Gamescom.
There's an immediate irreverence in Hyenas, first off, you'll head to the character selection screen and spot a character cosplaying as Sonic the Hedgehog, while another adorns a Richard Nixon mask (taking cues from the classic heist in Point Break). The game's personality also shines through in its love of Sega's history in many ways; you'll hook up a Mega Drive console to doors to breach them, the high-value merch you're stealing from these billionaires includes statues of Sonic the Hedgehog rather than diamonds and pearls.
Most importantly the gunplay just feels nice, everything feels responsive and snappy, much better than you'd expect from the team's first foray into the genre. I played as the aforementioned Sonic the Hedgehog cosplayer who wields a SMG (y'know, gotta go fast), while picking the Nixon-like for a short 5 minutes afterwards because my team got wiped pretty quickly. Both of the masked fighters felt great to control while having wildly different skillsets.
The other central mechanic is the Zero-G rooms, which add an extra layer to the mobility, and makes the gunfights even more exciting when you're flying around an open room blasting away in mid-air. Basically, Hyenas is one of the biggest surprises out of Gamescom for me, and it seems like Creative Assembly have a hit on its hands.
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The extraction
My only question now is, despite how fun Hyenas is, is there a space for it in the increasingly crowded multiplayer market? Extraction shooters like Escape From Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown are already extremely popular, with Warzone taking a shot at it with DMZ. Even outside of the extraction shooter zone, there's Fortnite and Valorant to compete with. I don't mean to be doom and gloom about it, but it's a bit harder to get attached to a title that could end up going away due to the overcrowding of the genre (I'm still sad about Rumbleverse and Multiversus), but I really hope Hyenas doesn't meet the same fate.
Like we established at the start, I don't love multiplayer shooters too much, but I've left Gamescom excited to try more of Hyenas thanks to it's huge amounts of charm and polish. Which is good news since the Hyenas beta starts later this week.