Supermassive Games is delaying Directive 8020 and laying off staff

Supermassive Games, the developer behind story-driven games like Until Dawn, The Quarry and The Dark Pictures Anthology, is cutting its workforce due to the ongoing "challenging" state of the games industry. The studio says it’s having to adapt its team structure and as a consequence expects to lose up to 36 employees.

The current size of the Supermassive’s staff is unclear, but in February last year it cut somewhere in the region of 90 jobs, at which time Bloomberg estimated the studio had more than 300 employees.

"This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be an incredibly difficult time for everyone," the UK-based developer said in a statement published today. "Our absolute priority will be to offer full support to all those affected."

Supermassive is currently working on Little Nightmares III and the sci-fi horror adventure Directive 8020, which is the fifth entry in The Dark Pictures Anthology. It said the layoffs will have no impact on the development of the former, which is still due out October 10. Directive 8020 has been delayed to the first half of 2026, which it says will allow it to "deliver the very best experience for our fans." The game had been scheduled to release on October 2.

Supermassive is the latest developer to be hit with job losses, following Candy Crush studio King reportedly laying off at least 200 employees as part of the wide-ranging cuts at Microsoft. Virtuos, the studio behind Oblivion Remastered, also shed around seven percent of its staff last week, while Yooka-Laylee developer Playtonic let an unspecified number of its team go at the beginning of the summer.

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