Supermassive Games has begun another redundancy process that could affect up to 75 employees, marking the studio’s third round of layoffs in less than three years.
The UK developer behind Until Dawn, The Quarry and The Dark Pictures Anthology said the latest cuts are intended to improve the long term sustainability of the company.
The announcement comes less than three months after Directive 8020 launched on May 12, 2026. Supermassive has not directly linked the layoffs to the game’s financial performance, and no official sales figures have been disclosed.
Supermassive has now announced three major redundancy rounds
| Period | Jobs affected | Context |
|---|---|---|
| February 2024 | Around 90 | Major workforce reduction |
| July 2025 | Up to 36 | Directive 8020 delayed into 2026 |
| August 2026 | Up to 75 | Third redundancy process in under three years |
The latest round could result in up to 75 job losses once the consultation process is complete.
Supermassive said supporting affected staff will remain a priority during the process.
Directive 8020 has shown modest early engagement
Directive 8020 launched for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S after being delayed from its original October 2, 2025 release date.
The game moved The Dark Pictures Anthology into science fiction, placing its story aboard the colony ship Cassiopeia after a crash on Tau Ceti f.
Instead of focusing primarily on supernatural threats, Directive 8020 introduces an alien danger and uncertainty over which crew members may have been compromised.
Public performance indicators have so far been limited.
The game reached an all time peak of 3,072 concurrent players on Steam on launch day. Later snapshots showed concurrent player counts falling into the hundreds.
Steam sentiment has also remained mixed, with roughly 63 percent of available reviews marked positive.
Critic reception has generally been somewhat stronger, with aggregate scores around the low 70s.
Those figures do not represent total sales across every platform, so they cannot confirm the game’s commercial performance. However, Supermassive has also not announced a major sales milestone.
Directive 8020 followed an earlier restructuring
The studio had already announced layoffs while Directive 8020 was still in development.
In July 2025, Supermassive said up to 36 employees could lose their jobs while also delaying the game into the first half of 2026.
At the time, the developer said it needed to adjust its team structure in response to challenging market conditions while giving Directive 8020 additional development time.
The latest cuts follow another much larger restructuring in February 2024, when roughly 90 positions were affected.
Leadership has also changed
Supermassive has gone through management changes during the same period.
Former CEO Pete Samuels stepped down in June 2026, around six weeks after Directive 8020 launched.
His departure added another major change for a studio already dealing with multiple workforce reductions and an uncertain commercial environment.
Supermassive also recently developed Little Nightmares III, which represented a somewhat different project from its usual cinematic horror games but also received a mixed response.
Supermassive’s production model can be expensive
The studio has built much of its reputation around cinematic games with branching narratives and player choices.
Projects such as Until Dawn, The Quarry and The Dark Pictures games depend heavily on performance capture, detailed environments, large casts and multiple story paths.
That approach can create substantial production costs because scenes and performances may need to account for many different player decisions.
When sales or engagement fall below expectations, that production model can put additional financial pressure on the studio.
Supermassive has not said how its future development strategy will change after the current redundancy process.
For now, the latest announcement confirms another significant workforce reduction at a studio that has already undergone repeated restructuring since 2024.
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