Following the departure of its founders, the developer of The Dark Pictures Anthology announces impending layoffs.
Supermassive Games, the developer behind Until Dawn, The Quarry, and The Dark Pictures Anthology series, confirmed shortly after the departure of its founders that the company is undergoing a “reorganization” and layoffs are imminent.
The layoffs were first reported by Bloomberg, stating that 150 employees were informed they are “at risk” of being laid off, with around 90 employees expected to be let go. Supermassive is a British studio and is thus subject to British law, which mandates that employees must be given a “consultation period” before mass layoffs. Supermassive’s LinkedIn page indicates that the studio currently employs over 350 staff members working on “a variety of storytelling titles.”
In a statement posted on LinkedIn, Supermassive confirmed the layoffs, explaining that the cuts are due to the “significant challenges” the video game industry is currently facing. “After careful consideration and with great regret, we are therefore undertaking a reorganization of Supermassive Games,” said the studio. “As a result, we are entering into a consultation period, which is expected to result in the loss of some of our colleagues.” The studio did not specify how many employees will be laid off but added that it is focusing on its “core competencies” and upcoming games to ensure sustainability in the future.
Supermassive was founded in 2008 and saw major success in 2015 with the award-winning PS4 game Until Dawn, which will finally be released for PC later this year. The studio continued its success with subsequent releases, including The Dark Pictures Anthology series and The Quarry. In 2022, it was acquired by Nordisk Games, a division of the Danish media group Egmont Group, whose team includes “entrepreneurs, industry opinion leaders, strategists, and number jugglers.”
Currently, Supermassive is working on Little Nightmares 3, a single-player spinoff of Dead by Daylight called The Casting of Frank Stone, and a new game in The Dark Pictures Anthology, Directive 8020.
The year 2023 was a very rough year for layoffs in the video game industry, and so far, 2024 hasn’t been any better: After more than 11,000 layoffs in 2023, nearly 6,000 more people lost their jobs in January 2024 alone. This terrible pace continued in February: Earlier this month, Blackbird Interactive, the studio working on Homeworld 3, also confirmed an unspecified number of layoffs.
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