Supermassive Games is posting the staff and delays its new sci-fi horror

Supermassive game Perform a new round of layoffs, the company said. As part of the same announcement, the British studio has also confirmed the delay in its upcoming horror title, Directive 8020: A dark picture game.

According to a cached version of Supermassive's official website reviewed by Game Rant, the Guildford-based studio had over 350 employees from June 2023, an increase of 40% from year to year. This marked its highest number of staff, as Dark Pictures Anthology The developer began to decrease shortly thereafter. In February 2024, Supermassive announced redundancies, with reference to business challenges derived from macro industry trends as the main cause of the move. No official figures were given at that time, but the labor reduction is said to have eliminated about 90 positions.

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Which directive 8020's title change can mean for the scope of the game

Upcoming horror directive 8020 has made a subtle title change that can actually point to a significant change in direction.

On July 22, the British developer announced his second round of layoffs over the past 18 months. The cut will result in super massively eliminating up to 36 positions. In a statement published on their social media channels, the company noticed the dismissals as a “very difficult decision” which was not easily made. ” Supermassive characterized the movement as part of its ongoing efforts to adapt to the “challenging and constantly evolving environment” which is the modern video game industry.

Supermassive Delays Directive 8020

The announcement on July 22 also saw Supermassive Laying one of its upcoming projects, Directive 8020With the task that the sci-fi horror game was re-planned during the first half of 2026. Directive 8020 Previously, a release date on October 2 received back in February. Since the delay message did not include another date, it is possible that super massive is aimed at a Q2 rather than Q1 launch.

Back at the end of June, Supermassive attached a release date on October 10 to Small nightmares 3. Its second upcoming horror play is not affected by the recently confirmed layoffs, says the company. Reading between the lines is the implication that Directive 8020 Delay was a direct result of the studio that decreased. This would suggest that the 36 dismissals that the studio expects are all concentrated on Dark pictures team.

Supermassive Games employee's behalf over the last) years

Supermassive's cut is not the first instance of industry settlements in July 2025. Early in the month, Microsoft began a large -scale labor reduction that targets up to 9,000 roles over its subsidiaries, including many game development studios. The company said that the cuts were primarily aimed at reducing the layers of the intermediary. The ongoing wave of industry settlements-now that extends over several years-drive by several factors, including rising development costs that call on cost-saving efforts, as well as broader economic pressure linked to rising interest rates (which eliminated “cheap” money) and missed revenue targets.