After Directive 8020, Supermassive Games’ latest title, failed to captivate a broader audience and wasn’t so warmly welcomed by fans, the company has decided to lay off some 75 staff members. This is supposed to ensure its stability in the long run, though I wager it won’t go over well with its community.
This was confirmed by Supermassive Games today via X. In the post, the company said it is working on “redundancy consultation,” which is going to “result in the loss of up to 75 of our colleagues.”
“This is a necessary step to help ensure the sustainability of the company,” the post reads.
Destructoid is headed to gamescom 2026. Subscribe to the Destructoid Checkpoint newsletter for daily live updates from the biggest gaming show outside the US.
Furthermore, the post says Supermassive Games will do what it can to “provide support to all those impacted,” though what that exactly entails wasn’t specified. At any rate, I hope the impacted developers at least receive fair compensation for being laid off. It’s a grim world out there today, with layoffs happening left and right, and it’d be a crying shame to have 75 talented people booted out of the industry with nothing to hold on to.
Supermassive Games has been primarily making narrative interactive games where every choice matters. It gained popularity with its Until Dawn title, a revolutionary game for the PlayStation 4 that made significant use of the console’s new gear. It went on to make The Dark Pictures anthology, an anthology series similar to Until Dawn.
Its latest output, Directive 8020, broke off from its traditional formula, though it did maintain a lot of what made Supermassive a household name. It didn’t go very well with either audiences or critics, and it only has a “Mixed” rating on Steam as of this article. That game launched just three months ago, and its consequences are, unfortunately, largely negative for the studio.
Still, Supermassive makes a kind of game that’s simply not available elsewhere, and I hope things work out for the studio in the end. Its approach to interactive storytelling is exceptionally unique, so perhaps this whole situation will, at the very least, cast clarity on what works and what, evidently, does not.
