Just a few weeks after the departure of its founders, Supermassive Games, the developer of Until Dawn, The Quarry, and The Dark Pictures Anthology series, has confirmed that it is undergoing a "reorganization," and that layoffs will occur as a result.
The layoffs were first reported by Bloomberg, which said 150 employees were notified that they are "at risk" of being let go, and that roughly 90 will be laid off. Supermassive is a British studio and thus subject to UK law requiring that employees be given a "consultation period" in advance of large-scale layoffs. Supermassive's LinkedIn page says the studio currently has more than 350 employees "working across a range of storytelling titles."
In a statement posted to LinkedIn, Supermassive confirmed the layoffs, saying the cuts are being forced by the "significant challenges" currently facing the videogame industry as a whole.
"After much deliberation and with deep regret, we are therefore undertaking a reorganization of Supermassive Games," the studio said. "As a result, we are entering into a period of consultation, which we anticipate will result in the loss of some of our colleagues."
The studio didn't say how many employees will be let go but added that it is focusing on its "core strengths" and upcoming games to ensure sustainability in the future.
Supermassive was founded in 2008 and hit the big time in 2015 with the award-winning PS4 game Until Dawn, which is finally coming to PC later this year. The studio enjoyed continued success with subsequent releases including The Dark Pictures Anthology series and The Quarry. In 2022 it was acquired by Nordisk Games, a division of Danish media corporation Egmont Group, whose team "includes entrepreneurs, games industry thought leaders, strategists, and number crunchers." Make of that what you will.
Supermassive is currently working on Little Nightmares 3, a singleplayer Dead by Daylight spinoff called The Casting of Frank Stone, and a new Dark Pictures Anthology game, Directive 8020.
2023 was a very bad year for layoffs in the videogame industry, and 2024 so far hasn't been any better: In the wake of more 11,000 layoffs through 2023, nearly 6,000 more people lost their jobs in January 2024 alone. That awful pace has continued into February: Earlier this month, Homeworld 3 studio Blackbird Interactive confirmed that it too was laying off an unspecified number of employees.
