Supermassive lays off more than 70 people after the lukewarm launch of Directive 8020

Supermassive Games, the British studio behind Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures Anthology, has laid off more than 70 employees. As reported by Gamereactor España, citing information from Video Games Chronicle, the cuts come two months after the company announced a redundancy consultation process, with layoffs expected in August. The official justification is the usual one: securing the studio's long-term sustainability.

What matters isn't just the number, but the timing. This latest blow follows the release of Directive 8020, which launched in early 2026 to a lukewarm reception from both critics and players. It's also the second major wave of layoffs in just over a year. When a studio with such a distinctive identity goes through cuts of this scale back to back, the question stops being how many people are leaving and becomes what kind of games it will still be able to make.

What you need to know

• Supermassive Games has let go of more than 70 employees across different departments.
• Those affected include developers, artists, producers, QA and operations staff, according to a LinkedIn post by former employee Frank Tindle.
• This is the second major round of layoffs: more than 30 people were already let go in July 2025.
• Those 2025 cuts contributed to the delay of Directive 8020, which eventually arrived in early 2026.
• The studio is also going through internal changes, including Robert Henrysson stepping down from his role.

Two rounds of cuts in just over a year

The timeline traces a vicious cycle that's all too familiar in the industry. First come the 2025 layoffs, which reduce the team's capacity. That loss of muscle delays the next release. The game comes out, fails to fully win people over and, with the numbers on the table, an even deeper second round of cuts follows.

What stands out is how wide-ranging the affected roles are. This isn't about trimming one specific department or shutting down a side project: the cuts hit the people who code, the people who design, the people who coordinate and the people who test that everything works. That kind of across-the-board impact usually signals a deep restructuring, not just a one-off adjustment.

A studio with its own identity in trouble

Supermassive carved out a very particular niche with Until Dawn: cinematic horror adventures where every decision can cost a character their life. With The Dark Pictures Anthology, it turned that formula into a series of more compact entries, closely tied to co-op play and, along the way, to streaming culture. Directive 8020 was its latest bet in that line, and the fact that it arrived late and failed to generate excitement weighs heavily on a company whose model depends on every release succeeding.

Our take

Here at the Underworld Lordz newsroom, we're clear on this: talking about "long-term sustainability" while laying off more than 70 people sounds like a euphemism. We understand that studios have books to balance, but the sequence is far too familiar: cut, delay, release something that doesn't quite land, and cut again. If the 2025 layoffs already contributed to delaying Directive 8020, it's hard to believe that a second, bigger round will improve the quality of whatever comes next.

For content creators, this isn't distant news. Supermassive's games have been stream staples for years: group decisions, live jump scares, chat voting on who survives. It's the kind of experience that naturally builds community and generates clips, and few studios know how to pull it off. Losing talent in that niche means fewer games of this kind and, most likely, more creative caution in the ones that do arrive. And for those of us who play seriously, even though this isn't a competitive title, the pattern matters: when QA gets cut, releases ship less polished, whatever the genre.

Our respect goes out to everyone who has lost their job. We hope they find new teams soon, and we hope the industry stops treating mass layoffs as the only lever available after a weak launch.

What do you think?

Do you think Supermassive can recover and get back to the level of Until Dawn, or is the narrative horror genre running out of steam? Would you keep streaming their upcoming games? Drop by the team chat or our Discord and let us know: who do you blame more for this situation, the studio or a market that doesn't forgive a single stumble?