Dark Pictures Dev Supermassive Plans Layoffs After Mixed Reviews

I read Supermassive’s post and felt the air in the studio thin out in a single line: “loss of up to 75 of our colleagues.” You can picture a conference room where resumes are shuffled and Slack channels fill with quiet messages. I keep returning to the fact that the team behind Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures has been forced into this exact kind of crossroads.

The company posted an official statement on X before morning hit the UK

I watched the message land on feeds and it already felt rehearsed. Supermassive Games said it was entering “redundancy consultation,” and that this will “result in the loss of up to 75 of our colleagues.” The phrasing was clinical; the reality will be personal.

Why did Supermassive Games lay off staff?

You want the short answer: the studio says it’s protecting the company’s future after its newest release failed to reach a large audience. I’ll give you the longer read: Directive 8020 tried to shift the studio’s formula, but sales and player sentiment did not follow in the numbers Supermassive needed.

The fallout reads like a budget line recalculated at midnight

At this scale — up to 75 roles — the impact hits departments across design, production, QA, and support. That many exits can ripple through ongoing projects and partnerships with platform holders like Sony’s PlayStation teams and storefronts such as Steam.

The company promised to “provide support to all those impacted” but offered no details on severance, placement help, or health provisions. I hope the studio offers solid packages and career assistance; otherwise dozens of capable developers could be pushed toward other industries.

How many employees were affected?

The announcement sets the ceiling: up to 75 colleagues. That phrasing leaves room for negotiation during consultation, but history shows “up to” often settles near the headline number if sales trends don’t improve. You should expect meaningful cuts, not a symbolic trimming.

Steam reviews and player chatter cooled three months after launch

If you scroll Steam, the conversation around Directive 8020 is blunt: mixed reviews and puzzled threads. The game diverged from the hallmark Supermassive formula—choices with dramatic consequences—and critics flagged issues that clearly mattered to the audience who loved Until Dawn.

Did Directive 8020 fail on Steam and reviews?

Short answer: the reception was mixed. Long answer: mixed on Steam often translates into stalled sales momentum and missed opportunities for market visibility. For a studio that built its reputation on narrative choices and cinematic hooks, that can feel like a high-wire act when budgets and expectations don’t align.

The studio’s identity is at stake, and so are careers

I’ve followed Supermassive since Until Dawn—that title put them on the map for cinematic branching narratives on PS4. Their creative approach is rare in the industry, and you can see why losing talent would be painful for the medium as well as for the people involved.

Reputation damage can spread like a slow leak: recruiting gets harder, partnerships grow cautious, and the city’s development ecosystem loses a creative hub. I want the studio to stabilize, but I also want fairness for those who will walk out the door with their portfolios and questions.

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Supermassive’s public timeline is short: a big new title three months ago, X statements today, and a consultation that will decide dozens of livelihoods. You can trace the signs back to marketplace dynamics—reviews on Steam, platform promotion on PlayStation channels, and the cold arithmetic of studio finances.

So where does that leave the games we love and the people who make them—will the industry learn from this setback or simply move on?