Supermassive Games has begun a redundancy consultation that could cut up to 75 roles, raising new questions around Little Nightmares 3, The Dark Pictures Anthology, and the studio’s horror pipeline.
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Up to 75 jobs are at risk as Supermassive enters another consultation
Supermassive Games has begun a redundancy consultation process that the studio says could result in the loss of up to 75 colleagues, creating fresh uncertainty around the UK developer best known for Until Dawn, The Quarry, The Dark Pictures Anthology, and its recent work on Little Nightmares 3.
In a statement shared publicly on social media and cited by Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Game Developer, Nintendo Life, IGN, and Twisted Voxel, Supermassive said it had made the “difficult decision” to begin the process and described the move as necessary to help ensure the company’s sustainability. The studio also said its priority during the process would be supporting those affected.
The immediate tension is that this is not an isolated trim after a single release. Multiple outlets describe the new Supermassive Games layoffs as the studio’s third round of job cuts in roughly three years. The company has spent the last decade building a recognizable identity around branching horror, ensemble casts, and cinematic consequence, but the staffing picture around that identity has now changed sharply.
The latest cuts follow two earlier waves and a delayed Dark Pictures release
The new consultation follows earlier reductions that already reshaped the studio. Eurogamer reported that Supermassive announced layoffs affecting up to 36 employees in July 2025, saying at the time it needed to adapt its team structure to recent industry changes. GamesIndustry.biz similarly reported that 36 roles were cut as Directive 8020 was postponed from October 2025 to May 2026.
Before that, Supermassive confirmed a reorganisation in February 2024 that would affect some staff. Bloomberg, as cited by Eurogamer, reported that 150 employees had been told their jobs were at risk and that 90 redundancies were expected. GamesIndustry.biz states that about 90 employees were affected by layoffs in February 2024. IGN also reports that around 90 staff were impacted in that earlier round.
There is one date conflict in the supplied reporting worth flagging. Nintendo Life describes the second round as “July 2026” in its article text, while its linked Push Square headline refers to 2025, and Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Game Developer, and IGN all place that round in July 2025. Based on the broader source set, July 2025 is the consistently supported date.
IGN adds a wider scale marker, reporting that Supermassive said it employed around 350 staff in 2023 and that the total has now been halved. Game Developer notes that it is unclear how many people will remain at Supermassive after the latest consultation.
No project impact has been confirmed for Little Nightmares 3 or Dark Pictures
At the time of the reports, Supermassive had not said which teams, disciplines, or projects could be affected by the new consultation. Twisted Voxel specifically reports that the company has not provided further details about which teams or projects could be affected. Game Developer said it had contacted the studio for more information.
That matters for anyone searching for Little Nightmares 3 layoffs or Dark Pictures layoffs. The confirmed fact is the redundancy consultation itself, with up to 75 roles at risk. The unconfirmed part is any direct impact on Little Nightmares 3 support, future patches, downloadable content, a sequel, or further Dark Pictures development.
Little Nightmares III has already launched. Eurogamer says it arrived last October, with Supermassive taking over the series from original studio Tarsier. Eurogamer lists the game for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Nintendo Life also frames Supermassive as the developer behind Little Nightmares III and says the game received a more mixed response than the first two Tarsier entries.
The Dark Pictures side is similarly tense but not yet concrete. Eurogamer reports that Directive 8020, the fifth entry in The Dark Pictures Anthology, launched in May. GamesIndustry.biz says Directive 8020 had been delayed from October 2025 to May 2026 during the prior layoff period. IGN says Supermassive currently does not have a new project announced publicly. None of the provided sources report a cancellation, delay, content roadmap change, or platform change tied to this latest round.
Mixed reception is part of the pressure around the studio’s horror slate
Supermassive’s recent releases arrived into a harsher critical and commercial fog than its best-known hits. Eurogamer describes Directive 8020 as launching to mixed reviews in May, and says Little Nightmares 3 also landed with mixed results after Supermassive inherited the series from Tarsier. IGN reports that Directive 8020 received a positive IGN review praising its polished visuals and improved gameplay, but also notes a mixed user response on Steam, where around 1,400 people had left reviews at the time of its report.
GamesIndustry.biz cites Video Game Insight data estimating Directive 8020 sold approximately 447,000 units across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox. That is an external estimate cited by the outlet, not a sales figure announced by Supermassive or a publisher in the provided material.
Nintendo Life’s own review context sharpens the Little Nightmares 3 side of the story. The outlet says it scored the game 6/10 and wrote that it preserved the series’ oppressive mood, environmental puzzles, and unease, but felt like an echo of what came before. That distinction is important for a horror studio built on atmosphere and pressure. Mood can survive a handoff, but the audience also listens for the scrape under the floorboards: enemy design, pacing, fresh mechanical threat, and the sense that every room has a new reason to fear the next one.
The sources do not say mixed reception caused the layoffs. Supermassive’s stated reason is sustainability. The reported timing, however, places the new consultation after a run of releases and delays that did not produce the clean, celebratory momentum studios want when they are carrying multiple horror brands at once.
Supermassive’s model depends on people-intensive horror craft
Supermassive’s games are unusually exposed to staffing pressure because of the type of horror it makes. The studio is known, across the supplied reporting, for cinematic, choice-driven horror such as Until Dawn, The Quarry, and The Dark Pictures Anthology. Twisted Voxel describes the studio’s work as games where player decisions can determine how stories unfold and which characters survive.
That structure is resource-hungry. Branching scenes require writing, performance capture, cinematics, animation, lighting, testing, localization, and quality assurance across many possible outcomes. A monster encounter in a linear survival game can be tuned around one route through a room. A Supermassive-style scene often has to account for who is alive, who is injured, what the player saw earlier, and which version of the scene still makes sense if the cast has already been carved down.
This is interpretation based on the studio’s publicly described design identity, not a disclosed reason for the job cuts. The confirmed reporting does not identify affected departments. Still, when a developer known for ensemble horror loses staff across repeated rounds, the open question for players is practical: can the studio maintain the same density of cinematics, reactive outcomes, audio staging, and polish if its headcount has materially contracted?
That question is especially pointed after Directive 8020’s delay. GamesIndustry.biz reported that Supermassive delayed the game from October 2025 to May 2026 when it cut 36 roles, while Game Developer says that delay was made in an effort to add more polish. A horror game can survive rough edges in some genres, but in cinematic survival horror, a mistimed animation, a flat sound cue, or an awkward cut can puncture dread faster than any plot twist.
For players, the safest read is caution rather than panic
Players who already own Little Nightmares 3 or Directive 8020 do not have a confirmed service interruption to act on from the supplied sources. There is no reported delisting, no reported shutdown, no announced platform removal, and no specific patch or content cancellation attached to the new Supermassive Games job cuts.
For prospective buyers, the useful guidance is to judge the released games on their current state and reception rather than on assumed future support. Eurogamer lists Little Nightmares III across Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Eurogamer lists Directive 8020 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. IGN points readers to the game’s mixed Steam user response, while GamesIndustry.biz cites mixed Steam reviews and an external estimate of about 447,000 sales across major platforms.
For Dark Pictures followers waiting on the next chapter, the public record is thinner. IGN reports that Supermassive currently has no new project announced publicly. The studio’s anthology format may invite assumptions that another entry is always waiting in the wings, but the provided sources do not confirm the next title, schedule, platforms, or publisher plans.
For Little Nightmares fans, the key distinction is that Supermassive’s first mainline entry in the series is already out. The unanswered question is not whether the layoffs delay launch, since Eurogamer and Nintendo Life both report the game has released, but whether the cuts affect future maintenance or any continuation of Supermassive’s role in the franchise. No source provided confirms that either way.
The unanswered question is how much horror Supermassive can carry now
Supermassive remains one of the most recognizable names in interactive horror, but the latest consultation places the studio in a narrower corridor. Eurogamer identifies it as the developer behind Until Dawn, The Quarry, The Dark Pictures Anthology, and Little Nightmares 3. Twisted Voxel notes that Supermassive is currently owned by Nordisk Games. IGN describes the Guildford-based studio, founded in 2008, as one of the best-known horror game developers globally.
The studio’s statement gives the official explanation: sustainability. What it does not give is a map of the damage. We do not know which departments are affected, how many roles will ultimately be cut after consultation, whether external partners are involved, whether any unannounced projects have changed scope, or whether future Dark Pictures work remains on the same trajectory.
That absence is the story’s coldest patch of shadow. Supermassive’s horror has always relied on carefully managed uncertainty, but layoffs shift that uncertainty from the screen to the studio floor. Until the company provides project-specific detail, the responsible reading is clear: the job losses are confirmed, the potential effect on Little Nightmares 3 and Dark Pictures development is not, and the studio’s broader horror slate is under new pressure after three rounds of cuts in a short span.