Supermassive Games, the British studio behind Until Dawn and The Quarry, opened a redundancy process on August 11, 2026, targeting up to 75 people. It’s the studio’s third wave of cuts in two and a half years. Supermassive Games had 350 employees in 2023, and will keep roughly half that number.
What Supermassive Games Announced
The announcement went out on social media. Games outlet Gematsu, penned by Sal Romano, published the news at 9:39 a.m. Eastern time. TheSixthAxis, Engadget, and Shacknews picked up the story shortly after.
In its statement, the studio wrote: « We have made the difficult decision to begin a redundancy consultation process, which we anticipate will 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 figure of 75 is a ceiling, not a final number. The process Supermassive Games has opened is a formal redundancy consultation, a requirement under UK employment law before any job cuts take effect. Employers must inform and consult staff representatives before any final decision, which leaves room for negotiation. The statement doesn’t specify which teams will be affected.
The statement continues: « We know this will be an incredibly difficult time for everyone, and our priority throughout the process will be to provide support to all those impacted. »
Founded in 2008 in Guildford, Surrey, Supermassive Games made its name with Until Dawn, The Quarry, and The Dark Pictures Anthology series, narrative horror games where player choices shape the story. The announcement comes a few months after the release of Directive 8020, its latest title. Former CEO Robert Henrysson had stepped down in June 2026, just weeks after that release.
Three Waves in Two and a Half Years
In February 2024, Supermassive Games cut around 90 positions. In July 2025, a second wave affected roughly 35 employees. On August 11, 2026, a third process opened: up to 75 additional positions are at stake, with consultation still underway at the time of the announcement.
The studio had around 350 employees in 2023. Combined, these three waves add up to nearly half that headcount lost in two and a half years. The math stays approximate, since no final figure exists for each stage, but the scale speaks for itself.
Directive 8020 had already been delayed to 2026. That delay came with a wave of 36 layoffs at the time.
No sales figures have been released for this game, and nothing directly links its commercial performance to this third wave. The timeline remains the only solid reference point: three rounds of cuts in two and a half years, on a workforce that stood around 350 before the first one.
Elsewhere in the industry, cuts take other forms. At EA, the buyout by Saudi-backed investment funds came with $700 million in budget cuts. Shipping recognized games, having a well-defined genre, no longer guarantees job security.
Guildford, and the Bigger Picture
Guildford has concentrated a large share of British game development for decades, carried by several long-standing studios in the sector. Supermassive Games has been based there since it was founded.
The sector is going through a sustained wave of cuts. 2024 recorded 14,600 layoffs for the year, including 8,619 in the first quarter alone, the highest quarterly figure ever recorded in video games. Between 2022 and mid-2025, roughly 45,000 jobs disappeared, according to independent trackers (tallies kept by industry observers, outside of official company statements). 2026 had already logged 9,781 confirmed layoffs as of July 26, and the ASGC Games Industry Layoffs Tracker projects up to 14,259 by year’s end, 78% above its own January forecast. Our investigation into the human toll behind the industry’s crisis covers this shift in detail.
Other recent cases paint the same picture. Warner Bros shut down Monolith Productions in February 2025, canceling a Wonder Woman game that had been in development for more than two years. Netflix shut down Night School Studio just six weeks after its game launched. At Xbox, layoffs came in several successive waves.
These figures are likely lower than reality. Independent trackers poorly capture contract workers, freelancers, and contractors, the first to be cut and without any announcement. A studio that reports no official layoffs may simply have stopped renewing twenty contracts over the year.
Supermassive Games doesn’t fit either of these patterns. The studio hasn’t been bought out by an investment fund, or shut down by a parent company. It remains independent and is cutting its workforce to stay afloat, in what it calls « a necessary step to help ensure the sustainability of the company. » Up to 75 positions are affected.
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