{"id":1660320,"date":"2026-08-11T15:18:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/HJ2dK2qGsWbQLovDb6tAtE"},"modified":"2026-08-11T15:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:18:28","slug":"3-months-after-the-release-of-directive-8020-supermassive-games-is-laying-off-even-more-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/3-months-after-the-release-of-directive-8020-supermassive-games-is-laying-off-even-more-people\/","title":{"rendered":"3 months after the release of Directive 8020, Supermassive Games is laying off even more people"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Three months after the release of Directive 8020<\/a>, Supermassive Games is laying off employees. In a brief message posted on X<\/a>, the studio said it has begun a redundancy process that will see up to 75 of its people put out of work.<\/p>\n

“This is a necessary step to help ensure the sustainability of the company,” Supermassive said.<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Supermassive Games (Twitter))<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The layoffs come in the wake of a mixed response to Directive 8020 (although PC Gamer’s Elie Gould thoroughly enjoyed it, calling the game “one giant leap for sci-fi body horror” in their 85% review<\/a>), but that reception feels almost irrelevant. This is the third round of layoffs at Supermassive in less than three years, the previous rounds of cuts in 2024<\/a> and 2025<\/a> also citing the catastrophic state of the games industry and urgent need to do something<\/em>\u2014which invariably works out to putting people out of work\u2014in response.<\/p>\n

That’s no lie. The videogame industry is in upheaval, and thousands of developers are being let go every year<\/a>, seemingly irrespective of the success of their work; veteran Brenda Romero said earlier this year that “we were there in the ’80s for the crash, and this is definitely crashier<\/a>.” <\/p>\n

That said, the whole ‘we have to cut to survive’ thing gets a little hard to swallow when big companies are raking in billions upon billions every year<\/a>, and top executives are taking home multi-million-dollar incomes<\/a>. Supermassive isn’t Blizzard<\/a>, but it is a division of Nordisk Film, which is owned by Egmont Group, which had an operating profit of \u20ac140 million ($162 million) on revenues of \u20ac2.2 billion<\/a> ($2.5 billion) in 2025. <\/p>\n

How many people will be left at Supermassive following this latest round of layoffs wasn’t said. I’ve reached out to Supermassive for more information and will update if I receive a reply.<\/p>\n

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