Supermassive Games has taken to social media to announce that the release of The Dark Pictures: Directive 8020 is being pushed back. Originally scheduled for October 2, the game has now been pushed back to “the first half of 2026.” In addition, the studio has announced “redundancy consultation,” resulting in up to 36 layoffs at the studio.
Supermassive had taken similar steps regarding “restructuring” back in February 2024, where 90 staff were let go from the developer.
“The games industry remains a challenging and ever-evolving environment,” says Supermassive. “As we adapt our team structure to better align with these changes, we’ve had to make the very difficult decision to begin a redundancy consultation process where we anticipate losing up to 36 of our colleagues. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know this will be an incredibly difficult time for everyone. Our absolute priority will be to offer full support to those affected.”
The statement goes on to say that the developer remains focused on upcoming projects, but as a result, they have made the decision to move the launch of Directive 8020 to the first half of 2026. The development of Supermassive’s other project in development, Bandai Namco’s Little Nightmares III, will not be affected, and will be released on October 10.
Directive 8020 takes place in a timeline where earth is dying, and humankind is seeking a new home in the stars. The Cassiopeiais is the initial survey ship sent to scout for a new habitable planet. Fully outfitted as a colony craft but flying with a vastly reduced crew, their mission is to test every procedure onboard without ever touching down on the planet they’ve been sent to orbit.
However, the crew awakens from their four-year hyper sleep to a hull breach, a murder, and some extremely suspicious crew activity. It soon becomes apparent that the ship is infected with an alien organism that can transform into any one of them. While you may be human, others in your crew may not be, and killers can hide behind familiar eyes.
The Dark Pictures: Directive 8020 is currently in development for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series.