Switchback VR studio Supermassive Games is reportedly laying off “roughly” 90 employees.
Best known in VR for Until Dawn: Rush of Blood and The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR, British studio Supermassive Games is entering “a period of consultation” that the studio anticipates will result in redundancies following a restructure. Supermassive didn’t confirm how many staff this affects, though Bloomberg (paywall) reports 150 employees were notified and “roughly 90” are at risk.
Here’s the full statement from Supermassive Games:
It’s no secret that the games industry is currently facing significant challenges, and unfortunately we aren’t immune to this. After much deliberation and with deep regret, we are therefore undertaking a reorganisation of Supermassive Games. As a result, we are entering into a period of consultation, which we anticipate will result in the loss of some of our colleagues. This is not a decision that’s been taken lightly, with many efforts made to avoid this outcome.We are all too aware of how unsettling and difficult this process is going to be for all our employees and will be working closely with all those involved to ensure the process is conducted as respectfully and compassionately as possible. We’re committed to focusing our efforts on our core strengths and upcoming titles to ensure the continued sustainability of the company.
Supermassive Games join over 7500 estimated job losses across this year alone, following an estimated 10,000 layoffs in 2023. Today has also seen PlayStation laying off 900 staff, closing down London Studio (Blood & Truth, PlayStation VR Worlds) entirely while Horizon Call of the Mountain co-developers Guerrilla Games and Firesprite both face redundancies. Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog and more first-party PlayStation developers were also affected. They’re joined by other closures and layoffs we’ve seen across VR these last two months, such as WIMO Games, Archiact and First Contact Entertainment.
As for Switchback VR, we called Supermassive’s latest VR game a “mostly engaging horror shooter from start to end.” However, many players initially reported visual issues, which were later addressed in a patch that also added eye-tracked foveated rendering support and reduced loading times. A Horde Mode later followed and Switchback VR topped the PSVR 2 October charts soon after.
