Supermassive Games is a British video game developer based in Guildford, Surrey. The company was co-founded by brothers Pete and Joe Samuels in 2008; Pete served as chief executive officer, while Joe was the studio's commercial director. The brothers both stepped down from their roles in 2024.[1] Until 2018 Supermassive worked almost exclusively with PlayStation, first working on downloadable content for Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet.[2] The studio published their first game, Big Match Striker, in September 2010. It was free-to-play and put players head-to-head in a combination of football management strategy and trivia.[3][4] Supermassive worked on multiple games that utilised the PlayStation Move motion controller including Start the Party! and Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves, both of which were released in 2010.[2][5] In 2012, the studio partnered with the BBC and released Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock. It was intended to be the first game of a trilogy, but it was poorly received. The BBC announced the decision to cancel the other two games the following year. However, another partnership game with the BBC, Wonderbook: Walking with Dinosaurs, was released in 2013.[6]
In 2015, the studio released their breakout title, Until Dawn, which won the BAFTA Games Award for Original Property in 2016.[7][8][9] The game was initially envisioned as a PlayStation Move title, but all motion controls were dropped when it was retooled into a PlayStation 4 game.[10] Until Dawn is a teen survival horror game inspired by slasher films, and it became an unexpected success for Sony.[7][11][12] With the success of Until Dawn, the studio continued to expand the universe, releasing two spin-off titles; Until Dawn: Rush of Blood (2016) and The Inpatient (2018), for PlayStation VR, Sony's virtual reality headset.[13][14] In January 2024, a film adaptation of Until Dawn was announced, as well as a remake of the game for PlayStation 5 and Windows, planned for release later in the year.[8][15][16] Although Supermassive is not developing the remake, the game is being made by Ballistic Moon, which has multiple former Supermassive leads on the team.[16][17] The studio also released the critically panned Bravo Team (2018) for PS VR. Supermassive initially wanted it to be "the game which defines shooters on VR", but it faced various challenges throughout its development cycle.[18] In December 2018, Supermassive published Shattered State. The game was developed in partnership with Google and released exclusively for Google Daydream.[19][20]
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At Gamescom in 2018, Supermassive announced that they were returning to the horror genre, partnering with publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment to create an anthology series called The Dark Pictures Anthology.[21][22] Supermassive originally planned to release a new entry in the series every six months.[23] The studio plans to release eight games in the anthology, although more could be added.[23][24] The first game, Man of Medan, was released in August 2019,[25] followed by Little Hope in October 2020,[26] House of Ashes in October 2021,[27] and The Devil in Me in November 2022,[28] which concluded the anthology's first season.[29] After many years of mostly PlayStation exclusivity, the anthology was Supermassive's first venture into doing multi-platform releases. Initially, the games were released on PS4, Xbox One, and Windows.[21] Starting with House of Ashes, the games were also released for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.[27] However, in September 2022 Supermassive released PS5 and Series X/S versions of Man of Medan and Little Hope.[30] Both games also received Nintendo Switch versions in 2023.[31][32] A spin-off of the anthology, The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR, was released in 2023 for the PlayStation VR2 as a spiritual successor of Rush of Blood.[33] The fifth game in the series, and the first game of the second season, will be Directive 8020.[34]
Supermassive released the standalone game The Quarry in 2022. The game is inspired by slasher and monster films, and is a spiritual successor to Until Dawn.[35][36][37] In August 2023, Little Nightmares III was announced for a 2024 release, and that December, The Casting of Frank Stone, a game set in the Dead by Daylight universe, was revealed at the Game Awards 2023, also with a 2024 release date.[38][39]
Games
Supermassive Games has worked on over 20 games since 2008, and has multiple games in development.
