{"id":64952,"date":"2026-06-30T12:56:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=64952"},"modified":"2026-06-30T12:56:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:56:01","slug":"until-dawn-studio-ceo-steps-down-shortly-after-directive-8020-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=64952","title":{"rendered":"Until Dawn studio CEO steps down shortly after Directive 8020 launch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Supermassive Games CEO Robert Henrysson has announced he will be stepping down from the company. Henrysson led the studio behind horror titles such as <em>The Quarry<\/em>, <em>Until Dawn<\/em>, and The Dark Pictures Anthology for over two years.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- No AdsNinja v10 Client! --><!-- No AdsNinja v10 Client! --><\/p>\n<p>Henrysson made the announcement on LinkedIn on Monday, writing, &#8220;Today marks the end of a very rewarding chapter of my professional life.&#8221; In addition to departing his role as CEO of Supermassive, Henrysson is also leaving his role as a partner in the developer&#8217;s parent company, Nordisk Film, which he joined in 2022. &#8220;To everyone at Supermassive Games,&#8221; Henrysson continued, &#8220;I am so grateful for everything I\u2019ve learnt and experienced with all of you. You are the greatest storytelling game studio on earth, you rock! And I wish you all the best in the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Supermassive Games is best known for developing cinematic-inspired horror games. The studio garnered widespread critical acclaim with 2015&#8217;s <em>Until Dawn<\/em>. The Sony-published game defined the studio&#8217;s signature style of playable films that emphasize player choice in determining whether characters live or die. Supermassive honed this type of experience with its Dark Pictures Anthology as well as 2022&#8217;s <em>The Quarry<\/em>. Response to the <em>Dark Pictures<\/em> games has been mixed from entry to entry.<\/p>\n<div class=\"body-img landscape \">\n<div class=\"responsive-img  image-expandable  img-article-item\" style=\"padding-bottom:56.25%\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/directive-8020-review-header.jpg\" data-modal-id=\"single-image-modal\" data-modal-container-id=\"single-image-modal-container\" data-img-caption=\"&quot;Image: Supermassive Games&quot;\">\n<figure><picture><source media=\"(max-width: 480px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/directive-8020-review-header.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=500&amp;dpr=2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/directive-8020-review-header.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=500&amp;dpr=2\"\/><source media=\"(max-width: 767px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/directive-8020-review-header.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=800&amp;dpr=2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/directive-8020-review-header.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=800&amp;dpr=2\"\/><source media=\"(max-width: 1023px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/directive-8020-review-header.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=825&amp;dpr=2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/directive-8020-review-header.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=825&amp;dpr=2\"\/><img width=\"1650\" height=\"928\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The alien in Directive 8020 turning into Eisele.\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/directive-8020-review-header.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=825&amp;dpr=2\" src=\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/directive-8020-review-header.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=825&amp;dpr=2\" class=\"img-brightness-opt-out\"\/>\n        <\/picture><small class=\"body-img-caption\">Image: Supermassive Games<\/small><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> At the beginning of 2024, Supermassive&#8217;s co-founders, Joe Samuels and Pete Samuels, left the studio. Samuels had served as CEO of the company for 15 years and was Henrysson&#8217;s predecessor in the role. That February, the studio faced restructuring that reportedly threatened 90 roles. In 2025, 36 employees were laid off, and it was announced the studio&#8217;s next title, <em>Directive 8020<\/em>, was delayed. <em>Directive 8020<\/em>, a sci-fi horror game inspired by films like <em>The Thing<\/em> and <em>Alien<\/em>, finally released this May to middling reviews. Like many past games in the Dark Pictures series, it is a mixed bag. In our review, we called it, &#8220;a missed opportunity for the series to prove it&#8217;s more than just a B-movie in video game form.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It has, at times, seemed like Supermassive Games is constantly chasing the success of its initial breakout title, <em>Until Dawn<\/em>. Since its initial release, that game has seen spinoffs, a remaster, and a film adaptation. Most recently, Sony announced during a June 2026 State of Play that an official sequel is in development.<em> Until Dawn 2<\/em> is set to be released in 2025 and is being developed by Firesprite Games, which previously made PlayStation VR game <em>Horizon Call of the Mountain<\/em>. The new Until Dawn is a stand-alone experience that features a new cast and story. This time around, it focuses on a crew of ghost hunters on an abandoned tropical island where nothing could possibly go wrong. The cast includes Dacre Montgomery (<em>Stranger Things<\/em>), Neil Newbon (Asterion in <em>Baldur&#8217;s Gate 3<\/em>), Gavin Leatherwood, and Tanner Buchanan.<\/p>\n<div class=\"display-card  article article-card small  no-badge  active-content                              \" data-include-community-rating=\"false\" id=\"until-dawn-2-announced-coming-in-2027\" data-nosnippet=\"\">\n<p>                        <img width=\"440\" height=\"248\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"until-dawn-2-announced\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/until-dawn-2-announced.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=220&amp;h=124&amp;dpr=2\" src=\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/until-dawn-2-announced.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=220&amp;h=124&amp;dpr=2\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                    <span data-field=\"label\" class=\"article-card-label\"><label>Related<\/label><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"w-display-card-content regular article-block\">\n<h5 class=\"display-card-title \">\n<p>\t\t\tUntil Dawn 2 announced for PS5, coming in 2027<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p class=\"display-card-excerpt\">The sequel to the 2015 horror game will be handled by a new studio<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/supermassive-games-until-dawn-dark-pictures-ceo-steps-down\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Supermassive Games CEO Robert Henrysson has announced he will be stepping down from the company. Henrysson led the studio behind horror titles such as The&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5668,11736,9845,713,25687,2714,2770],"class_list":["post-64952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-ceo","tag-dawn","tag-directive","tag-launch","tag-shortly","tag-steps","tag-studio","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/64953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}