Supermassive Games director Will Byles led the development of the company’s two big-budget cinematic horror games, Until Dawn and The Quarry. In a new interview, Will revealed that they are already working on a new title, that is intended for release in 2025 or 2026.
Will explained why Supermassive is feeling ambitious in an interview with VGC. The Quarry featured many big-name Hollywood stars in its cast, headed by David Arquette. It also included notable actors like Lance Henriksen, Ariel Winger, Brenda Song, and Lin Shayne. He explained that their main consideration when it comes to working with Hollywood talent is the schedules. The more days they work on voice acting, motion capture, and performance for artist references, the more expensive it can be to work with said talent. He also recognized the need for a compromise between casting a bigger name, who comes with a bigger paycheck, and the expected return for said product. However, he feels confident that it will only be a matter of time before most video games, in general, will regularly feature Hollywood’s biggest stars.
Supermassive also continues to make smaller-scale games than The Quarry, under the boutique label The Dark Pictures. While The Dark Pictures is a space for them to experiment with different kinds of horror stories, Will explains their future title will also be a split from the teen horror formula they found great success within The Quarry, but will continue to be classic horror.
Supermassive has opted to make each of their horror games as standalone titles unrelated to each other, but best seen as iterations of the studios’ style. We discussed how The Quarry is not directly related to either Until Dawn or The Dark Pictures series here and here.
Will believes the strength of the game studios’ work lies in the character development they build in their narratives.
“I do like the luxury of being able to really explore characters and you get that with a longer story,” he said. “It annoys some people, because they get bored with it, but I really like the fact you can go in-depth with the characters and explore relationships in a way that’s harder on a shorter story.”
Will shared two definite facts about their future project. He gave the 2025-2026 time frame to assure fans that they won’t be waiting as long as the seven years in between Until Dawn and The Quarry before they can play their new game.
In spite of the quicker turnaround, Will says they are aiming to make a game that is as big as The Quarry. Presumably, their collective experience means they can get their next project out sooner. It certainly couldn’t hurt that the company was recently acquired by European company Nordisk.
The Quarry was released on June 10, 2022 and topped PS5 download charts for that month.
Source: VideoGamesChronicle
