Although Pankhurst died in May 2024, Supermassive only today (July 29) shared the news across its social media channels.
Unlike some of the other notable faces and names attached to The Dark Pictures Anthology since the series began in 2019, in this instance, Pankhurst provided the facial likeness of The Curator, whilst Pip Torrens provided the voice and motion capture.
The publisher held an experiment in Modern Warfare 3 earlier this year
For its experiment, Activision took the North American player base for Modern Warfare 3. For half the players it ran a ‘Deprioritise Skill Test’, which “loosened the constraints” on skill-based matchmaking, meaning less emphasis was placed on a player’s skills when looking for opponents
According to Activision’s findings, most of the players in the Deprioritise Skill Test were less likely to come back to the game. While the top 10% highest skilled players returned to the game in increased numbers within two weeks (because they were winning more), when it came to the other 90%, fewer returned to the game than normal.
The episode chronicles the studio "reflecting on the launch of Psychonauts 2 and the PsychOdyssey documentary series while looking to the future and a return to smaller projects".