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[LectureMaster]

The Callisto Protocol Studio Striking Distance Hit With Devastating Layoffs

Striking Distance, the studio behind The Callisto Protocol has been hit with devastating layoffs, with most devs impacted.

wccftech.com

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Striking Distance, the studio behind The Callisto Protocol, has unfortunately been struck with more layoffs, as confirmed by parent company Krafton. The information began surfacing online earlier today, with former Director of Concept Art Jesse Lee writing a post on Linkedin, saying "most of the devs were laid off."

It was then confirmed later in the day by Krafton, where they gave a statement to PC Gamer about what had happened. Krafton has declined to put a number on the amount of layoffs that had been made but said that they were done to keep the team "agile."

"Striking Distance Studios has reduced the size of its team to remain agile, which creates a sustainable environment for the studio at its current stage of development. The studio remains operational, and these changes will not impact any planned ongoing support. No further changes are planned at this time," said a representative.

Unfortunately, this is not the first round of layoffs that Striking Distance has experienced. Layoffs took place in August 2023, where 32 people lost their jobs. The Callisto Protocol was a mixed bag out of the gate, with a lot of people having issues with stuttering, especially on PC. The game had some pretty high-end demands. However, the game was a significantly smoother experience on a console. Kai Tatsumoto reviewed the game two years ago and gave it a 7.2.

With the failure of The Callisto Protocol, Glen Schofield left Striking Distance in September 2023, which was just over a month after layoffs took place.

Striking Distance then made a top-down shooter after The Callisto Protocol, but that game also failed, with an all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam of 169. Considering how much money went into developing The Callisto Protocol, with the game costing over $160 million to make and then not performing as well as they had hoped, this was devastating news for the company.

There is now news that the company is reportedly working on a new title that is being developed in Unreal Engine 5. Lead Gameplay Programmer of Striking Distance has on his LinkedIn profile that he is "leading a team of 12 gameplay engineers" to make this upcoming title.

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[K' Dash]

Shame, Callisto Protocol had great potential for a sequel with refined combat and more enemy variety.

 

[Hugare]

Sucks

No matter how you feel about the game, it was (and still is) one of the best looking and sounding games of this generation. They had some crazy talented people there.

Closing a new AAA studio after shipping only one game is crazy, imo

 

[Generic]

Another victim of the oversaturated singleplayer market. If your game isn't among the best, it will flop.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

with the game costing over $160 million. .

The budget for Alien: Romulus was approximately $80 million
Brawh

 

[March Climber]

This means [Redacted] didn’t sell well enough.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

This means [Redacted] didn’t sell well enough.

specially considering its mixed reception and sales of roughly 2 million copies against an expectation of 5 million

 

[March Climber]

specially considering its mixed reception and sales of roughly 2 million copies against an expectation of 5 million

Makes me wonder what type of indie/lower budget experience they should have made instead of that genre.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Who knew Callisto would be the world's first AAAA game!

Right off the bat, you can tell the company was amped up on ego. Destined to fail on day one.

 

[CLW]

AAAA rip

 

[Wildebeest]

Makes me wonder what type of indie/lower budget experience they should have made instead of that genre.

Horror is a low budget genre. Who can say why the budget was so high. It could even be the cart leading the horse and the publisher saying they didn't want a game that cost less to make and only wanted a tentpole AAA release.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Whoever signed off on that shitty melee combat system doomed the team.

 

[Hugare]

Who knew Callisto would be the world's first AAAA game!

Right off the bat, you can tell the company was amped up on ego. Destined to fail on day one.

Well, it looked AAAA in ways that few third party titles look these days. Like the best a Sony 1st party has to offer. Wukong comes to mind, but thats it.

So if they've mentioned AAAA in terms of production values, I would say they've nailed it.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Another victim of the oversaturated singleplayer market. If your game isn't among the best, it will flop.

Maybe they should not have wasted so much money on Hollywood script writers and actors. Did the original Dead Space have any of that?

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Striking Distance then made a top-down shooter after The Callisto Protocol, but that game also failed, with an all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam of 169.

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Oh wow, that has to absolutely sting..

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

I can't imagine losing the Dead Space franchise, coming back an eternity later to make a Totally Not Dead Space revenge game and have that fail on an epic scale as well. Brutal.

 

[phant0m]

Another victim of the oversaturated singleplayer market. If your game isn't among the best, it will flop.

Too much to play, games are too long to finish or demand continuous engagement.

They should also be starting at $90 just to keep up with inflation; the "$60 standard" started with PS360 gen in late 2005. (there was also a time in the early 90s where SNES/Genesis games were asking 60 or 70, but there was a lot of variation in price then and no set "standard")

Of course, gamers would revolt at a $90 standard so it seems like the "compromise" going on right now is leaving the starting price at $70 and tacking on early access/OST/art/season passes in the "Digital Deluxe" version that's usually $80 or $90. Gamers love to buy that shit too, despite what GAF and reddit might have you believe. PS Store preorders almost always have the deluxe version ahead of standard in popularity. The #3 preorder in the US right now is the $130 version of WWE 2K25.

 

[violence]

They were forced to rush. Corpos think you can cook a pizza in 10 seconds if you set the heat to 3000°.

 

[StereoVsn]

Maybe they should not have wasted so much money on Hollywood script writers and actors. Did the original Dead Space have any of that?

Yep, a lot of cash wasted on that and probably mo-cap.

 

[ProtoByte]

Who knew Callisto would be the world's first AAAA game!

Right off the bat, you can tell the company was amped up on ego. Destined to fail on day one.

Yep. Feel somewhat bad for Glenn Schofield, but he and all the other "star talents" in the industry need to get this idea of striking out from beyond the grip of a major publisher and retaining pedigree out of their heads. It never works out.

I mean, there was a 3 year span where there was a new one popping up every week.

SlimySnake what are those ex-Battlefield devs supposed to be doing again?

 

[Arsic]

While Callisto is a 6/10 at best I still want a sequel.

 

[Danjin44]

Another victim of the oversaturated singleplayer market. If your game isn't among the best, it will flop.

Men_in_Boxes 2.0?

One Men_in_Boxes is already one too many.

 

[phant0m]

They were forced to rush. Corpos think you can cook a pizza in 10 seconds if you set the heat to 3000°.

lowkey tho the trick to good pizza is cranking that bitch to 700+

 

[Danjin44]

I think biggest issue with Callisto Protocol was trying too hard to be similar to Dead Space....especially the fact it came out very close to Dead Space remake.

 

[Heart_Attack]

I think Callisto Protocol was great. It's just that the combat is not what people wanted. Also, a Dead Space remake being as great as it was killed any interest in this one.

 

[rabbity-thing]

Closing a new AAA studio after shipping only one game is crazy, imo

I think, honestly, the crazier thing is even being a AAA studio that hasn't released a few high performing games yet. I know these guys weren't novices, but dumping so much money into your studio's first release ever is pretty dumb. That's a lot of eggs in one basket.

 

[nikolino840]

Well...good luck tango gameworks

 

[TropicanaTwista]

This means [Redacted] didn’t sell well enough.

Which is a shame. That game was really damn good.

 

[consoul]

Callisto callosto.

It genuinely was a good game, but the business is about bottom line, not quality.

 

[Lord Malachite]

I think Callisto Protocol was great. It's just that the combat is not what people wanted. Also, a Dead Space remake being as great as it was killed any interest in this one.

The Callisto Protocol was very obviously rushed out to beat Dead Space (2023) to market. This was a huge mistake on the part of the publisher. The game just wasn't quite ready for primetime. It launched with many issues and blunted its impact by stumbling out of the gate at launch. When the remake of Dead Space launched a month later, it was clearly the superior game and made TCP rather irrelevant overnight.

 

[N30RYU]

Who knew Callisto would be the world's first AAAA game!

Right off the bat, you can tell the company was amped up on ego. Destined to fail on day one.

AAAAdios

 

[Panajev2001a]

Well, it looked AAAA in ways that few third party titles look these days. Like the best a Sony 1st party has to offer. Wukong comes to mind, but thats it.

So if they've mentioned AAAA in terms of production values, I would say they've nailed it.

Most of the budget clearly went into a high quality game, this is not like Rings of Power (TV) where you are constantly thinking where did they spend and how did they spend so much money per episode?

 

[Ronin_7]

Damn i wish Callisto had a second shot but I guess not.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Damn i wish Callisto had a second shot but I guess not.

At least we got a fairly good Pro patch.

 

[Cyborg]

All devs gone? Who will make games? I think AI

 

[xrnzaaas]

This means [Redacted] didn’t sell well enough.

168 people played in peak on Steam, yeah it flopped hard.

Callisto Protocol was just poorly managed, way too much focus on the graphics, not enough on the actual gameplay. Plus it released in poor state and even though they fixed the major issues in the first few days people already knew to avoid it.

 

[Black_Stride]

Damn.
Sucks.


Hate seeing single player studios close.
I play few MP games and dont much care for new GaaS IPs but what really got me into gaming is singleplayer games, so seeing less and less single player focused studios sucks.

 

[GymWolf]

The game was crap other than visuals.

Redacted was the far better game.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Too much to play, games are too long to finish or demand continuous engagement.

They should also be starting at $90 just to keep up with inflation; the "$60 standard" started with PS360 gen in late 2005. (there was also a time in the early 90s where SNES/Genesis games were asking 60 or 70, but there was a lot of variation in price then and no set "standard")

Of course, gamers would revolt at a $90 standard so it seems like the "compromise" going on right now is leaving the starting price at $70 and tacking on early access/OST/art/season passes in the "Digital Deluxe" version that's usually $80 or $90. Gamers love to buy that shit too, despite what GAF and reddit might have you believe. PS Store preorders almost always have the deluxe version ahead of standard in popularity. The #3 preorder in the US right now is the $130 version of WWE 2K25.

Single player games don't age. It doesn't matter if you play them day one or wait 3 years.
Something PC gamers figured out with their huge backlog and Steam sales.

 

[BbMajor7th]

Classic pride-before-a-fall stuff. Hubris has done a hell of a number on this industry. See also Cliff 'my next billion-dollar franchise' Blezinski and every dev who looks the audience dead in the eye and says 'if you don't like it, don't play it'.