Glen Schofield has been running PR for The Callisto Protocol after the game’s poor launch, claiming that there was a mistake with a patch just before its release.
In separate replies to fans, Glen said these on Twitter about the launch issues:
“Dude a damn clerical error on that. Just about fixed. Probably is but not sure. A lot going on here!”
“Being fixed. A wrong file was patched. Any minute. Just freakin error by someone rushing.”
The game launched to poor reception, with some forgiving reviews but most making note of the technical issues, and also some problems with the gameplay. The fallout from the bad MetaCritic scores led to a significant drop in stock value for Krafton, the parent company behind the game. Notably, Krafton is also the publisher of PUBG.
Striking Distance Studios were quick to release patches for the game on PC and consoles, but not all technical issues have been addressed yet.
On Twitter, Glen has been dogged in defending the game and his team in his replies. In one such reply noting his tenacity he says:
“It’s fight or flight and I’m one helluva fighter. Never giving up. This is our baby and it needs some loving right now.”
Glen has also responded to questions about the Xbox port of the game. He clarifies that ray tracing has been added in after the recent patch, but reflections are still not in. This lines up with our report that one game tester found ray tracing was not working properly on the Xbox Series X version of the game. They had correctly surmised that the issue was probably a bug.
Strangely enough, this whole situation with The Callisto Protocol somewhat mirrors that of Gearbox’s and Sega’s failed Alien game, Aliens: Colonial Marines.
While that game was a victim of mismanagement from multiple sides, one specific and easily avoidable bug was found years after the fact. It turns out the poor AI the xenomorphs demonstrated when tracking and attacking players came about because of a single typo in the code. Some players who still had the game were able to fix that specific part of it, long after it was delisted on Steam.
Fortunately, Glen and Striking Distance Studios are in a better position, as they have brought out immediate fixes to the game, and more patches and fixes are coming. Glen has even promised they will also bring fixes to the gameplay in due time.
Not every game and developer has successfully bounced back from a poor launch to critical and commercial success. However, if No Man’s Sky was able to do it, and Cyberpunk 2077 was able to do it, there’s no reason to believe that The Callisto Protocol couldn’t bounce back too. For the sake of the staff of Striking Distance Studios and the fans, we hope they can get it done.
