Krafton have revealed that Striking Distance Studios’ CEO, COO, and CFO are all leaving the company.
The news comes nine years after the release of the studio’s first game, The Callisto Protocol. As we had reported, the game got released to mixed critical reception. To be clear, some reviewers actually gave it perfect scores, but there were also a lot of low scores as well.
All reviewers noted technical issues, but some reviewers also indicated they were unhappy with the game design. In particular, comparisons to Dead Space were not kind, with many reviewers feeling that The Callisto Protocol didn’t tread enough new ground to make it distinct from the original game. It definitely did not help that Dead Space Remake released a few months later, to better critical reception. Dead Space Remake would eventually overshadow its spiritual successor.
At the time, Striking Distance CEO Glen Schofield said that they faced serious technical issues on all platforms because of one file being mistakenly patched incorrectly. He also promised that the studio would patch the game up to get it running better.
We had also reported on the particular issues The Callisto Protocol ran into on PC and on consoles. However, it may simply be the case that the poor launch had already doomed the game, and the studio.
For those who don’t know, Striking Distance Studios was founded and owned by Krafton, a Korean game company who made its fortune as the publisher of PUBG. Krafton, like Pearl Abyss, Neowiz, and other Korean studios, want to make inroads into the global video game market.
Striking Distance Studios was conceived of precisely so that Krafton could hire Glen Schofield, the creative lead on the original Dead Space games. At the time, it seemed like a dream project, especially since Glen would be working outside of EA and had full creative control.
But the botched launch led to a dip in the stock value of Krafton themselves. Throughout the following year, Striking Distance continued to post updates, but The Callisto Protocol had gotten lost in the noise at this point.
As we all now know, 2023 has turned out to be one of the biggest years in video games. Unfortunately for Striking Distance Studios, that means that they weren’t able to sustain interest in their game enough to make a proper comeback in sales and fan sentiment.
Video Games Chronicle reported that Glen was leaving the company, alongside its COO, who we identified as Stacey Hirata, and its CFO, who is Johnny Hsu.
But this is not the end of Striking Distance Studios. GameInformer reports that Steve Papoutsis, who was chief development officer and general manager at the studio, has now taken the reigns as its new CEO. Steve previously helmed the general manager role at Visceral Games, and was also in charge of the Dead Space franchise, overseeing Glen Schofield and the other staff. So it’s safe to say the studio is in good hands today.
While it’s a shame that things did not work out for Glen and the previous management at Striking Distance, we can happily report that this does not come attached with news that the studio is closing, or that staff is being downsized, at least for now (knock on wood). Krafton clearly still wants to have a go at the Western markets, so let’s all hope Striking Distance can strike while the iron is hot next time.
