Striking Distance, the studio behind last year’s alien horror stomp ‘em up The Callisto Protocol, have suffered layoffs affecting 32 employees in what their publisher calls an effort to “realign the studio’s priorities to better position its current and future projects.”
As noted by VGC, several impacted employees began to share the news over social media this week, which included the team’s associate producer Nora Falcon, senior environment artist Matthew Smith, and production coordinator Sebastion Marlow. Striking Distance and publisher Krafton (of PUBG fame) later confirmed the news in a joint statement to IGN. Here’s their statement in full:
“Striking Distance Studios and Krafton have implemented strategic changes that realign the studio’s priorities to better position its current and future projects for success. Unfortunately, these changes have impacted 32 employees. Honouring the invaluable contributions of each departing team member with material support in the form of outplacement services and meaningful severance packages is our top priority during this difficult moment.”
The Callisto Protocol came out late last year and served as a kind of spiritual successor to horror classic Dead Space, with that series’ former producer Glen Schofield at the helm. Despite that tempting proposition, a report revealed the game was expected to sell five million copies in order to recoup its heavy production budget, but as of January 2023, it had only shifted two million.
Alice Bee’s review took issue with the game’s unconventional combat controls and technical woes on the PC side. Later patches did address the PC version’s stuttering issues, but the game was still “just allllright.”
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