Glen Schofield, the creator of the original Dead Space, has stated that he was "forced to ship" his most recent game, The Callisto Protocol, despite significant development challenges, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Schofield described the difficult circumstances surrounding the game's release. "We had fucking Covid. A million people died in America. I lost one of my best friends," he said. "Every single month, four to six people in my company were getting sick. There were times our small team in Spain was shut down; it goes through a small place like that and you lose your rendering team for a while."
Schofield, who also worked as a producer on multiple Call of Duty titles and Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Cain, founded Striking Distance Studios to develop The Callisto Protocol under publisher Krafton. The game launched in December 2022 to middling critical reception and failed to meet Krafton's initial sales expectations, which were reportedly ambitious given the $100 million investment. A significant criticism at launch was the game's performance, particularly its framerate stuttering, which led to numerous negative reviews on Steam. These technical issues could likely have been addressed with additional development time, which was impacted by the pandemic.
Following the game's release and subsequent underperformance, Striking Distance Studios experienced layoffs, with two rounds of staff reductions occurring in August 2023 and February 2025. Schofield himself retired from the games industry in 2026 after his next project failed to secure funding, remarking at the time that he "[m]aybe directed [his] last game."
Schofield also noted that Krafton initially considered The Callisto Protocol a failure. He stated that his team worked on 86 patches for the game after its release, addressing performance issues and adding new story content through DLC. "That was a lot of fucking work. Every day you're going in, you're making changes. Some are little, others are massive. That was all to get it back to where it needed to be," he explained.