Following scattered reports of layoffs at The Callisto Protocol developer, Striking Distance Studios and parent company Krafton have confirmed that 32 people have been let go.
"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," Krafton says in a statement to 12DOVE. "Honoring 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."
Word of layoffs first started to circulate yesterday, August 1, as a number of affected developers posted the news on LinkedIn. Those affected cover a wide variety of disciplines at the studio, including environment artists, VFX artists, level designers, and producers. Striking Distance has job listings open for a number of engineering roles on its official website, however.
In our The Callisto Protocol review, we called it "an impressive game derailed by unforgiving combat," and that sentiment was pretty widely echoed among other professional critics and players at launch. An extensive series of post-launch patches improved the game's combat and technical issues, but reports of poor sales and a final bit of story DLC that fans likened to "IP abandonment" meant that the game never really got its feel-good turnaround story. CEO Glen Schofield also courted controversy prior to the game's release with a tweet appearing to glorify crunch culture, for which he later apologized.
The Callisto Protocol was a valiant attempt, but it didn't manage to dethrone Dead Space among the best horror games out there.
