The Callisto Protocol Director Glen Schofield Departs Striking Distance Studios
Striking Distance has lost its CEO and co-founder, Glen Schofield, raising questions about the studio's future.
Glen Schofield, the director of 2022's survival-horror game The Callisto Protocol, has today been announced to be leaving developer Striking Distance Studios. After a long run working at Activision and Electronic Arts, Schofield joined Krafton in 2019 to co-found Striking Distance Studios, where he served as the company's CEO. Now, in the wake of larger layoffs that happened at Striking Distance earlier in 2023, Schofield has opted to move on as well.
Reported originally by Bloomberg, Krafton confirmed that Schofield had left Striking Distance after he "decided to pursue new opportunities." In addition to Schofield, the COO and CFO of Striking Distance also have now departed. Krafton stressed that these moves were voluntary for all parties, which means that Schofield and others weren't fired. In an additional statement, Schofield said that he feels "bittersweet" to leave for a new venture but also expressed optimism in regard to Striking Distance's future.
Schofield's decision to exit Striking Distance Studios raises a variety of questions about what the developer will do moving forward. When Schofield first established Striking Distance, he made it known soon after that the company would be working on a successor to the original Dead Space, which Schofield previously helped create when at EA studio Visceral Games. As a result, there was a fervor and excitement around The Callisto Procotol when it released last year, but the game largely failed to meet expectations. Not only was it let loose to middling reviews, but it failed to meet the expectations that Krafton had for it in terms of sales as well. With all of this in mind, a sequel to The Callisto Protocol seems a bit unlikely as Striking Distance looks to tackle its next project.
As for Schofield himself, the longtime video game creator has yet to say what he'll be doing just yet. Schofield has a lot of credits to his name and has worked on a number of massive franchises, most notably with Call of Duty. With this in mind, it wouldn't be a shock to see Schofield pop up at another notable developer or publisher in the weeks or months ahead. For the time being, though, it seems that Schofield may be keeping a low profile as he determines his next course of action.
