In space, no one can hear you blame
Four years after the release of Dead Space spiritual successor The Callisto Protocol, the co-creator of both, Glen Schofield (no relation), has now openly claimed that Callisto's sub-par release state was down to publishers Krafton - as he and his team were "forced to ship the game" to Krafton's shortened schedule.
In a new interview with GamesIndustry.biz (thank you!), Schofield claims that Striking Distance Studios had the rug pulled out from under them towards the end of The Callisto Protocol's development, both by COVID-imposed staff disruptions (hard to blame anyone but God there, I guess) and by Krafton's decision-making. The game's original release date of March 2023 was pulled up to December 2022, giving the studio less time than allegedly promised to complete it, and resulting in reported crunch conditions while less vital elements of the game were cut (though some were brought back via post-launch DLC). This was compounded by a mandate to make the game a cross-platform release across PS4 and PS5, and Striking Distance allegedly having to handle aspects of publishing and marketing themselves. As he says, "I was forced to ship the game. I'm mad at myself, there's no doubt. I was so stunned by that decision, because we had fucking COVID."
Upon its less than stellar reviews, Krafton CEO CH Kim stated the release "fell short of market expectations"; Schofield more directly states that "they thought Callisto was a complete failure", and highlights the fact that "what they didn't know while all they were doing was complaining, we were doing patches. I waited until I finished all the DLC and put out 86 patches. That was a lot of fucking work." The game did go on to receive narrative DLC and new modes, so he has a point. It's just rare to see a director quite so openly blame a publisher for fucking them over like this, but I suppose if there's any publisher to do it to, it's Krafton.
Though, I won't harp on this too much, but it's hard to read this and not notice that Schofield - who left Striking Distance Studios in 2023, and has since retired from game development - never offers to share any blame for The Callisto Protocol's issues. While I'm not about to go to bat for Krafton by any means, it's difficult to trust the words of a director shitting on his publisher while taking no responsibility himself. He describes himself as a "a creative leader, and a business leader", but goes on to say "that doesn't mean I want to do the business. I hate that shit. Just point me in the direction and let me do the creative leadership that I need to do", which, I mean, the business is kind of part of the job, not just being the ideas guy. Plus, you know, he states "Midjourney has become a medium for me", and that he feels it necessary to "put AI to work where it makes sense". That's a lovely, depressing note to end the interview on.