Dead Space creator Glen Schofield retires after 35 years in games

Glen Schofield, the co-creator of Dead Space and co-founder of Sledgehammer Games, has announced his retirement from game development after a 35-year career. He broke the news in an emotional video posted to LinkedIn, filmed outdoors amid birdsong and hills — a fittingly low-key send-off for one of horror gaming's most influential figures.

In the video, Schofield thanked EA for letting him make Dead Space, Activision for trusting him with three Call of Duty games, his colleagues, fans, and his family. "After 35 years of making games and directing them, running teams, it's time for me to officially retire from the day-to-day work," he said. He also offered a parting message to the next generation of developers: "Explore, experiment, enjoy — and don't forget that the most important thing is the idea." Despite the industry's current struggles, he stayed optimistic: "I know times are tough right now, but man, the future ahead is really, really bright."

Schofield's career stretches back to 1991, starting as an artist on titles ranging from Barbie: Game Girl to Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain. His defining work came at EA's Visceral Games, where he co-created Dead Space in 2008 — a survival horror game that carved out its own identity even in a genre already shaped by Resident Evil. He then co-founded Sledgehammer Games with Michael Condrey, helping rescue Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 after Infinity Ward's collapse, then leading Advanced Warfare and WWII. His final shipped game was The Callisto Protocol in 2022, a Dead Space-inspired sci-fi horror title developed at Striking Distance Studios under Krafton — it missed its sales targets and received a mixed critical reception. After leaving that studio in 2023, Schofield tried to get a new horror project off the ground independently, but couldn't secure funding even as budget expectations dropped from $10 million to $2–5 million. He also pitched Dead Space 4 to EA around the time of the 2023 remake, but that went nowhere. In recent years his focus shifted toward visual art and AI, and he was notably blunt about Elon Musk's claim that xAI could generate a full game from scratch — "he's full of crap," Schofield said at Gamescom Asia 2025.

Schofield's retirement lands at a grim moment for the western games industry, with tens of thousands of development jobs lost since 2022 across studios including Xbox, Bungie, and Ubisoft. His struggle to get a modest horror project funded after shipping multimillion-selling games says a lot about where the industry currently stands. The response from the gaming community has been warm, with many pointing to Dead Space as a landmark that still influences horror game design today.