Dead Space creator says Krafton forced him to ship The Callisto Protocol mid-Covid

Glen Schofield, creator of Dead Space and co-founder of Striking Distance Studios, says publisher Krafton pressured him to ship The Callisto Protocol before the game was ready — and he points directly to the chaos of the Covid pandemic as the reason the team was struggling in the first place.

Schofield's quote is blunt: "We had f*cking Covid." His point is that developing a new survival horror game at a brand-new studio while the world was in lockdown created conditions that made hitting a polished release nearly impossible, yet Krafton pushed the game out the door anyway.

The Callisto Protocol launched in December 2022 to a mixed reception. Reviews acknowledged its strong atmosphere and visual fidelity — Striking Distance clearly knew how to build dread — but criticised repetitive combat, performance issues on PC at launch, and a lack of the mechanical depth that made Dead Space a genre benchmark. Schofield had founded Striking Distance in 2019 specifically to make this game, positioning it as a spiritual successor to the franchise he helped create at EA back in 2008. The gap between ambition and execution frustrated a lot of players who came in with high expectations.

Schofield departed Striking Distance in early 2023, shortly after launch. His comments now add context to what looked at the time like a straightforward post-ship exit — it sounds less like a clean handoff and more like a difficult ending to a difficult project.