Striking Distance, the studio behind The Callisto Protocol, has unfortunately been struck with more layoffs, as confirmed by parent company Krafton. The information began surfacing online earlier today, with former Director of Concept Art Jesse Lee writing a post on Linkedin, saying “most of the devs were laid off.”
It was then confirmed later in the day by Krafton, where they gave a statement to PC Gamer about what had happened. Krafton has declined to put a number on the amount of layoffs that had been made but said that they were done to keep the team “agile.”
“Striking Distance Studios has reduced the size of its team to remain agile, which creates a sustainable environment for the studio at its current stage of development. The studio remains operational, and these changes will not impact any planned ongoing support. No further changes are planned at this time,” said a representative.
Unfortunately, this is not the first round of layoffs that Striking Distance has experienced. Layoffs took place in August 2023, where 32 people lost their jobs. The Callisto Protocol was a mixed bag out of the gate, with a lot of people having issues with stuttering, especially on PC. The game had some pretty high-end demands. However, the game was a significantly smoother experience on a console. Kai Tatsumoto reviewed the game two years ago and gave it a 7.2.
With the failure of The Callisto Protocol, Glen Schofield left Striking Distance in September 2023, which was just over a month after layoffs took place.
Striking Distance then made a top-down shooter after The Callisto Protocol, but that game also failed, with an all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam of 169. Considering how much money went into developing The Callisto Protocol, with the game costing over $160 million to make and then not performing as well as they had hoped, this was devastating news for the company.
There is now news that the company is reportedly working on a new title that is being developed in Unreal Engine 5. Lead Gameplay Programmer of Striking Distance has on his LinkedIn profile that he is “leading a team of 12 gameplay engineers” to make this upcoming title.
So far, this year has already seen a devastating amount of layoffs across a number of companies, both big and small. Most recently, the entire Marvel Rivals team was laid off, as well as a significant number of staff at Bossa Games.
