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Dead Space Creator Glen Schofield is leaving Striking Distance studio after first game Callisto Protocol flops.

FeralEcho

Member
Thats too bad...Callisto Protocol remains one of my favourite horror experiences and one of my favourite games of this generation.I even loved the dlc and loved how gruesome and grim the ending was.I enjoyed it less than the original Dead Space trilogy yet way more than the shitty Dead Space remake everyone seems to enjoy over this game. Oh well I can always replay the game though i would've killed for a sequel that improved upon it.
 

violence

Gold Member
Good game. I actually completed it which says a lot, I rarely do that these days. It just wasn't a classic like Dead Space. I knew the sequels would have been even better.

In starfield, I'll be sure to land on Callisto and have a moment of "zoned out" silence.
 
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Needlecrash

Member
You hate to see it. I gave the game a chance but I was immediately turned off by the PC issues and shitty combat. So much for AAAA gaming. Here's to hoping he lands on his feet elsewhere.
 

Fbh

Member
Shame, a lot of teams don't instantly hit gold on their first attempt.
I hope the studio survives, having "The Creator of Dead Space" was half the reason why Striking Distance had any notoriety to begin with.


Both this game and the Immortals game were doomed from the beginning due to the creator's ridiculous design mandates. No one wanted to play a magic shooter and no one wants to play a melee game with poor melee combat with one weapon.

their studios do have a lot of talent so maybe this might be good in the long run.

Hey I want a magic shooter.
Just not one that has Marvel writing all over every single trailer, and runs at 720p 45-60fps on consoles for the sake of grapahics which aren't that amazing to begin with
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
The reveal trailer was amazing. The final product was a shiny turd. Looked good, but the gameplay was a huge step back after Dead Space. EA cashed in on that Remake. Sad, but true IMO. The man helped make Dead Space, so it’s not like I’d be crying if I was him. Dead Space is up there with RE4 if you ask me.
 

BbMajor7th

Member
It's a shame - way too much development budget went into showing they could cut it with the big boys on visuals. Sadly the gameplay is unremarkable, not terrible per se, but honestly, fifteen years on from Dead Space it felt like a step back.writing too was just 'sure, I guess' rather than 'nice, I'm in.'
 

MiguelItUp

Member
I feel like there are a lot of reasons Callisto Protocol didn't do better. But I don't know how much of that is because of Glen. As Glen is daddy Dead Space, I'm forever going to be interested in what he does next. Really hoping it's something with a better outcome.

Also, I hate Schreier. Majority of the time I don't know if he writes/talks the way he does because he's severely unprofessional, or if its because his ego is so big he just doesn't give a shit about how things sound.
 
I kept on saying "some" people wanted the game to flop due to one of his tweets about developer crunch.
The whole tone towards the game changed literally the day after that tweet.
And they was quick to announce its failure just 3 weeks after release because it sold 2mill instead of 5 mill
No other reports have been shared since

As I said, it sold 2mill from 2nd Dec to Jan
And that's the only numbers we got, it's definitely sold a lot more than that since then
But they was expecting 5mill at launch which I think is absurd for a new IP.
financially you could say it was a failure from that perspective especially if they wanted to make that money back(day 1) but I wouldn't say it was a flop.
But it did fail to meet the publishers expectations.

It's almost like history repeated itself. Ten years ago, EA expected Dead Space 3 to sell 5 million copies, which it just couldn't do. Horror titles tend to be more on the niche side. Even the mainstream series, like Resident Evil, usually sell a few million, but 5 mil is a pretty rare event. The Callisto Protocol was a new, unproven IP. The fact that it sold 2 million copies in its launch window is something that should be celebrated. But it seems that the amount of money put into the game was simply too high for the publisher to consider that a success. It's a true shame, but sadly, this is the world we live in when it comes to AAA video games. Too much money is spent on development, and publishers expect these ventures to make all the money in the world. The Callisto Protocol was never going to sell five million units, and the people who should be on the chopping block are the bean counters at the publisher holding a new IP in a niche genre to absolutely unreasonable expectations that any armchair analyst could have told them was impossible from the get go.
 
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StueyDuck

Member
with all the dust being settled...

how is the game? worth playing, and no not the IGN 9 or worst game ever. like reasonable critique if it's worth playing
 

Heimdall_Xtreme

Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
Maybe the release date was not appropriate... Releasing the game in December when it is Christmas and a time of peace, love, brotherhood 🎉🎁🎄🎅... I like horror games, but I wouldn't buy one on those dates ..
 

MrA

Member
Oh man ...

Glen is one of the good ones. Was a huge part of what made Dead Space great and Callisto was his creation from top to bottom.

It was a flawed game, but I loved it. The talent on display in was palpable.

Building a studio + a game of that scope all during COVID must have been hell

Hopefuly we will see more from him
What annoyed me with callisto protocol was it was so close to being good,
I think
1. more enemy variety,
2. Upgrades to suit and melee should have been part of the game
3. Pace of new weapons should have been less concentrated in the late game and they should have been more varied
 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
with all the dust being settled...

how is the game? worth playing, and no not the IGN 9 or worst game ever. like reasonable critique if it's worth playing

Bad idea to ask something like that here. Do your own research and know your own taste and make your own decision. Not like you’ll be paying full price nowadays anyway.
 

JimboJones

Member
It was a bad game but it had great graphics and some good atmosphere.
It offended me with how bad it was but I still think it was good enough to find some market.
100% not bad enough to sink down the studio
It is a shame that this happens, maybe a sequel could smooth out the rough edges or maybe come at it the gameplay from a slightly different angle.
 

Neff

Member
It's a shame they went to all that trouble to make an eye-gasmic horror shooter which is too short, too repetitive, and made you spend far too long crawling through ducts. Because otherwise it was an enjoyable (if derivative) little adventure. I genuinely liked the melee/dodge/critical shot system and throwing monsters around was fun. I would buy a sequel instantly.
 

Inuteu

Member
I like Callisto. The best graphics in the gen so far to me

good enough gameplay and ambience

its sad that this kills the hope for any sequel or similar game in the future

the space horror genre is a fertile terrain
 
Maybe the release date was not appropriate... Releasing the game in December when it is Christmas and a time of peace, love, brotherhood 🎉🎁🎄🎅... I like horror games, but I wouldn't buy one on those dates ..
It's pretty obvious the publisher insisted on the December release to beat Dead Space (2023) to market and attempt to suck all the oxygen out of the room. But the game just didn't have enough of a wow factor to do that. On the other side of the fence, Dead Space (2008) is considered a horror classic. But EA being EA, there was rather an expectation that they would screw up with the remake. They didn't. It turned out to be a fantastic product, and it ended up being The Callisto Protocol that had all the oxygen stolen from it. A lot of dubious decisions and divisive gameplay put it on the backfoot, while Dead Space was out there being Dead Space with modern graphics and tweaks. The amount of bad press that TCP was getting also likely hurt it, so I'd say that the whole 2 million in sales is a good achievement giving what it was up against and how the final product just didn't connect with people as well as it should have.
 
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Hudo

Member
One thing must've felt like shit for him though: He spent years at EA trying to get Dead Space off the ground again without success. Then he leaves to make a spiritual successor to Dead Space, only for EA to announce a Dead Space remake. And then it turns out that the Dead Space remake was actually not bad at all.
 
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Justin9mm

Member
with all the dust being settled...

how is the game? worth playing, and no not the IGN 9 or worst game ever. like reasonable critique if it's worth playing
The whole game besides the combat is almost shimmying or crawling from one room to the next. I'm not joking. It is the some of the laziest level design I've ever experienced. It all looks the same. Combat dodge system is clunky. Boss fights are pointless. The game overall was not executed that well. The ambition and idea was there but it falls flat.

Edit: The atmosphere is not at all that scary either and the pretty visual graphics is probably what kept me going to complete the game.
 
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Drizzlehell

Banned
I'm still yet to play this, even though it's been sitting in my library for months. I think I just don't want to face the reality of this game being shit, and I prefer to live with the idea that this still might be good.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
It takes a lot of talented people to make a good game. The notion that one person is responsible for a good game and therefor a new game from this person will immediately be a smash hit is ridiculous. The hubris was ridiculous.

Glen Schofield is just a man. Just like Patrice Desilets, Clint Hocking, Hideo Kojima, John Romero, Cliffy B, David Jaffe.. The list goes on.
 

violence

Gold Member
One thing must've felt like shit for him though: He spent years at EA trying to get Dead Space off the ground again without success. Then he leaves to make a spiritual successor to Dead Space, only for EA to announce a Dead Space remake. And then it turns out that the Dead Space remake was actually not bad at all.

It certainly became less special with dead space getting a remake.

The creator of Star Wars Harmy's Despecialized Edition felt his work became less important when 4K 77 was released. Not sure if that’s a great analogy lol.
 
Curious,
If he founded it but is leaving doesn't it mean he also has stocks etc. Like, he'll still make money from any future titles?
 

GymWolf

Member
Terrible game so not really surprised, the dude should just join the ds remake team for their next game.
 

nowhat

Gold Member
Do we have sales data? and how much money the game cost to make? I thought it sold pretty well?

That's a "decent" budget for a first game. Unreasonably bloated, one could argue.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member

That's a "decent" budget for a first game. Unreasonably bloated, one could argue.
They should have went with cheaper talent, since I doubt the names of the stars made a lick of difference. But I'm sure it impacted the budget heavily.
 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
I'm still yet to play this, even though it's been sitting in my library for months. I think I just don't want to face the reality of this game being shit, and I prefer to live with the idea that this still might be good.

I think I have a pretty good grasp on your taste and I think you'd probably dig it
 

nowhat

Gold Member
They should have went with cheaper talent, since I doubt the names of the stars made a lick of difference. But I'm sure it impacted the budget heavily.
I think in general using well-known actors is a bad thing (unless you're Kojima - I mean it's not a good thing with him onboard either, but who's going to restrain him). Take something like Until Dawn, I think it would have been much less in the uncanny valley/more believable without all them celebs whose features most know very well.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I think in general using well-known actors is a bad thing (unless you're Kojima - I mean it's not a good thing with him onboard either, but who's going to restrain him). Take something like Until Dawn, I think it would have been much less in the uncanny valley/more believable without all them celebs whose features most know very well.
You leave Hayden Panettiere alone!

But agreed.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Both this game and the Immortals game were doomed from the beginning due to the creator's ridiculous design mandates. No one wanted to play a magic shooter and no one wants to play a melee game with poor melee combat with one weapon.
Well then, people need to stop pretending that they actually want "new" or unconventional things. People will flap their gums about wanting new IP and ideas, but what they really want is a redux of the same shit they've played before with a new coat of paint, and they expect it to be nailed first time.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
Well,... fuck... To say that I'm dissapointed is to say nothing. Instead of making things right with the seaquel Glen and others just left and said fuck everything.
 
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