Summary
- Striking Distance Studios has undergone significant layoffs.
- The studio’s parent company Krafton has said the studio remains operational and ongoing projects are unaffected.
- A lead gameplay designer and 11 others are prototyping an action game in Unreal 5.
Striking Distance Studios has undergone a sizeable round of layoffs, first revealed by ex-employees and then confirmed by the studio’s parent company Krafton.
Jesse Le, a concept art director, wrote on LinkedIn that “most of the devs” at Striking Distance have been laid off. Animation director Zach Volker expressed a similar sentiment in their goodbye post, saying there had been “lots of layoffs.”
A Layoff a Day…
A statement provided to PC Gamer by Krafton later confirmed the layoffs, with a company representative saying “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.”
Krafton established Striking Distance to facilitate Glen Schofield, the creator of the original Dead Space. The studio’s debut release was The Callisto Protocol, a spiritual successor to Schofield’s most famous work. The Callisto Protocol was released to middling reviews and underwhelming commercial performance, prompting Schofield to depart the studio voluntarily.
Without Schofield, the studio left behind its survival horror roots and began working on an action roguelike named REDACTED. Despite holding “Very Positive” scores on Steam, REDACTED only peaked at 168 players on the platform. Striking Distance’s current project is unannounced, but lead gameplay engineer George Coomber states on his LinkedIn that he’s “leading a team of 12 gameplay engineers to prototype an action game in Unreal 5” (nice spot 80lv).
The layoffs at Striking Distance continue the mass layoffs the gaming industry has experienced since the beginning of 2023. In the first two months of 2025 alone, we’ve seen layoffs at BioWare, Liquid Swords, NetEase Games, 10:10 Games and several other studios. It’s difficult to say whether these layoffs are solely because of a post-pandemic economic contraction or if a culture of laying off employees after a game is shipped is beginning to seep into the industry.
2.5/5
The Callisto Protocol
- Released
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December 2, 2022
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language