Striking Distance, the studio founded by Dead Space creator Glen Schofield in 2019 (who later left in 2023), has suffered another layoff round. Soon after the release of Callisto Protocol’s first and only story DLC in 2023, the studio let 32 people go. The good news, though, is that the studio will remain operational, and current projects will not be impacted.
Posts from people impacted by the layoff started surfacing on social media last week. Concept art director Jesse Lee who was affected recounted their journey from when Striking Distance started.
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“Thinking back to the very beginning of Striking Distance Studios, to today—nearly six years later……most of the devs were laid off, and it is hard to sum it all up right now,” Lee wrote on LinkedIn.
Animation director Zach Volker said, “It was a tough morning at Striking Distance, lots of layoffs, including myself. It was a great ride and I’m so grateful for the opportunities I had to lead the charge on multiple projects and for the new relationships I’ve built.”
Cloud devops engineer Seth Spitkoski also said they were impacted by the layoff last week but only posted about it after taking time to relax over the weekend. Several other former Striking Distance employees also commented on the layoff—unfortunately, we couldn’t capture all of them.
Striking Distance’s parent company, Krafton, confirmed the layoff in a message sent to PC Gamer without providing the number of people impacted.
“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,” said a spokesperson. “The studio remains operational, and these changes will not impact any planned ongoing support. No further changes are planned at this time.”
Striking Distance’s last release was a top-down roguelike shooter called Redacted. Although Callisto Protocol had a mixed reception, Redacted was worse with an all-time peak concurrent player count of 169 on Steam. While the studio has yet to announce any new project, several employees hinted that work on a new project was in the early stages.
