There should be a Callisto Protocol 2, says Dead Space creator Glen Schofield: "we had to cut two and a half bosses"

rockpapershotgun.com:

Dead Space developer and Striking Distance co-founder Glen Schofield left Striking Distance last September, following lower-than-hoped sales and mixed reviews for the studio's debut project The Callisto Protocol. Now, he's back to share a little about the horror game's difficult development, offering details of cut materials, a complicated relationship with parent company Krafton, the impact of Covid, and abandoned plans for a sequel.

The interview in question is with Youtuber Dan Allen. While more appreciative than critical, it's a long, candid chat that's worth watching in full if you're interested in the game. I've put together some highlights.

Striking Distance were founded in 2019 as part of Krafton's efforts to establish revenue streams beyond their legendary battle royale Plunkbat, aka PUBG: Battlegrounds. The Callisto Protocol began life as a game in the PUBG universe but eventually became its own thing, heavily inspired by Dead Space. It was a tough project from the outset. "We started off with a new studio, a new company, a new IP, a new everything," Schofield recalled to Allen. "And then we're six months into it, and they say, by the way, there's new consoles. They actually thought, let's just switch to PS5, and I said well that's a magnitude harder. We're talking millions of dollars more."

Nonetheless, Schofield said the relationship between Striking Distance and Krafton was positive at first. "I really liked working with them for the first couple of years. It was really the last year or so [before I left] - we went public and it put an awful strain on the company, the board of directors and everybody else, and then they put the strain on us."

Amongst other things, Schofield feels he was deceived about how much time Striking Distance had to finish the game, which led to impractical project scoping. "I wanted about three and a half more months, and I was led to believe for about three months, four months that that's the way it was going to be,"