Dead Space creator Glen Schofield has "decided to walk away" from a new horror game he's been working on, pointing to pressures to drastically reduce its budget as he suggests he might have "directed my last game" after 2022 flop The Callisto Protocol.
As spotted by VGC, Schofield took to LinkedIn in a post a couple of days ago with some unfortunate news, kicking things off by saying that "it's tough out there" in the games industry.
He continues: "Over the past eight months, I've been quietly working with my daughter, Nicole, on a new game idea. She came to me with it, and I immediately loved the idea. Something I hadn't seen before. We've been calling it a new sub-genre of horror – not just horror, but something more."
Schofield says that they "pulled the budget down to $17 million, built a prototype with a small, talented crew, and started taking meetings." However, despite the fact that "people loved the concept," he found that "early feedback was 'get it to $10M.' Lately, that number's dropped to $2–5M."
Furthermore, Schofield says, the team "decided to walk away last month," as he believes that "some ideas are better left untouched than done cheap."
This decision obviously isn't without its consequences, however, as he says: "We had a team of six here in the States and a full crew in the UK. Now, everyone's looking for work. They're all talented folks – if you're hiring, let me know."
Talking about his game development experience from over the years, Schofield notes that he's "worked on games of every size." Now though, "with the industry on pause, AAA feels like it's a long ways away."
Although he says "I miss it all," he adds: "Maybe I've directed my last game. Who knows? If so thank you [for] playing my games."
Although Schofield is probably best known for directing the original Dead Space, he also served as director of The Callisto Protocol, which was developed at Striking Distance Studios – a studio he founded. Unfortunately, it was released to mixed reviews, and around a month after its launch, the game reportedly sold less than half of the five million copies expected by publisher Krafton and investors.
A few months later, a number of devs were laid off, and Schofield himself later voluntarily left to "pursue new opportunities." Needless to say, it'd be a real shame if he never ended up being able to make something else.
Meanwhile, he rounds off his LinkedIn post noting that his daughter Nicole was "laid off from Striking Distance Studios, a studio I founded and a CEO I put in place," despite being "one of the strongest artists I know" and having "built some of our best levels on Callisto Protocol." Schofield concludes: "She's got the talent. Somebody's gonna be lucky to have her."
