“Majority of developers” at The Callisto Protocol’s studio, Striking Distance, face layoffs.

Late last week, former Striking Distance concept art director Jesse Lee took to LinkedIn to reminisce on their time at the The Callisto Protocol studio. “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,” wrote Lee.

The layoffs were confirmed this week in a statement from parent company Krafton to PC Gamer, which you can find below. Apologies for spoiling anyone’s game of official statement bingo but, yes, it contains the word “agile”.

“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,” a Krafton representative told PC Gamer. “The studio remains operational, and these changes will not impact any planned ongoing support. No further changes are planned at this time.”

Several other former employees spoke about losing their jobs alongside Lee. “It was a tough morning at Striking Distance,” said animation director Zach Volker, “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 was also impacted.

It feels telling of LinkedIn’s culture (and the nature of finding more work in a precarious landscape) that many layoff posts are often accompanied by similar expressions of gratitude and eagerness. It’s terrible enough to lose your job through no fault of your own, let alone for a culture (or some cowardly NDA) to discourage or deny you the catharsis of expressing anger and grief for fear of being seen as difficult or not adequatedly cosplaying nebulous notions of ‘professionalism’ – not that I can know how the affected developers genuinely feel.

This isn’t the first round of layoffs at Striking Distance, either, following 32 employees let go in August of 2023. “Striking Distance Studios and Krafton have implemented strategic changes that realign the studio’s priorities to better position its current and future projects for success,” said Krafton at the time. Back in January of that year, more than 20 staff alleged they had been omitted from the game’s credits. “We’re talking full-time employees with over a year invested in the title, and had a hand in significant parts of the product,” one source told Gamesindustry.biz.

The Callisto Protocol’s director Glen Schofield left the studio around the same time as the 2023 layoffs. Striking Distance followed the horror game with roguelike spin-off [REDACTED] released last October, which reached an all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam of 169, note PC Gamer.

This news follows closures at Warner Bros including F.E.A.R and Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor studio Monolith, and rumours of more slashing and burning by Marvel Rivals owners NetEase.

Best of luck to all affected.