Dead Space and The Callisto Protocol creator Glen Schofield has revealed quite a few details about the horror title in a recent interview with The Game Business. In the interview, among other subjects, Schofield also revealed that between 6 and 7 million copies of The Callisto Protocol have been sold.
Speaking about AAA development, Schofield also spoke about the challenges that came with the development of The Callisto Protocol, including things like having to start up a new studio. This, he believes, was a big reason for the budget for The Callisto Protocol being considered as huge as it is.
“They couldn’t believe that we spent $100 million,” explained Schofield. “We had to start everything new. We started a studio in the United States, and all those costs are lumped in there. Then we were PS4, and they go ‘We got to switch to PS5’. I come back a few weeks later with the cost, and they were like: ‘What? You’re just going to PS4 to PS5?’ And I’m like: ‘Are you kidding? You want to do that at no cost?’”
“And then we had to build a publishing company. They did have one, but it had only done PUBG. So, we built one from scratch and put them in Striking Distance. That was a major overhead.”
When it comes to the sales of The Callisto Protocol, Schofield also admitted that he doesn’t have the sales figures himself. Despite this, however, he believes that the game made back the money that was spent on its development.
“From what I heard, the game sold between six and seven million copies,” said Schofield. “It made a lot of money for a first game. I’ve heard those numbers a couple of times. But even if it’s five million, it’s made its money.”
Interestingly, Schofield expressed some regret at releasing The Callisto Protocol when he did. Looking at how the title did in hindsight, he believes that the rush to get the game out in time for Christmas 2022 led to the game’s poorly-optimised state on PC.
“I freaking love making games,” said Schofield. “I don’t like when the politics get in the way, which they did with Krafton. There was no doubt about it. They told me that the game has to ship in December because of the Korean stock market. I should have just shut it down right there. I’m mad of myself on that one. When it came out it was a s*** show on PC. So, we got labelled with that. And we should. I was upset.”
“[Krafton] stopped talking to me on December 10, right after ship. And didn’t talk to me again until next May. During that time, I took the team and we did all our DLC. We did 86 patches. We had a regiment every time we were going to do a patch. 12 of us would get in a room, every department, and if all 12 didn’t raise their hand that it was ready, we didn’t send it out.”
Schofield also spoke about the new project that he was working with alongside his daughter, and how his efforts to get it funded weren’t working out. Before this project, however, he was working on another one – dubbed Hellion – for which he was looking for $100 million in funding.
Neither Hellion nor his daughter’s projects ended up getting funded, and Schofield had spoken about this back in July, noting that he might be done with directing games, at least for the time being.