Krafton CEO says The Callisto Protocol suffered because it lacked a ‘gameplay edge’

Krafton CEO Changhan ‘CH’ Kim feels The Callisto Protocol failed to meet expectations because it didn’t have a “gameplay edge.”

The horror title was developed by Krafton subsidiary Striking Distance Studios and billed as a spiritual successor to Dead Space.

Former Dead Space executive producer Glen Schofield oversaw production as co-director, but the title reportedly failed to meet internal sales targets (thanks Eurogamer) when it launched in 2022. Around 32 employees were subsequently laid off, and Schofield eventually departed to “pursue new opportunities.”

During a recent interview with Game Developer, Kim suggested Krafton and Striking Distance struggled during production (which was reportedly impacted by crunch) because it was the first time the South Korean company had developed a single-player, triple-A project.

“It’s the first time we ever did a project with those keywords attached, so we had difficulty predicting if the production was going the way it should, but I had two lessons learned,” says Kim.

“This is a single-player narrative game [that’s] visually stunning and a high-quality game to look at. Despite that, the game’s core is the gameplay. Gameplay comes first is what I learned with The Callisto Protocol. It could be the most high-quality game in the world, but if you don’t have a gameplay edge–if you can’t differentiate your gameplay from your competitors–it doesn’t work out. I was able to reaffirm that.”

Kim reiterates that gameplay must innovate in some way. That could mean implementing a mechanic that’s deeply immersive or creatively fresh–it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re driving into previously uncharted territory.

“This allows for new experiences within the game, and even though [The Callisto Protocol] is a narrative game, a single-player game, you need to be able to offer a good gameplay experience. You can’t do that without those elements,” he continues. “Secondly, because [making] games is a hit-based industry, the production cost can scale up immensely and triple-A titles are very expensive to make.”

Krafton boss feels early iteration is the key to innovation (and keeping budgets in check)

Hammering that point home, Kim references Sony’s production budgets for Horizon Forbidden West ($212 million) and The Last of Us Part II ($220 million), both of which were revealed last year by way of a poorly redacted legal filing that emerged during the FTC’s battle with Microsoft (thanks Axios), as evidence of how much costs can skyrocket.

With budgeting firmly in mind, Kim feels Krafton should have told Striking Distance to iterate more during the early stages of production, when the overheads were smaller and there was more room for experimentation. “We should have iterated more to check if the new gameplay worked out well, and then moved on to full production to go full force,” he adds.

Kim says Krafton is now attempting to create new IPs by prioritizing creativity, even if that means sacrificing “linear” year-over-year growth. “For us, PUBG is our foundation and we’re growing based on PUBG’s growth, but going forward we have to birth new IPs,” he adds. “It might take years to [create new IPs], but we’re not going to give up. We’re going to continuously try new creative [ideas].”

Kim points to the success of titles like Helldivers 2 and Palworld as evidence of that creative-first mantra delivering results, but acknowledges the market is unpredictable.

“We’re going to continuously try these new creative ideas. Not everything will succeed, but one of these days we might just hit another PUBG. […] This is a very bottom-up approach, I would say, and it’s not what a lot of big companies are attempting right now.”

It’s an approach that recently led Krafton to purchase Tango Gameworks and Hi-Fi Rush from Microsoft, despite Kim acknowledging a potential sequel might not make a lot of money. You can hear Kim speak more about that acquisition right here.