Glen Schofield, creator of the classic Dead Space series, may retire from directing due to the current state of the gaming industry.
Dead Space Creator Glen Schofield Claims Industry “On Pause”
In a LinkedIn post detailing what would have been his next moves, Glen Schofield states that he’s walking away from his latest game idea. The catch? His idea wasn’t bad. He couldn’t receive funding.
Schofield reveals that he had been working with his daughter, Nicole, on their latest game idea for the last eight months.
The Dead Space director notes that it was to be a “new sub-genre of horror,” and that they needed a budget of $17 million. Unfortunately, investors wouldn’t bite:
“We pulled the budget down to $17 million, built a prototype with a small, talented crew, and started taking meetings. People loved the concept. We got a lot of 2nd and 3rd meetings. But early feedback was “get it to $10M.” Lately, that number’s dropped to $2–5M.”
Unfortunately, this led Glen Schofield and team to walk away from the project. Now, everyone on his team is out of a job, including his daughter, who was laid off from Striking Distance Studios, the creator of The Callisto Protocol, which Schofield also founded.
Schofield laments the state of the industry and how he wants to make big AAA games. “But with the industry on pause, AAA feels like it’s a long ways away.”
Schofield’s Directing Days May Be Over
Glen Schofield continues, noting that while “he’s still around,” creating art, stories, and keeping up with all the other game-related skills required to keep developing, the prolific creator may have directed his last game.
From the tone of the post, it is clear that Schofield didn’t make that choice. It appears to have been made for him by an industry that’s forcing out its talent due to overbloated budgets and sheer mismanagement.
Microsoft plays a significant role here, laying off a large number of its staff throughout 2025.
Horror developers Supermassive let go of 36 staff earlier this month as well, while also delaying its game to next year. This is on top of services studio Side Inc. and Sandsoft Games experiencing their own sets of layoffs.
Even games as successful as Marvel Rivals aren’t safe, with NetEase letting go of significant amounts of its team despite the game reaching over 40 million players.
