The Callisto Protocol Was Never Going To Sell 5 Million Copies

The Callisto Protocol has underperformed. A report emerged this past weekend stating that it has both failed to reach sales expectations or recoup its $162 million budget. Ever since its polarising reviews and lukewarm launch, Striking Distance has kept quiet about the survival horror game outside of updates and the occasional communication with fans. It has now emerged that publisher Krafton expected the title to sell a minimum of five million copies. That hasn’t happened, and it will apparently be lucky to break two million total in 2023 alone.

This is yet another hubris-laden case of a publisher misunderstanding the market and genre it exists within, as well as overestimating what an experience like The Callisto Protocol is capable of. Even if it had glowing reviews and ample word of mouth, its sales expectations feel unrealistic, with rivals like Resident Evil Village – arguably the biggest horror IP in the medium – only managing six million in its first six months on the market. Striking Distance was never going to match those numbers as both a new property and a fairly generic copycat of Dead Space it will forever remain in the shadow of. Not by coincidence either, it actively leans into such an identity.