His first 3D game, where he first got a taste for developing new franchises, was at Tomb Raider makers, Crystal Dynamics, designing the character of Gex the Gecko. Development teams were tiny and games were cheaper to make, but the culture back then was the “wild west,” he says. He had the last laugh when it was the company’s best-seller that year. “Or a drink? It’s all sugar-free.” Slumping into an armchair in a long-sleeve big fit tee, the sun’s harsh half-light falls across his face, accentuating his stonework.ĭespite his vibe of oo-rah bravado, Schofield's first game was 1991’s Barbie: Game Girl for Nintendo's GameBoy. His colleagues would leave women's purses on his desk to take the piss (it was the ‘90s). “You want a grape?” he asks, accent like gravel, one-handing an enormous bowl of seedless rubies. With a broad frame, desaturated buzzcut and arms like load-bearing columns, you’d think he’d have seen glorious combat, not paint pots and computer code in blacked-out rooms for decades. We're sat in his office a few weeks from the game's release. Now in his 50s (he wouldn’t tell exactly how far) Schofield has the kind of rocky, muscular face sculpted not by a chisel but a pummel. “Not that New Jersey doesn’t have beaches,” he says, “but a beach in Jersey ain’t the same. He’d later work as a storyboard director of 65 episodes of the cartoon television show, The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers. His side hustle is still going today with painterly landscapes inspired by his move to California 20 years ago. At 26 years old, the Saatchi Gallery paid him $45,000 for a commission. “I was on the ground floor,” he says, “but there were only two floors.” He eventually graduated from New York’s Pratt Institute, one of the world’s top ten art colleges. He bumped shoulders with institutions of the fantasy and science fiction worlds – Dark Tower illustrator Michael Whelan and Foundation author Isaac Asimov – when his work was selected by the Society of Illustrators. I'm like – he mimics a mouth full of food – 'Huh, that's me!'" And they go, 'We want to invite the winner of the poster competition up’. Everyone’s in uniforms and I'm just eating at the front table. “I spent the week with Buzz Aldrin and his family,” he says, “We're at one giant lunch at NASA with like 5,000 people. That changed my world.” In the late '80s, his artwork won a competition in science fiction monthly, Omni Magazine. “I was just like ‘Wow! Look at that nose.” As he got older, his palette diversified from cartoons to landscapes. “I didn’t know if these people were good or bad,” he says. Inspired by political cartoons, he found his knack for sketching. Growing up in New Jersey, he’s been drawing faces since the age of five. Glen Allen Schofield did not grow up wanting to make video games. Initial renders for The Callisto Protoco's Big Mouth monster It would be a new single-player survival horror IP – a risk in the age of ‘live service’ games such as Fortnite and Warzone, and usually something you see with the relative safety of PlayStation or Xbox backing as an exclusive. Krafton would build a new studio, Striking Distance – its first in the US – and finance Schofield’s new game, The Callisto Protocol (then titled Meteor Down). After a year off, he heard that Krafton, the South Korean publisher of Players Unknown Battlegrounds, the fifth best-selling game of all time, were “looking for the Call of Duty guy.” They promised Schofield the creative room to build a culture of his own and not interfere – as many publishers do when their money's on the line. “I was looking for somebody who would take the game that I had, and let me make it my way,” Schofield says. Honestly, he's the reason I'm here.”īut gaming startups cost tens of millions before you’ve even coded a sprite. Some creatives can be 'I'm the idea guy' – Glen’s not like that. “I don't think that Glenn's ever dismissed an idea from anybody. “I like the space that he gives me,” says Chief Technology Officer, Mark James. Many who joined were, in fact, not new – some of Striking Distance’s staff have worked with Schofield now for 10, 15, even 25 years, on and off. He put out the word he was building something new.
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