Callisto Protocol Review

(Copy and paste of a comment posted on other Callisto Protocol videos. Just didn’t feel like retyping all of this)

It’s such a shame that Callisto Protocol turned out to be a dumpster fire. I was really excited to see a cool Dead Space spiritual successor. So glad I didn’t buy the thing, and highly doubt I will (I’ll get into how my ideal version of the game is a radically different game).

There’s this really interesting 40 minute video talking about the various connections between Callisto and PUBG (or if you’d rather read there’s this Reddit thread that goes into the connections between the two. I also watch almost everything at 1.5-2x speed, so videos are faster for me. I’ll also tend to have them play in the background while doing something else). Just like everyone else I didn’t know PUBG even had lore, was confused when they announced the game was set in the same world, and was glad when they announced the two would be separated. Interestingly, the story would’ve been much better if they kept the two in the same world. PUBG’s setting has a ruined world where the climate is awful, and there’s resources scarcity where the rich live in luxurious enclaves and oat of the population live in slums (reminds me of Black Ops 4’s scrapped campaign). The only form of upward mobility is to fight in the Battlegrounds that are run by this organization called The Circle that do this to see why some live, while others die. The winner will be labeled “Vir Solitarius”, meaning “solitary male” or “lone survivor” (what The Circle calls Jacob). In it contestants will be given a blue chip at the base of their neck that shows their vitals, tracks them, and extends their lives (huh, sure sounds familiar). Part of their plan in Callisto was to use the prison for a controlled outbreak so an Alpha Biophage who retains their free will can form. When you get the the councils of holograms that one guy will chastise Jacob “for doing whatever it takes to survive”, which doesn’t really work since he’s just been killing zombies and robots the whole time. Based on all of this we can assume that early on they wanted the game to be a brawler where you’d fight your way through other people in a battle royal type situation, while also dealing with the growing number of mutants. Something else that’s interesting is the name of Jacob’s ship is the same as some ferryman from mythology who carries souls to the afterlife. This implies that he would’ve been shipping human cargo to Black Iron Prison, and that would’ve done a good job of explaining why his partner was apprehensive about taking this last job and why the Warden detained Daniel/Jacob having detected no other life signs in the cargo (test subjects). They could’ve revealed this by having there be burned bodies inside hidden compartments in the ship’s cargo. This would’ve been better than having the game treat him like a bad guy for self defense against mindless zombies and transporting something he reasonably wouldn’t have know what it was. By that point any anomalies would be either ignored, or they’d be part of the job. If both of those were kept in the game the moral ambiguity would’ve actually worked, and Jacob suffering a BRUTAL death after staying behind so Dani could escape would’ve felt earned.

The game would’ve been far better if they had human enemies in it. I know people weren’t fans of human enemies in DS3, but I’d argue that has more to do with the fact that they were done poorly rather than being bad in concept. Someone on another Callisto Protocol review showed some interviews where Glenn was saying that to make the mutants scary the team tried to make them uncanny and humanoid. The guy on the video said that the reason why humans are scary is because we’re unpredictable and intelligent. He then mentioned Condemned Criminal Origins as a great example of a horror game with human enemies that are scary because they’re unsettling, and smart. That’s what they should’ve done with the other prisoners. For human guards there’s two options. The first is to give them the batons, and when fighting them it’s like a dual where you’ll have to block and parry their attacks. The second type would be guards who have guns, and just like the robot’s guns they’re LETHAL (the inverse is true for them and the other humans. You’d be able to cut them down with ease, but you’d want to save your ammo for the zombies. Those guys should’ve played like the Necromorphs where melee is a last resort you DON’T want to do). All of these would make it so you’d want to use stealth, flanking, and what weapon you’ll use (adding more melee weapons would work for something like this). The contrast would add some much needed enemy variety to the game (not going to delve into what they could’ve done with parasites that can mutate their hosts on the fly because it takes 5 seconds of thought to come up with all manor of crazy forms they could’ve taken that would radically alter how you’d deal with them. If they didn’t want to make anything new there’s a LONG list of other space zombies they could’ve copied. I also won’t touch on horror since so many other people have talked about it already).

It’s such a shame what we got was mediocre at best. From what I’ve heard the reason the game’s so linear and has so many vents you crawl through isn’t to hide loading screens. They were so rushed that they didn’t have any time to connect the different level spaces in a way that made logical sense. If the game had combat arenas with plenty of cover/flanking routes, branching paths that lead to the same goal, secrets hidden out of the way, and other stuff like that the thing could’ve had a lot of replayability. I heard that the team was cut down and won’t be given any major games to work on in the future. Hopefully, they can make something good in the future and won’t just become a support studio.