Game Review: The Callisto Protocol

I just want to preface this review by saying I wanted to enjoy this video game. I don’t go into any of these new experiences with a set intention to dismiss a game from the offset. In fact, I was really excited to pick up The Callisto Protocol.  I’ve been no stranger to video games from the mind of Glenn Schofield as the man has a pretty packed history of games in his portfolio. One of the biggest examples of his work I thoroughly enjoyed is probably Dead Space. When looking back at Dead Space, I remember how consistent an experience it was in being able to scare the crap out of me. Every single sequence in this game was designed to put you through a selection of different challenges all the while giving you a number of unpredictable scares along the way. It was an expertly crafted horror game which set a benchmark for modern horror games at the time. The reason I bring up Dead Space to start of this review is because you can clearly see the similarities between that and Callisto Protocol.  Glenn obviously wanted to recapture the same concept he had all those years ago using new technology and a less restrictive work space. The end result however is not one I can positively endorse as I feel The Callisto Protocol is a generally disappointing experience.

Developed by Striking Distance Studios and published by Krafton, The Callisto Protocol originally started out as a game set in the Player Unknowns Battle Ground universe until later developing into its own original IP. It was released on the 2^nd of December 2022 across all mainline consoles apart from the Nintendo Switch. It plays as a linear third person, over the shoulder horror experience set in the far future, in which you are tasked with escaping a prison on one of the moons orbiting Jupiter. I had no prior knowledge relating to Striking Distance and it was only through my prior experience with Glenn Schofield’s work that I came to know of this game existence. It’s interesting to consider this game’s early origins as a spin-off set in the PUBG universe with it being a popular battle royale game. I imagine that served more as a restriction in the end which is probably why they allowed the title to develop outside that requirement.

The narrative of The Callisto Protocol follows Jacob Lee, a contractor pilot who does jobs shipping cargo for the United Jupiter Company. On a routine mission ferrying cargo from Europa to Callisto he ends up crashing his freighter on the planet just outside the Black Iron Prison. After being saved from the wreckage Jacob is mysteriously detained by the prison’s warden and assigned as an inmate. Before too long Jacob finds himself released from his cell in the midst of a chaotic outbreak in which the inmates of the prison are infected by a parasitic virus which is transforming them into hideous monsters. After allying himself with a local resident of the prison it’s up to Jacob to find a way to escape the prison before the horrors that are infesting it kill him. There’s more to this plot than just a simple escape story but the finer details are probably too close to spoiler territory to divulge much on. All I will say is your escape from Black Iron Prison will be far from straight forward and you will learn some dark secrets as you progress through the facility’s many layers.

As far as the storyline goes, I did enjoy my time with the story of this game but it does suffer from some notable issues. It’s a simple premise in a lot of ways and I can get behind it for that sole reason. There’s no major lore dump to start off with and the premise works by being self-contained within the confines of it’s setting. Black Iron prison is the central canvas for which this story is outlined all throughout and you get a nice sense of how the story works into this place as you progress. While the environmental storytelling is commendable, it’s a shame that the cinematic side of it is not on the same level of quality. I appreciate the game is trying to add a lot of weight to it’s characters by utilising some big-name actors like Josh Duhamel, Karen Fukuhara and Sam Witwer to play them. I just don’t feel like the written narrative utilises these actors in a satisfying way though. As the story needs to constantly find ways to split you apart from these character for gameplay reasons, any sense of interaction fizzles out before too long. I’m not saying these characters aren’t compelling but the game’s short pace gives them little time to define themselves outside of set character traits. When the game doesn’t care enough about its narrative to define and pace it in a good enough fashion, how can it expect me as the player to relate or empathise with its core themes? That’s my honest issue with the game’s narrative in the sense that it feels like the game doesn’t actually care about telling it.

On a visual scale though I have nothing but good things to say about this game. For a game made to work across both pre-gen and current-gen consoles; this game looks absolutely fantastic. I played this game on the PlayStation 5 on performance mode and even then, I got a clear sense of the game’s horrific beauty. All of the environments within this game are rendered with a pristine sense of detail and the designers really knew how to bring out the very best in these places on a graphical level. The use of lighting is a major aspect I commend in too, as it is used to such a grand effect to help add the eerie atmosphere that this game relies on so heavily. The horror element of the game is not just found within its environments but also within its enemy design and death animations. While I don’t think there’s nearly enough variation in enemy design as I would have liked I cannot take away from the pure brilliance of the games catalogue of monsters. Every single enemy in this game is designed with horror in mind. There crafted in a way which reflects a cruel and twisted distortion of what we can become, it reminds me a lot of the monster design from John Carpenter’s The Thing. No detail is spared either, as there’s just so much gross depth layered onto the texture and sound behind them to get you even more creeped out. The way these creatures can kill you as well is some of the goriest deaths I’ve even seen in a video game. The absolute brutality of the way you can be dismembered and pulverised by these enemies is one of the best reflections of he games visual horror and I did like how much variety there way in the way Jacob could die, it reflects a clear quality in the designer’s creativity.

Despite a fair story and a gorgeous visual design however, what really sinks this game for me is its gameplay. I honestly feel the gameplay of this game is terrible and it feels so dated in conceptual design that it feels like it belongs in a game from like 2008. The way Jacob moves and fights is so slow and clunky that you feel like you’re dragging around a lot of excess weight as you explore the game’s many rooms and corridors. The navigation and exploration of the game feels incredibly reliant on vent crawling and narrow passages too that it becomes impossible not to notice how often they break up the sections between levels.  When a good proportion of the time in the game is spent going through pre-rendered intersections then you know you have hindered the pacing of the game considerably. It’s not just navigation that’s an issue either, the user interface for this game doesn’t feel all that competent. When you find an audio collectable in this game you cannot listen to it as you explore. You must stop and listen to it within the menu which feels like such a redundant requirement when most modern games have done away with that by this day and age. Weapon swapping is also unreliable in the best of cases. Often not triggering during the moments when they matter most and being so tedious to navigate through when you need a specific weapon. The very worst example of the gameplay’s poor implantation is within it’s combat for me. I feel the way this game anchors you to a target is so annoying and the dodge mechanic becomes so repetitious and unreliable.  The combat only works if you are facing off against an individual enemy, if you take on more than one or two you see how this games combat can give you a really rough time.  One of my biggest gripes with the combat can be laid to a single enemy type; the Two-Headed Brute. This enemy is a single hit kill on you, giving you no room for error in a combat encounter which is anything but fair. It’s such a frustrating and disappointing element of the game which is so hard to ignore when it’s baked into the core of it.

I really wanted this game to succeed. I enjoyed Dead Space and after hearing all the effort Glenn Schofield went to make this game his personal project, I was happy to support him on that endeavour. Despite the good intentions however I cannot sit here and pretend I enjoyed this game by the time I finished it. It’s a heavily flawed game which struggles to be anything more than average at best. The visuals may be next-generation but the design and conceptual basis of everything else behind this game feels so dated and flawed. It feels like a game that should have come before Dead Space with how inferior it feels in comparison. Even if we weren’t comparing the two games though I honestly feel this game just fails to be of a good quality all on its own. If this series does get a 2^nd instalment, I do hope they learn from all the mistakes because there is a good game here, it’s just a shame it’s buried underneath so many weird design choices.