Posted in: Games, Krafton, The Callisto Protocol, Video Games | Tagged: indie games, preview, Striking Distance Studios, The Callisto Protocol

Climbing Through Waste: We Review The Callisto Protocol

Published Mon, 26 Dec 2022 06:12:12 -0600

by Gavin Sheehan

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2022 was kind of a mess for us running around and getting to reviews, so today, we're going to mix a preview and a review into one. Krafton Inc. was kind enough to let us preview their latest game, The Callisto Protocol, earlier in the year as we got a taste of what's to come. Then we eventually got a chance to play the game after it was released in full. This game is the brainchild of former Dead Space devs over at Striking Distance Studios; this is basically supposed to be a spiritual successor to that series (even though Electronic Arts are currently working on a reboot of the series, so think of this as a successor to the original run). We played the game at two different points in time and have combined them into this singular review.

The Callisto Protocol Preview — Credit: Krafton Inc.

The premise of The Callisto Protocol is pretty simplistic when it comes to sci-fi horror titles, which is a fantastic bonus in the idea that you are taken on a journey that explains itself over time. You play one of two cargo pilots who have to visit a prison on the Jupiter moon of Callisto, as you are transporting some dangerous cargo to the location with a major payoff in the works. Unfortunately, you get attacked by a terrorist group once you're within the perimeter walls and have to crash land with only a few survivors between you and the attacking group. Once inside, you discover that the prison has been taken over by "biophages," and the only way to get out of there alive is to follow an escape route one of the prisoners has in mind. Which, as you may have guessed, takes you all over the place. Because how could any escape plan just be simple? Along the way you learn exactly what it is your dealing with and find ways to combat it.

The short version is that practically all of the prisoners and staff here are now hideous monsters who, if they attack you, can infect you. Some of them do it slowly over time, others have very quick body horror attacks that are basically one-shot kills unless you take them out in a specific way. You'll have access to several weapons as well as an upgrade system to keep you one step ahead of them, but the further in you go, the harder they become to take down. The game has a few cool systems in place when it comes to your health meter (sitting on the back of your neck), gun usage, and a melee system that comes more in handy than you think to save on ammo and attracting attention. The game has some puzzle areas to solve, but the majority of this game will be fighting monsters, listening to data logs and holographic images, and getting to the next area as quickly as you can without incident.

The Callisto Protocol is fun, but it suffers greatly for a number of reasons. The first one that immediately comes to mind is the difficulty. When you play a video game, you expect whatever they define as "Normal Mode" to be challenging but decently acceptable to play through. A challenge without it being a pain in the backside. The Callisto Protocol's version of Normal is what other games would consider Hard or Difficult. I completely accept the idea that a game should be challenging unless you go out of your way to set it on Easy so that everything feels like a walk in the park. But Normal modes shouldn't make whatever challenge I'm dealing with feel like an insurmountable hill that I cannot get over. There were several instances where I became so frustrated with the game, I physically had to get up and take a walk before I threw a controller.

There were two parts of the game I vividly remember. One was entering a room that had a much harder figure to deal with, who basically beat me into the ground multiple times. Each time I respawned, I would get an item or two to help me, but I could not progress the game without having to run into this character and kill them to get through the door. The challenge was set up so that you had to follow a very specific set of button presses, and after 10 minutes, I felt more like I was trying to master a song on Guitar Hero than I was trying to fight an enemy. When the task was done, I did a rough count and determined that I had fought this thing just under 20 times before I got it right. I had the same experience in a hallway where four enemies came down the hall at specific points in time, and the battle became a specific repetition of moves to kill them. And if you messed up just once, you died and were zoomed back to the start of it all, forcing you to go back through this DOOM Brutal Mode-like challenge all over again.

The game also suffers from what I like to call "Arkham Syndrome," in which you are walking through a complex maze of a level that makes absolutely zero sense as to why anyone would ever design something in that structure configuration. That moment when you're walking down a hallway, and that hall leads to another hall, that leads to some big area, which leads to another winding hall, that leads to an air duct, which you crawl through to get to an area that is unconnected to everything else. Because why would it? A lot of the exploration of this game, especially in the inner workings of the prison, makes no sense as to why any of it exists. There's a point where you crawl through the sewage system, which has a ton of walkways and access points, which makes no sense why anyone would create a series of doors that lead to a room where waste is evacuated. Later you go down a water tunnel filled with hallways where, if it were operating normally, ALL of it would be underwater. Its fine having minor catwalks and other systems in place, as well as suspending disbelief about a prison in space. But if the structure makes no sense beyond the idea that video game logic put it there, the immersion is broken.

The Callisto Protocol isn't a bad game, per se. But it isn't the best one, either. There are concepts here that work really well, and I enjoyed being able to work with them. Not to mention a solid story that will give you nightmares for a hot minute. But its paired with some raw mechanics, bad level design, and one of the worst difficulty settings we've ever had to play through. If you're a glutton for punishment and like a challenge that basically mocks you every time you fail, this is absolutely the game for you.

The Callisto Protocol