The Callisto Protocol Review (PC)

The Callisto Protocol was always advertised as a Dead Space-like game that is trying to pick up the torch dropped after the studio that developed the series, Visceral Games, was closed down by EA several years ago.

It appears that EA didn’t like the ideas Visceral provided for a fourth Dead Space game, so it decided to shelf the franchise. The Dead Space Remake coming this year might be either a death sentence for the series or a new beginning, depending on how well will perform financially.

That said, The Callisto Protocol is supposedly an evolution of the Dead Space formula, especially since it’s developed by Glen Schofield, the co-creator of the Dead Space series, and his new studio called Striking Distance Studios.

Unfortunately, The Callisto Protocol not only lacks any twists or new elements, but also simplifies many mechanics and systems that made the Dead Space games so unique (in a good way).

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The Callisto Protocol follows the story of Jacob Lee, greatly played by Josh Duhamel, who weirdly becomes prisoner on the Jovian moon Callisto. There’s absolutely no buildup to the moment that Jacob has to fight against infected prisoners with an unknown disease, but at least Duhamel plays the role very well.

From start to finish, The Callisto Protocol seems a low-budget version of Dead Space, although that might not be true on paper. The entire formula has been copied and adapted to work on the same frame, but with a slightly different taste: a bitter one.

Despite trying to make every level feel claustrophobic and terrifying, I didn’t feel really threatened until the last chapter of the game where I got some Dead Space vibes, even if just for a short while.

There’s little variation to enemies, which I can understand since this is a shorter game. However, the combat system has been stripped down of all the fun and reduced to a series a QTEs (quick time events). There’s no dismemberment in The Callisto Protocol, something that made the Dead Space series so interesting from a combat perspective. Instead, you must hold left or right to dodge enemies’ attacks and then bash them to death with a baton.

I think it’s a poor design choice that doesn’t go well with the survival horror action genre. Also, the character movement is extremely sluggish in an attempt to give Jacob weight, just like in Dead Space. Even when you’re running you feel like you’re barely walking, not to mention that every turn takes forever. When you’re being chased by infected prisoners, this matters a lot.

Basically, there’s no running from enemies in this game, you just have to face everything that it throws at you and hope that you’ll prevail. On the bright side, even when you’re attacked by multiple enemies, you will not get hit while fighting unless you stand still.

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You can’t cancel animations, so once you decide to hit an enemy instead of dodging, you’ll have to wait until the animation ends. That’s also one of reasons you can’t get hit by an enemy while fighting another. The camera on the other hand is definitely one of the enemies that you’ll fight throughout the entire game. Sometimes you’ll win, but many times you’ll lose.

After playing Dead Space, The Callisto Protocol’s story is pretty basic. It’s the same mysterious organization’s experiment that goes awry and you have to save the day. There are slight changes to the script, but not that major to make it unique or even interesting. It’s a shame because there are some good actors making appearances in the game, including Karen Fukuhara and Sam Witwer.

Unfortunately, these are not the only issues that plague The Callisto Protocol (no pun intended). Although I did not encounter any game-breaking bugs, it’s safe to say that this game needed more time for polish. For starters, performance on DX12 is laughable, as frames drop very low when you have several monsters on the screen, or even during some cutscenes.

Not to mention that enabling RT shadows will eventually crash the game. Ironically, the game runs smoother when both RT reflections and shadows are enabled, but only until it crashes, and it will crash, believe me (until a new patch is released).

I also had troubles with subtitles disappearing completely and reappearing after a few minutes. One time I had a save load my character under a stair, not being able to do anything. Fortunately, a second load of the save fixed the issue. Apart from crashes and stutters, playing on DX12 also made the game display some weird artifacts in some zones. They wouldn’t disappear until I moved to another zone. Also, you can’t take screenshots and the photo mode has major issues on DX12. Oh, and the pictures that you take in Photo Mode won’t be saved unless you switch to DX11.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion