At the Summer Game Fest, they showed a new horror gameplay from the Striking Distance studio, the name is The Callisto protocol. Until now, the project has been a dark horse. Vague trailer, boring enemies and parallels to Dead Space didn’t arouse much enthusiasm. And finally, we got to see a small snippet of the gameplay. In this article, we’ll talk about our impressions of what we’ve seen, as well as try to figure out what to expect from The Callisto Protocol upon release.
What is the Callisto protocol about?
Little is known about the plot. We play as the pilot of a cargo spaceship – Jacob Lee. For unknown reasons, he crashed into the planet Callisto, Jupiter’s moon, then thundered into a local prison. This is also indicated by the narrator from the trailer. He is also presumably the main villain, who, however, mentions that he helped the hero survive.
From interviews with the developers, it is known that in prison Jacob will have to deal with biophages – a local analogue of zombies or mutants. Where they came from in the protected area is one of the main secrets.
All in the same trailer, the antagonist talks about rebirth. In the gameplay passage, the hero finds a hologram from the past, in which we see people in white coats and one of the mutated prisoners. It is clear that human rights are ignored in the space prison and that terrible experiments are carried out.
What looks cooler?
What they showed us at Summer Game Fest
visual
The gameplay video consisted of two parts. In the first, Jacob traveled in a prisoner’s yellow robes, and in the second, he flaunted real armor. The costume is reminiscent of the spacesuit from Dead Space, as is the health indicator on the hero’s neck. The developers have already indicated that they will integrate the interface into the environment. It looks good, but unfortunately not original.
In general, graphics, working with light and animation are the first thing you notice. Jacob was played by a real life actor, Josh Duhamel, who you may have seen as a soldier in Transformers. Close-ups in videos look natural and very detailed. But the pilot doesn’t move very well. Animations are clumsy and don’t even pass the level Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, what can we say about The Last of Us Part 2. Jacob doesn’t react to obstacles in any way, turning his entire body to say hello to the same Dead Space, which came out in 2008, attention.
But gloomy hallways and flashing lights create an excellent atmosphere of hopelessness and tension. It seems that the project is already well underway on this. In general, the graphics are quite good and many different light sources help to create the right atmosphere. In any case, there is still time to polish small mistakes.
Gameplay
The developers boasted of dealing with physical objects in a certain way Dark Messiah of Power and Magic. Using a gravity device, the hero can pull various objects and even enemies towards him, as well as throw them at fan blades and other architectural objects. It remains to be seen whether this will only work with certain elements of the prison decor and opponents, or whether gamers will be allowed to let their imaginations run wild. By the way, the hero himself can fall into a similar trap. The demo just ended with Jacob’s death falling into the blades of an incomprehensible device.
The gun works in the manner of the famous Isaac cutter, they can shoot at different parts of the body. This should motivate players to approach combat tactically – to slow some down by firing a volley at their legs, and to rob others of their arms. Unfortunately, while the system works through time. In the demonstration, Jacob repeatedly shot at the limbs of biophages, but did not always achieve the desired effect. We hope this will be fixed with the release, otherwise the main feature of the project will be lost.
And yes, we saw several enemies. In addition to common mutants, reminiscent of the infected from The Last of Us Part 2, “tanks” and a strange snake resembling Alien’s head crab light up. Also, a monster appeared in the video, with appetite eating someone’s head. Its appearance only vaguely resembles a person, indicating various stages of “infection”. However, all this is not enough for an interesting game and the opponents seem secondary. It remains to be hoped that the developers have left the main surprises for later.
Despite the mostly slow pace of what happens, there will also be moments of active confrontations with a large number of enemies in the game. This is immediately indicated by the second passage from the show, where four monsters crawl out on Jacob at once.
In addition to the pistol, the hero’s arsenal will certainly include a shotgun, some kind of electric sword (club?) and a gravity device. Interestingly, in the video, Jacob simply clenches his fist to draw enemies in without pulling any special tools. The Jedi approve! The hero generally feels great in close combat – we got to see spectacular combos, dodges and finishing kicks to the head.
Most likely any murder weapon can be upgraded. The gun at the beginning and end of the video looks minimally different.
What do we expect from the game
The creators of The Callisto Protocol come from Visceral Games and personally Glen Schofield, who came up with the concept of “dead space”. This is both a plus and a minus for the upcoming project. On the one hand, the developers have already established themselves as the authors of an excellent space horror, on the other hand, the number of self-repetitions is alarming. And the gravitational function looks like a copy of the “force” of the recent Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order of Gravity Rifle Replacement half-life 2.
But it’s too early to draw any categorical conclusions – there is little information about the game. The Callisto Protocol has no rivals – except for the Dead Space remake – and hopes for originality and talent from the creators are still strong. We hope that behind a nice wrapper there is also an interesting game.
The Callisto Protocol comes out on December 2, 2022 and the game has every chance of becoming a hit. An intriguing storyline and cinematic graphics grab your attention right away. Clumsy animations and combat will probably be corrected and the variety of monsters will be increased. However, comparisons with the original source cannot be avoided. The remake of the first Dead Space is scheduled to be released on January 27, 2023. There is a fear that the novelty will turn out to be secondary to the more beautiful original.
Are you going to play The Callisto Protocol?
Source: VG Times