Callisto Protocol Fills The 9-Year Void Left By The Dead Space Series Thanks To The Unique Action/Horror/Horror Elements Of The Creators Of The Dead Space Series. Despite Its Major And Minor Issues, It Succeeds In Delivering A Quality Story-Driven Experience.

The Callisto Protocol is the name of the first creation of the Striking Distance studio. The team was led by Glenn Scofield (creator of the Dead Space trilogy) and many former Visceral Games studio members (more than 30 people) who previously produced the Dead Space trilogy.

Glenn Scofield and the team at Visceral Games (which closed in 2017) combined various elements of Body Horror, Cosmic Horror, Lovecraftian Horror, and Psychological Horror to create a highly effective gameplay system. In Dead Space, they made something that, while terrifying, was also very fun and new.

The end of Visceral Games studio put the Dead Space series into hibernation, and now nine years after the release of the third part of this series, the absence of the Dead Space series is felt more than ever.

The Striking Distance team introduces Callisto Protocol, based on Glenn Scofield’s credit for creating the Dead Space series. Can Callisto Protocol finally fill the void left by Dead Space and become the work it was expected to be? Join ZumJi as we explore how the Callisto Protocol successfully manages this mission despite its major and minor issues.

The story of Callisto Protocol takes place in the distant future and tells the story of an experienced pilot named Jacob Lee. Jacob spends his time by air transportation of all kinds of cargo to different worlds. Jacob’s last shipment to the moon, Callisto, will change the life of the unlucky hero of the story forever.

 This shipment is the order of the United Jupiter Company (UJC), which is known for its fraudulent and nefarious actions.

Accordingly, The Outer Way group, considered the resistance front against the UJC, disrupts Jacob’s flight and sets the stage for entering the Black Iron prison and the bloody events of the game.

At first, moving through Callisto’s story is like walking through a dark room. Unfortunately, the game starts hastily and does not spend time introducing the world, the opposing character (Captain Serif), and the rest of the characters.

The story finally comes to life in its second act, and by relying on its slow-burning and mysterious narrative, along with the correct treatment of the main characters (Jacob and Danny Nakamura), timely unraveling and the correct understanding of what was planted at the beginning of the story, it has compensated for its weak opening. And finally, it forms a quality narrative.

Despite the weak and rushed start, Callisto succeeds in telling a fascinating and mysterious story and sets the stage for its sequels.

Jacob Lee and Danny Nakamura are the beating heart of the story. Although the characters seem very one-dimensional and clichéd during the disappointing start of the game, thanks to excellent writing and the determination of the motivation and character dimensions of each of them, we see the creation, payment, and completion of their character arc.

One that is accompanied by admirable performances from Josh Duhamel as Jacob Lee and Karen Fukuhara as Danny Nakamura; Actors who, although they are among the lesser known artists of Hollywood, in Callisto Protocol, their excellent performance while giving life to these two characters, brings the audience with the weight of each scene.

On the other hand, we have the negative character of the story, Captain Ferris, who remains a one-dimensional, stereotypical, and Hollywood negative character from the beginning to the end of Callisto’s story. One of the problems in the opening part of the game is related to this character. Unfortunately, Callisto Protocol, unlike the main characters, does not make any effort to show the different aspects of Ferris’ character and pay attention to his motivations, so this character (played by Sam Witwer) becomes not only the weak point of the game’s story but also his motivations and behavior for the player. Remain unknown and untouchable.

Ferris and Jacob’s all-encompassing enmity is never explained throughout the story (especially in the opening hours), and the game never tries to address such an important issue.

The story of Callisto Protocol, despite a series of problems regarding the payment of the opposing character and its rushed beginning, formed an excellent narrative and brought it to an end in the best possible way.

A work that creates a mysterious framework for its story by creating a series of questions in the player’s mind and rewards the curiosity of the player who got involved with the terrible events of the Black Iron prison to find the answers to his questions with answers, unraveling and unique story twists.

In addition, Callisto Protocol successfully shapes its world and sets the stage for its next sequel(s).

Similar to Dark Souls being a spiritual sequel to Demon’s Souls, Callisto Protocol is also considered a spiritual sequel to Dead Space.

Apart from the high-quality and attractive story, the peak of Kalisto’s pleasure lies in its gameplay. The game environments are neither so tiny and linear nor so big and bulky that the player gets lost. In all game environments, there are two critical paths. They explore environments and engage in combat from the skeleton of Callisto Protocol’s progression.

A path relates to the progress in the story of the work, which is the main path. Among these main roads, however, there are secondary arteries that are entirely optional to follow; The player can get valuable rewards by stepping on these paths and passing the challenges in them. These sub-paths tickle the player’s curiosity and skill in fighting, and in the end, they offer a perfect reward to the gamer, which directly plays a role in upgrading Jacob’s equipment.

Combat in Callisto Protocol is designed around using hot and cold weapons. In the early hours of the game, the close battles using Jacob’s electric button form the main focus of the fights; Gradually, with the deepening of the challenges and the addition of new tools such as GRP anti-gravity gloves and different guns, the audience’s hands become more open in eliminating enemies. As the variety of enemies increases and it becomes more challenging to face them, Jacob acquires new weapons and improves in dealing with them.

The critical point here is that the enemies and Jacob have their weaknesses, no matter how much they progress. For example, the amputation system of Jacob’s enemies, which carries the name of Biophage, helps the audience to eliminate them more easily. For instance, by cutting off one of the enemy’s hands, the player can easily anticipate his next attack and avoid his blow.

The gameplay’s extraordinarily violent and challenging nature encourages the player to make the most of the minimal resources available.

On the other hand, Jacob also has his weaknesses. Brings. The gameplay’s extraordinarily violent and challenging nature encourages the player to make the most of the minimal resources available. Significant ammo limit, GRP anti-gravity glove usage limit, backpack item limit, bio page superiority in numbers, ability to “jump” and get stronger bio pages mid-fight, etc., add depth and balance to the game’s challenges.

And this is where things like taking advantage of environmental traps with the help of GRP anti-gravity gloves and using stealth techniques (killing enemies from behind silently) show their importance. The peak of the fun of the combat system is related to the moments when a large number of bio pages surround Jacob at once.

We saw a similar case in the Dead Space series. This is where the player must use all his skills and tools (even environmental traps) to save himself; The fact that the arrangement of enemies in in-game environments has been thought out makes dealing with them a puzzle. Callisto asks the player to think of all the moves and ways to eliminate the enemies and implement the best option instead of pressing the button to throw a blow.

Learning, taking advantage of the combat mechanics in Callisto Protocol, and overcoming challenges has a logical curve that makes the game’s combat an enjoyable experience. Of course, some things that prevent this pleasure are the game’s technical problems. First, we must remember that controlling Jacob in the Callisto Protocol game has its weight. The gameplay’s most significant technical issues are related to the game camera.

Walking the character, aiming with the GRP gun/glove, throwing a blow with the electric button, and the like all have a certain weight. A theme that brings the Tank Controls mechanism from the horror/survival classics to Callisto Protocol and combines it with the realistic and cinematic nature of the work.

Callisto Protocol takes between 9 and 14 hours to complete, depending on the player’s progress and difficulty in selection.

The main issue here is that the extreme close-ups of the camera of the character under the control of the gamer, items such as the items in the environment, and even the user interface (showing the amount of health/GRP glove charge) are out of the player’s view and imposes an unnecessary difficulty on the player’s experience.

Other things, such as various bugs, sudden exits from the game (crashing), messing up the structure and arrangement of enemies due to technical problems, not executing commands based on pressing buttons and more, are among the technical faults of the game, which directly affect the gameplay and the game experience. They have an effect.

Although many technical problems of the game have been solved at this moment, and with the 12 GB Callisto update, the release of the work full of technical issues affected the experience of many players.

In general and around the gameplay of Callisto Protocol, we can say that in this work, we are dealing with a challenging and entertaining game.

The variety of enemies, the type of player tools, and the audience’s openness in destroying enemies in different ways while giving depth and proper balance to the gameplay, make Callisto Protocol a fun and challenging game with high replay value.

With the correct combination of components, such as the close combat system, heavy character control (Tank Controls), and unique space creation with elements borrowed from the Dead Space series, Callisto Protocol has successfully removed itself from the shadow of Dead Space in the first hours and has an identity. It makes it unique.

The game’s technical problems are the biggest obstacles that stand in the way of enjoying the gameplay experience of Callisto. Despite being solved with recent updates, problems affected the experience of many audiences at the time of Kalisto’s launch.

Callisto Protocol features one of the most spectacular 9th-generation visuals to date.

Callisto Protocol features one of the most spectacular 9th-generation visuals to date. Extreme realism in the structure of the environment and characters has significantly increased the appeal and believability of the work.

An exemplary design of characters and monsters, excellent lighting, the unique coloring of the environments, and atmosphere creation have given a great variety to the settings of the work. Along with all these things, very smooth and fluid animations of the game are placed. A case that directly affects the power and catchiness of the game’s space/atmosphere and quickly dissolves the player in himself.

The fluidity of the animation of the main character’s movement, the spirit of the enemy’s movements, and the energies related to the death of the characters, along with the previously mentioned items, all work hand in hand to form a captivating experience audience and make it easier to scare the player.

Callisto Protocol’s sound team’s excellent use of 3D sound technology successfully scares and creates a sense of dread for the gamer. But visual effects are never enough to scare the audience. The game also appears very powerful from the sound point of view.

The sound of monsters’ activity in different channels inside the walls of Black Iron prison, the sound of Jacob’s electric button hitting the biophages’ heads and faces and the sound of their bones breaking, the whispers that call Jacob’s name in the dark corridors of the prison, the sound of guns firing, and in addition to all these things, music The acting is excellent, complemented by the perfect performance of the voice team and the music.

The game focuses more on the “survival” aspect of the “horror/survival” genre, and we don’t see the insane form of horror implemented in the Dead Space trilogy in Callisto.

Such a theme is more common in the Kurdish music sector, and Dead Space’s noisy and formidable composition has given way to a series of frightening and atmospheric sounds. Of course, this does not mean that Callisto is not scary because in this game, just like the previous creations of Glenn Scofield’s team, moments of fear are obsessively and carefully planted in the game maps and are waiting for the player.

Callisto, like most 9th-generation games, suffers from the problem of a lack of proper technical optimization.

In Callisto Protocol, like the Dead Space series, environmental storytelling plays a prominent role. As previously stated in the article ” Looking at the importance of the environment in the design of video game stages have examined, this environmental communication can be about transferring story content to the gamer (such as audio files or a series of texts and clues) or it can teach the player a structural component of the gameplay (such as teaching how to kill enemies or an implicit guide to the player) in reaching the next destination); All these things have been implemented in the game with calculated precision and elegance.

The Striking Distance team has removed the Locator system (indicator/guide to find the destination in the environment) that was previously in the Dead Space game and has left it up to the gamer to explore Callisto’s environments and find the goal.

Kalisto’s environments help the player explore the environment by placing the destination in the player’s field of vision (pictured above), using special lighting and coloring, and more.

The first work of Striking Distance Studio is a firm, albeit shaky, step toward creating a new collection (IP). The Callisto Protocol finally fills the eight-year void in the Dead Space series with its mysterious and fascinating story, bloody, fun, challenging gameplay, captivating and well-thought-out atmosphere creation, and fantastic soundtrack/music.

A work that is never flawless and with a very hasty start in the story, a stereotypical negative character, and numerous technical problems, it stops from becoming an excellent work.

Callisto Protocol, despite its problems, is a high-quality 9-14 hour story-driven experience that will satisfy fans of story-driven games while quenching the thirst of those who were bored of space horror in the game medium.

Strengths

• + The structure and variety of environments
• + Excellent and captivating atmosphere
• + Attractive and high-quality storytelling
• + Challenging and enjoyable gameplay
• + Excellent depth and balance in the challenges
• + Diversity of enemies and tools/methods of confrontation
• + Excellent audio and visual effects

Weaknesses

• – Very hasty start
• – One-dimensionality of the opposing character
• – Too many technical problems at the time of release