The Callisto Protocol is a visually impressive but ultimately hollow survival horror action game and a disappointment on more than one level.
Firstly this is simply not the game most people, myself included, were expecting it to be. Besides the apparent similarities in the setting and visual design, The Callisto Protocol is not the spiritual successor to Dead Space. It is not a systems-driven physics playground full of space terrors to stomp but rather Glen Schofield's take on The Last of Us Part II in the most generic "AAA game from the Xbox 360 era" sense imaginable. The game is very linear and way more focused on wowing the player with noninteractive cinematic setpieces rather than through the gameplay itself; you won't find any interesting game scenarios resulting in emergent narrative in Callisto. That's the initial letdown with the game in a nutshell but its core faults still lie elsewhere.
The second layer of disappointment stems from what Callisto is rather than what it isn't. The sci-fi horror adventure that Callisto promises to the player is completely clichéd, unoriginal and outright bad. The high production values and the script filled with (attempts at) bombastic story beats are all for nothing when the plot is so unbelievably trite. From their paper-thin backstories to their B action movie dialogue the characters are also about as generic as they come - wasting Sam Witwer on that Batman: Arkham Asylum thug looking dumbass is some bullshit. The original Dead Space was no clever head-scratcher either but the slow revelation of what had occurred aboard USG Ishimura was infinitely more interesting than Josh Duhamel's journey through narrow passages on Jupiter. If you've seen a bad sci-fi film circa 2000 you've experienced The Callisto Protocol - this is way more Ghosts of Mars than Alien.
The third and final (major) disappointment for me was the uninspired game design mixed with the general lack of polish around its mechanics. We're still talking about a video game here so even if the story didn't land I could easily look past that if the actual game part felt fun and engaging. Unfortunately this isn't really the case with Callisto.
It's clear that the game was rushed out hot from the oven to beat EA Motive's Dead Space remake to the punch, but this also lead to a lot of technical hiccups and less time to fine-tune the game mechanics. With that being said, I doubt that the experience would've been much better had the game been released, say, a year from now if e.g. the basis for the combat system remained largely the same - most of it just isn't that great to begin with. That's not to say that the gameplay is all bad however, I had my fair share of fun beating mutants to a pulp or using the GRP Device, this game's equivalent to telekinesis, to fling them into spiky walls but the mechanics in place feel either strangely disjointed from each other or too janky to actually feel satisfying. Some of these shortcomings may have been fixable with further development but things like extremely static environments and objects, the complete lack of exploration or puzzles and the scripted nature of many enemy encounters are seemingly parts of the intended experience. Whether that's due to a lack of vision on Schofield's part or budget constraints, in any case, it's still a bummer.
Don't be completely discouraged by my rant though, The Callisto Protocol is not entirely void of fun - it's just quite a big letdown for me personally. I'll end this wall of text on a slightly more positive note with a list of pros: both the player and enemy deaths are very gruesome, the melee feels nicely weighty most of the time and for once the DualSense's haptic feedback is actually utilized well on the PS5. And just to reiterate: the graphics are genuinely great - the game looks like a proper next-gen title. Better luck next time, Glen! I think I'll stick with Dead Space for now.
Firstly this is simply not the game most people, myself included, were expecting it to be. Besides the apparent similarities in the setting and visual design, The Callisto Protocol is not the spiritual successor to Dead Space. It is not a systems-driven physics playground full of space terrors to stomp but rather Glen Schofield's take on The Last of Us Part II in the most generic "AAA game from the Xbox 360 era" sense imaginable. The game is very linear and way more focused on wowing the player with noninteractive cinematic setpieces rather than through the gameplay itself; you won't find any interesting game scenarios resulting in emergent narrative in Callisto. That's the initial letdown with the game in a nutshell but its core faults still lie elsewhere.
The second layer of disappointment stems from what Callisto is rather than what it isn't. The sci-fi horror adventure that Callisto promises to the player is completely clichéd, unoriginal and outright bad. The high production values and the script filled with (attempts at) bombastic story beats are all for nothing when the plot is so unbelievably trite. From their paper-thin backstories to their B action movie dialogue the characters are also about as generic as they come - wasting Sam Witwer on that Batman: Arkham Asylum thug looking dumbass is some bullshit. The original Dead Space was no clever head-scratcher either but the slow revelation of what had occurred aboard USG Ishimura was infinitely more interesting than Josh Duhamel's journey through narrow passages on Jupiter. If you've seen a bad sci-fi film circa 2000 you've experienced The Callisto Protocol - this is way more Ghosts of Mars than Alien.
The third and final (major) disappointment for me was the uninspired game design mixed with the general lack of polish around its mechanics. We're still talking about a video game here so even if the story didn't land I could easily look past that if the actual game part felt fun and engaging. Unfortunately this isn't really the case with Callisto.
It's clear that the game was rushed out hot from the oven to beat EA Motive's Dead Space remake to the punch, but this also lead to a lot of technical hiccups and less time to fine-tune the game mechanics. With that being said, I doubt that the experience would've been much better had the game been released, say, a year from now if e.g. the basis for the combat system remained largely the same - most of it just isn't that great to begin with. That's not to say that the gameplay is all bad however, I had my fair share of fun beating mutants to a pulp or using the GRP Device, this game's equivalent to telekinesis, to fling them into spiky walls but the mechanics in place feel either strangely disjointed from each other or too janky to actually feel satisfying. Some of these shortcomings may have been fixable with further development but things like extremely static environments and objects, the complete lack of exploration or puzzles and the scripted nature of many enemy encounters are seemingly parts of the intended experience. Whether that's due to a lack of vision on Schofield's part or budget constraints, in any case, it's still a bummer.
Don't be completely discouraged by my rant though, The Callisto Protocol is not entirely void of fun - it's just quite a big letdown for me personally. I'll end this wall of text on a slightly more positive note with a list of pros: both the player and enemy deaths are very gruesome, the melee feels nicely weighty most of the time and for once the DualSense's haptic feedback is actually utilized well on the PS5. And just to reiterate: the graphics are genuinely great - the game looks like a proper next-gen title. Better luck next time, Glen! I think I'll stick with Dead Space for now.