God, there's so much I like here but the whole thing just feels half-baked. I like the combat but it never meaningfully evolves past the first hour, I like the enemies but they show you all the interesting ones in the first third then just throw basic ones at you for the rest of the game (the final boss is just a boring bullet sponge you shoot for ten minutes until it falls over), the world and environments are atmospheric but feel like such a generic sci-fi setting with nothing interesting or unique about it, and worst of all is the story.

It genuinely feels like entire hours of story must have been cut from the game, every single character has one trait each, 0 seconds of development, and there are entire visual motifs that feel like holdovers from cut content (the jack-in-the-box HAS to have been a bigger part of the game in cut content, and the co-pilot that appears like twice and has no bearing on anything), it just feels like there were all these ideas and they either had to cut them or couldn't be bothered to do more than the bare minimum, not just with the story but with every single aspect of the game. The combat, progression, music and story all just feel like entire teams were just doing the absolute minimum to justify calling itself a AAA-style game.

It's not all bad, the types of levels have plenty of variety, the combat feels satisfying when you hit and dodge and block, and the gameplay is well paced, it's just a shame the story is not because it largely doesn't exist.

Was hoping I'd like this more on a replay, and I mostly feel the same, it's worth playing if you can get it on sale for like 20, but other than that I just can't recommend it in good faith. I will say that the PS5 is preferable over PC, it looks better (other than the shadows) and the controller additions from the Dualsense are... Cool.

I hope in future this studio takes their clear dev talent and puts it toward something they actually care about.

It's FINE, good even! But only when it wants to be.

First, technicals, I played switching between a Steam Deck and a PC running an RTX 4090 Ti, surprisingly I feel like I had a better time on deck, this game is not well optimised for PC, stuttering that I assumed was the deck not being able to run the game turned out to just be something present in the game, it's constant and random and any time you're not in combat the game will stutter and pause, it's a real issue. On deck with some quick settings tweaks the game runs between 30-60 frames really consistently. I was adamant about playing this on deck as I planned to use it as a litmus test for Deck's longevity, if it can run this new AAA title then it surely has at least a couple of years ahead of it. And the deck passed! What a score.

Now, the game, The Callisto Protocol wildly flies from unbearable to pretty great, and I can tell you where that occurs. The cutscenes in this game are borderline embarassing, with flat, empty characters who have no arcs, outside of the main character who has an arc in the final 20 minutes of the game that comes across as entirely hollow because it's based on something he did that he actually didn't do and the game doesn't address that. The script is a dull amalgam of the worst of resident evil and Dead Space 3, some of it genuinely being laughable even in the final moments. The story and characters of this game would not feel out of place in a resident evil light gun game or call of duty side-mode story, it's really underwhelming, especially considering the big selling point of this game was being a follow up to Dead Space 2, which has great, interesting characters, a storyful and meaty world, and a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It does not help that this game really tries to ape that game, multiple times just taking scenes verbatim directly from it.

When you're not suffering through the story, though, this is actually alright! Albeit marred by some design issues. I actually like what they've done with the combat. Once I learned the timings on the dodge, proper times to block, when to use ranged and melee attacks and adjusted my perception of what the kinesis module (sorry, GRP module) is used for, it all really clicked. The problem is that it's entirely designed for one-on-one enemy encounters. The weapons all pack a punch, feel satisfying to use, as do all the combat mechanics, and the upgrades all feel meaningful and ask you to choose your playstyle a bit, but it can't avoid the overwhelming fact that the combat just isn't designed for the game it's in. When one on one you get just enough time to find a place to heal, switch weapons (takes longer than you think) or pick up items, but with more than one you don't get a moment, if you didn't have the right weapons already equipped and full health before an encounter you're already f*cked. And it doesn't help that this game is TOUGH. I played through on normal and it was brutal, frustratingly brutal, sometimes detracts-from-the-game hard.

It's strange, I'd actually recommend this, I'd you don't care about the story and for the love of god play on easy mode, but do wait for a sale, or better yet, just play Dead Space 2, one of the best games of all time.

I'm going to replay this at Christmas and see if I feel any different, here's hoping the season pass makes a difference.