Horror video games rapidly became a massive success very early on, and one of the reasons why might be that it's easier for players to connect with the main characters and events when there is a strong emotional response -- in this case, fear or bewilderment. In horror games, this is often achieved by presenting creatures that are either difficult to understand and even see directly, or monstrous entities that embody the horror in their physique, which is what The Callisto Protocol wants to accomplish. While titles like Silent Hill and Dead Space are great comparisons to draw with The Callisto Protocol, the developers have said that real-life horror and gore were a great source of inspiration for it.
According to Chris Stone from Striking Distance Studios, developers researched a lot about real-life body horror to find inspiration for The Callisto Protocol, which is not uncommon to do for this genre. This is also something that can have its dangers, however, as the case of Mortal Kombat 11 developers shows, where studying graphic material and being constantly exposed to it led a member of the team to be affected by PTSD. Still, The Callisto Protocol's own body horror is interesting because it twists classics such as The Thing into something new, that's equally scary.
How The Callisto Protocol's Body Horror Makes It Frightening
The vaguely dehumanized monsters of The Callisto Protocol are much more terrifying than one would think at first glance by staring at a picture of them, and the reason is that they are indeed monsters, but realistic ones. The realism that goes into every detail of The Callisto Protocol, from the twitchy, sudden movements of the creatures to their exposed muscles and tissue, makes for a different kind of fear that hits the right notes, from a gaming point of view. While the similarities with Dead Space are there, the soon-to-be-rebooted saga deals with a more supernatural kind of horror than The Callisto Protocol.
One of the concepts that made the original The Thing movie so powerful in its horror is that the creature is not fully shown as its own thing, but rather, it twists the bodies of its victims and turns them against their own species. The Callisto Protocol seems to be headed in the same direction, with body horror not being an unearthly representation of incomprehensible monsters, which is more akin to Lovecraftian cosmic horror. Instead, it uses the players' connection to humans to sever them.
The humans in The Thing can't be sure who is what because the creature can manifest itself in many ways, and it's this uncanny revelation that makes the film so unnerving. The Callisto Protocol's entities are clearly no longer human, but at the same time, they are extremely human in their distorted appearance, which makes it hard to really separate the two on an emotional level. The game's approach to gore is also incredibly realistic, meaning that it's not bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed, but it's rather portraying the horror of one's body becoming crooked and misshapen.
On top of that, The Callisto Protocol utilizes the ancestral fear of classic sci-fi narrative, which is to be alone in space. What's more, it's a particular version of space that's hostile, horrifying, and ruthless to the core. This is not too different from Dead Space, but there can be something comforting in the unnatural creatures of the saga because they look less familiar, and less familiar means less likely to happen, meaning that on a rational level it may be easier to escape the fear. When the fear itself is embodied by warped and bent humans, it can be much more powerful.
The Callisto Protocol releases on December 2, 2022, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
