The Callisto Protocol begins with a wild set of events that throws pilot Jacob Lee’s life into chaos. He, along with his partner Max, are transporting some medical supplies when their ship gets attacked. This leads to them crash landing on Callisto, an old mining moon that was retooled to become a prison.
Even though Jacob didn’t do anything wrong, he is tossed into Black Iron Prison. Soon after he is administered, the prison goes into quarantine after a breakout. Now, Jacob has to escape and figure out what’s going on. That’s the basic plot of The Callisto Protocol, but is it any good? Those looking to find out may be interested in the pros and cons of this spiritual successor to Dead Space.
6 Best: All Horror Action, No Puzzles
The biggest difference between The Callisto Protocol and Dead Space is that this game doesn’t have puzzles. The biggest problem players have to solve is navigating their way through the prison. There are keys to find and computers that need fixing, but none of these quests feel puzzling in any way. It’s all action, all of the time and that’s refreshing to see in a survival horror game.
It’s also simple as far as character actions go. There is an emphasis on melee this time around, almost reminiscent of the Condemned series. There are a variety of guns to unlock too and there is a glove with telepathic powers. They all liven up the gameplay to a perfect degree without complicating anything. The game is also short and sweet which may or may not be to the player’s liking.
5 Worst: Lacks Basic Mechanics
The simplicity of The Callisto Protocol is great, but there are a number of baffling things missing or changed from other horror games. One, there is no map. The game is fairly linear, but when a new route presents itself, players won’t know if that way is a distraction or if it heads toward the critical path. With many areas being locked up after the story progresses, it can be easy to miss out on key items like weapon schematics.
There isn’t even a waypoint system which was one of the defining features of the Dead Space games. Healing is a bit archaic too as it takes way too long in combat and it can get interrupted. Finally, controller prompts can’t be adjusted, which would be fine if the run button wasn’t R1 on PlayStation controllers, for example. Typically, players can click on the left stick which feels natural as opposed to the unnatural feeling of R1.
4 Best: The Lighting
The game looks great on all levels. There are some glitches that may occur when players activate the photo mode. One hilarious glitch made everything except Jacob’s head and upper torso disappear. Thankfully, getting out of photo mode fixes that, and, players can rest assured that this is a rare occurrence.
So, the game looks great but the specific thing that needs to be addressed is the lighting situation. The lack of it and where the light actually hits help create an ambiance that is perfect for a horror game. Specific examples would spoil things, but players should know that the lightning in The Callisto Protocol is out of this world, literally.
3 Worst: The Inventory System
Inventory in horror games, such as the Resident Evil series, can be a bane to the player. With resources being limited as well as space, it will create trauma from having to decide what to keep and what to toss. Space is limited in The Callisto Protocol as well and it’s even worse because there is no storage container.
As easy as it is to complain about the inventory space in the early Resident Evil games, at least players had near-unlimited storage in their trunks. With only one upgrade to inventory space in this game, which comes far too late, players are going to have their hands on their heads in frustration constantly.
2 Best: A Good Setup For A Franchise
The story in this game is not going to wow anyone with originality. Horror games have explored psychological takes on prisons being overrun with monsters before like The Suffering series. Games set in space, or on snowy planets have also been done before, specifically with Dead Space 3.
The twists aren’t going to be surprising either, but the performances are what make The Callisto Protocol stand out. Jacob Lee, the main character, is played by Josh Duhamel who is not new to voice acting and motion capture in video games. He was also the star of Call of Duty: WWII. Dani Nakamura is played by Karen Fukuhara, who most may know from The Boys, and she also does a great job. The story, at the end of the day, is engaging enough to justify a sequel if not several. Also, the audio diaries help to flesh out the lore.
1 Worst: The Save System
The save system in The Callisto Protocol is confusing. There are tons of autosaves that gunk up the file system and they cannot be deleted. Every time one is made that will checkmark progress. Players can manually save whenever they wish which is a big step up from the Dead Space series technically.
However, manually saving the game won’t do anything. Players will restart at the last checkpoint, making the very notion of manual saves seem trivial. Why even have them in the game if they only bookmark progress based on checkpoints and autosaves?
The Callisto Protocol was released on December 2, 2022 and is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X.