The Callisto Protocol Review

Is this really just Dead Space with the serial numbers filed off?

Pretty much, yeah. At first I was skeptical. After all, terminally online gamers are prone to exaggeration and hive mind opinions. I couldn’t quite trust all the endless dunking on the game without seeing it for myself. Sadly, it’s a pretty accurate assessment.

But let’s back up for a second. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out what the development team was trying to achieve here. Sure, it’s obvious they wanted to make a Dead Space game but legally couldn’t. That’s not what I mean though. What I mean is - what were they trying to accomplish?

Were they just trying to make an homage to Dead Space? Possibly, but there is a fine line between “homage” and “copy”, and in my opinion The Callisto Protocol crosses it. There’s no sense of respect or love for the original material. It’s more like a sense of entitlement. “Some of us worked on those games, so they’re rightfully ours to pilfer from”.

My other theory is that maybe they wanted a redo; that they thought they could make a better Dead Space if they just started from scratch. But that assumes that people want to write off Dead Space and start from scratch, and we have very strong proof that that is not the case!

The proof, of course, is that The Callisto Protocol had to be rushed out the door to try and release ahead of Electronic Arts’ own remake of the original Dead Space. This tells us that Callisto’s developers knew that people are still extremely fond of Dead Space and want to see more of it. They were trying to make an alternative to a game that no one wanted an alternative to.

The whole effort feels so misguided, to the point that I can’t help but assume that it was driven by hubris more than mere confidence.

But let’s stop trying to get into the minds of the developers. Let’s talk about the game itself.

There are so many ways in which The Callisto Protocol feels like a kid copying his friend’s homework and changing some of the answers just enough to not get in trouble. I’m not going to go into an exhaustive list of similarities, as that would feel too petty. Suffice to say that it borrows more than you might expect, right down to ripping off Dead Space’s idea that events are set in motion by a religious cult who wants to use some sort of mutation to advance human evolution. When this game wants to rip something off, it’s not subtle at all.

But worse than the plagiarism is the fact that the execution is so poor all around.

Melee Combat

The Callisto Protocol’s main gimmick is that, rather than shooting off limbs like in Dead Space, you have a melee combat system in which you brutally beat up - and sometimes still dismember - enemies. It’s about as simple as you can get. You have a light attack that expands into a single four-hit combo, and a strong attack that’s a single slow swing. Sometimes you can extend your onslaught by squeezing off a few shots before switching back to melee, but that’s as deep as it gets.

I’m shocked at how little depth there is to this system. I guess there are times where enemies will push you away, or you’ll cancel each other’s attacks out, but by and large you either hit, or get hit. If there was any way to target certain limbs, or capitalize on weak points, I never found it.

The melee system also controls very weirdly. Once you get close enough to an enemy, you go into what I’ll call “Combat Mode”. During Combat Mode, the left control stick no longer works as you expect. Moving the stick left or right causes you to duck and weave to dodge enemy attacks. This isn’t much of a dealbreaker, since the dodge mechanic is so safe to use that even if you use it accidentally, it will save you from getting hurt.

More problematic is the fact that in Combat Mode, pulling back on the stick makes you block - but it also makes you move backwards too. If you hold it too long, you’ll back yourself so far away from the enemy that you’ll exit Combat Mode - and once you’ve exited, all your defensive maneuvers stop working. I found blocking to be more harm than it was worth, which only served to make the melee combat that much more simplistic.

The fact that new death animations (for the player, not enemies) were eventually part of the game’s downloadable content is the tell here. It seems as if the developers assumed that gory animations and graphic violence would be thrilling enough to make us forget how shallow the actual combat is. I don’t know about you, but I don’t being treated like an idiot.

What Upgrades?

Just like in Dead Space, you can upgrade all of your weapons slowly over time. The only problem is that doesn’t seem to matter. Upgrade your melee baton to max damage, and enemies don’t seem to die any faster. Same with all of the guns.

I might accept this if the enemies were visibly different as you moved through the story. Then you could simply say they’re stronger, tougher foes. And I suppose they can technically make that argument; at a certain point, the enemies start to sprout tentacles, and will morph into tougher forms if not killed quickly. But it’s also true that it’s the same character models with some tentacles. Trying to argue that they are somehow “different” enemies feels like a lame excuse.

The weapon upgrades feel useless. End of story.

Guns

The Callisto Protocol has five guns. Two are pistols, and two are shotguns. I wish I was making this up. In essence you only have three different types of guns - and the third type, an assault rifle, shows up so late in the story that you barely get to use it. That means you really only have two types of guns for most of the game.

No Themes

The Callisto Protocol takes place on a prison colony. You’d think that if the writers wanted to take on some sort of social commentary, they’d use this as an opportunity to say something - anything - about prison systems.

Instead, the game’s only real social commentary is … “capitalism bad”. It’s simplistic. It’s obvious. And it doesn’t really fit the setting or the scenario. But it’s the kind of message that appeals to terminally online social media addicts (which, it seems, includes many video game developers these days), so that’s what we get.

Beyond that, there’s just nothing there. The prison setting really just exists because it is legally distinct enough from any of the Dead Space games.

Rushed

This is one of those games where it is painfully obvious that it was rushed out the door before it was ready. The signs are everywhere:

• Lack of weapon variety
• Lack of different enemy types
• The story takes its time developing, until it doesn’t. Once you get to the endgame it barrels forward way too quickly. You can downright feel the pressure to wrap things up to get the game out the door.
• The game’s ending feels like the setup for DLC (which turned out to be 100% true)

So much of the game feels underutilized, or half baked, etc. This despite the fact that it cost a ton of money to make.

A Few Other Good Things

The game certainly looks pretty, as it seems that’s where most of the budget went. I wouldn’t say any of the various environments you explore looks or feels unique, but they certainly look gorgeous and moody.

I also think it does a better job than any of the Dead Space games at depicting just how twisted and mutated not only the monsters are, but the environments as well. It does a better job of mimicking the Alien films in that regard.

A Few More Nitpicks

The game’s inventory system is trash. You can’t many things at first, so you may find yourself having to drop ammo, healing items, or sellable goods (the latter of which makes it much harder to afford weapon upgrades, though that may not matter all that much!). Eventually it doubles in size, but as you get more weapons (with different ammo types), that space fills up quickly.

I was disappointed at how few NPCs you encounter. The game takes place on a prison. That seems like a ripe opportunity to feature all sorts of inmates of varying degrees of depravity, and see how they behave in a matter of life or death. But that doesn’t happen.

Conclusion

It’s ironic. This is a game that was made by original Dead Space veterans, and yet it feels similar to a lot of the stuff coming out of Hollywood. That is, it is extremely formulaic, with no clear voice or vision, made for a king’s ransom of a budget under the belief that the end product would be one of the biggest releases of the year.

It’s one thing to be confident, to have grand aspiration. But like I said earlier, this just feels like the product of hubris. If this came from a small, plucky studio doing their best with a limited budget, I might have some sympathy and respect for what they tried to accomplish. But everything about this game feels miserable and opportunistic. Trust me when I say that it isn’t worth anyone’s time.