The Callisto Protocol
Developer Striking Distance Studios
Publisher Krafton
Format PC, PS4, PS5 (tested), Xbox One, Xbox Series
Release Out now
The Callisto Protocol is easily reduced to what it borrows from Dead Space – it’s a spiritual sequel, after all, helmed by Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield – so let’s start by looking at the game in a vacuum. It’s the tale of Jacob Lee, a vanilla action hero with big biceps and the obligatory buzz cut, played by Transformers movie actor Josh Duhamel. As the story begins, he’s delivering medical supplies to the infamous Black Iron prison on one of Jupiter’s more hospitable moons when his ship is boarded by alleged terrorists, including Karen Fukuhara’s vengeance-driven freedom fighter Dani Nakamura.
After his ship crash-lands on Callisto, Lee is immediately incarcerated, only to be sprung from his cell moments later during an epidemic of monstrous viral mutations. In the process, the game washes its hands of all but the broadest and most stereotypical elements of its moderately intriguing ‘offworld prison’ premise, settling into a rhythm of well-worn horror setpieces, jumpscares and ruined backdrops that, for all their detail and glisten, seldom add up into a genuine sense of place. Tick the boxes: a medical lab with cadavers and surgical instruments left mid-operation. A tramride with waves of zombie boarders. A long-buried older facility that houses the origins of the plague. A stealth section with eyeless monsters that must be backstabbed or avoided, lest you rouse their friends glued to the crevices. It’s a by-the-numbers corridor crawl, as scary as a pop-up notification, and as exotic as a blood-stained bathroom with one cubicle door tantalisingly sealed.