More than two years after its first official announcement at The Game Awards 2020, The Callisto Protocoldevelopped by Striking Distance Studio and led by the father of dead space what is Glen Scofield, is not very far from arriving on PC and consoles. The software will be released on December 2 on PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS5 and Xbox Series X | S, and the guy let himself be approached during gamescom, via a twenty-minute gameplay video that we were able to see on the spot, commented by the developers. Here’s what to take away from the title.
A disturbing and effective atmosphere
First of all, and as we were able to say in our video on The Callisto Protocoleven during our interview with Glen Scofield himself, the production of Striking Distance Studios will not be set in the PUBG universe as originally announced. Indeed, in order not to confuse or mislead the players, The Callisto Protocol will indeed be a completely independent game with its own lore. What make things could not be clearer, and the 20 min demo that was presented to us allowed us to have an overview of what will be the atmosphere of the software.
We have to admit that the title finally manages quite well to juggle between moments of tension and phases a little calmer, where you will not risk being surprised by a creature. This is certainly a desire of the developers to make the game accessible for each player, given that we remember that dead space first of the name was relatively scary at the time.
Upgrade, infiltration, and really effective gameplay
Aside from its heavy vibe while remaining balanced overall, The Callisto Protocol will obviously offer gunfights in the style of a dead space and his “tactical dismemberment” of the time. In short, you can, with your gun, cut the body parts of enemies, but not only. Indeed, if you do not kill the monster in time, you will see tentacles coming out of the bugger, and the latter will mutate and thus be more resistant. In addition to being able to dismember enemies, there will also be this parameter to take into account. Note that for the story, we do not know more except that we will play Jacob Lee, prisoner of a planet called Callisto, where not really very Catholic things are happening.
As for weapons, The Callisto Protocol will also adopt a system dead space for all improvements. Via Callisto credits, you will be able to upgrade most of your tools, and see them printed directly before your eyes via the machine provided for this purpose. This will allow at least to have a nice panoply of weapons, seeming damn effective against the different creatures to face in The Callisto Protocol.
Regarding gameplay mechanics, Jacob Lee will also be able to use his glove with a kind of stasis like dead space. He will be able to bring the enemies to him, then throw them violently on an element of the decor, and thus eliminate them instantly. For example, the gameplay phase showed us Jacob dispatching creatures directly into a grinder. This element of gameplay can certainly be fun, provided it is not abused either. We could also see sequences where we had to avoid some obstacles in sliding mode in the pipes of a kind of wastewater treatment plant. There is no denying that our hero should vary the gaming experience.
On the monster side, we could see different kinds. The latter seemed increasingly tough, and even more so with the mutation system. The melee will also be present with some weapons, and also the famous crush specific to the dead space, to verify that the creatures on the ground are really dead. In gameplay similar to the Visceral Games recipe, The Callisto Protocol seems to modernize and embellish the playability present in the competition, and for the best of what we could see. The same goes for the artistic direction, which seemed to us to be really mastered, with a good staging on the demo presented, and some rather pretty spatial panoramas.
A few easter eggs and an update on the DLC after its release
Of course, The Callisto Protocol, it will also be easter eggs galore. Well, galore not so much, insofar as we will eventually have a few here and there referring to PUBG even dead spacebut it shouldn’t be too intrusive, as Glen Scofield explained to us in our Gamescom interview.
It will therefore be relatively light, and a DLC will land, we remind you, after the release of The Callisto Protocol. Difficult to know more about its content for the moment, nor its chronology, but that should obviously last a few hours, without us knowing more, because the content may change. That’s why Glen Scofield did not want to say more about it, the title not being completely finished for the time beingeven if the gold mention can not, we hope, not be too late.
The Callisto Protocol will be officially released on December 2 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.