The Callisto Protocol - new survival horror from Dead Space creator

[Ezekiel]

Someone on Steam told me the raised colors are common to Unreal engine games. I guess. Can't remember that well. Not often I play ones with such dark environments. Not a good look. Like there is a fog over the game. Shame because of how nice the environments look.

Game has Atmos. Notice it most with the doors coming up and down.

Very generous checkpoints. But the game is balanced in a way that it would be irritating and a waste of time without. Unfortunately. Playing on hard. Should have found a better way to introduce combat mechanics than spoiling an encounter before it begins with the on-screen instructions. Some of them don't need instructions, but appear only to have them for consistency's sake.

 

[fork]

Automatic checkpoints are the worst saving system there is.
Reason enough not to play a game.

Give me typewriters and ink ribbons (Resident Evil), or saving stations (Dead Space), or manual saving/quick saving (most PC games), or rolling saving (Dark Souls) or even no saving at all (arcade games) over fucking automated checkpoints.

 

[Ezekiel]

Automatic checkpoints are the worst saving system there is.
Reason enough not to play a game.

Give me typewriters and ink ribbons (Resident Evil), or saving stations (Dead Space), or manual saving/quick saving (most PC games), or rolling saving (Dark Souls) or even no saving at all (arcade games) over fucking automated checkpoints.

They tend to give away when something bad is gonna happen. Of course the same thing can happen with saving station placed before the bad things, but saving stations are used a little more carefully by developers because of what they are in the game world.

Interesting they put "New experience" instead of "New game" on the main menu. Really seems like some video game designers feel slighted when their games are called games and want them to be considered more.

 

[fork]

The point is that saving stations give options to the player, and so do the other saving systems, some more, some less.
Checkpoints are like QTEs: they take away from the gameplay. Second-worst imo is btw probably Codex' favourite: quicksave/-load anywhere.

 

[Fargus]

Ribbons and saving stations work the best. Autosave... well maybe before the boss fight, so i dont have to repeat the same cycle of walking towards the boss over and over if things get difficult.

The rest of the save systems are either retarded try hard shit or too trivial for such games.

 

[what am i doing]

There are two acceptable methods of handling saving in video games.
1. The White man's method, which is to be able to save and load anywhere, at any time. The standard for most PC games, on account of not having shitty nigger-rigged storage with barely any space available (consoles).
2. The White man's backup method, which is no saving, but character state is saved immediately whenever it changes (this means levelling up, completion of quests/missions, inventory contents, etc). Common in multiplayer games with a hub & missions system, such as Guild Wars or EYE: Divine Cybermancy, since it disconnects absolute world state from character state.

Anything else is niggerlicious garbage.

 

[Ezekiel]

I don't get the complaint about only having one gun for most of the game, though. But melee system could be more varied in place of a small arsenal.

Was able to get better colors by raising contrast and lowering brightness in AMD control panel. Now it's actually dark. Never used that before, don't know if there's a way to set it for each game rather than globally, don't wanna go back into the game right now to check. Probably has to be done each time.

 

[what am i doing]

I don't get the complaint about only having one gun for most of the game, though. But melee system could be more varied in place of a small arsenal.

IMO, having only one gun at a given time isn't really a problem - that's how a lot of people play Dead Space, after all - but more the issue that there weren't many to pick from and that the ones that were present were very samey. You basically just had pistol, a couple similar shotguns, and assault rifle. All firing very similar rounds. Compare with Dead Space 2, where you have:
- energy pistol
- gun that holds out a spinning blade that you can move around to tear apart enemies, or fire at them
- flamethrower
- energy shotgun
- gun that fires spikes to impale enemies, can pin them to walls if fatal, has an alt-fire that makes the spike electrocute them, can be further upgraded to explode
- assault rifle with a grenade launcher
- sniper rifle
- energy sniper rifle that's so powerful it tears enemies apart in one body shot, but the alt-fire does a radial blast around you and can be upgraded to apply stasis to enemies
- mine launcher

So, a lot of the same weapons as TCP (albeit with different flavour), but also unique and distinct-feeling ones like the Javelin Gun or Ripper. You don't get anything like that in TCP, and it's actually kind of confusing - how could people who made Dead Space look at the cool arsenal those games provided, make a spiritual successor, and decide to just give the player a few bland samey guns? I don't know what was going through their heads.

 

[Child of Malkav]

how could people who made Dead Space

Maybe because they're not the same people who made DS.
My respect for Glen went into the negative values after seeing what he understands by "quality" and horror as he thought of himself some kind of genius on the concept.

 

[orcinator]

That Laura kraft's Ryona Simulator reference at 3:21
Edit: oh christ the rest of that channel

 

[Ezekiel]

Have to wait for a 13 GB update to finish before I begin today, for DLC I'm not even gonna buy.

Habitat Zone H600, where the one hit killer robot walks in a big circle while the four-legged monsters move around, is really annoying. Don't know where the game even wants me to input the code as I try to get through this forced stealth.

 

[Ezekiel]

I didn't pay for this game, Fork, you cuck. Ordered AMD graphics card, cancelled the order when AMD started their two game promotion about a week later, then ordered it again for the same price.

 

[fork]

Wasting your time on it is cucked enough.

 

[KIss My Ass]

I don't get the complaint about only having one gun for most of the game, though. But melee system could be more varied in place of a small arsenal.

IMO, having only one gun at a given time isn't really a problem - that's how a lot of people play Dead Space, after all - but more the issue that there weren't many to pick from and that the ones that were present were very samey. You basically just had pistol, a couple similar shotguns, and assault rifle. All firing very similar rounds. Compare with Dead Space 2, where you have:
- energy pistol
- gun that holds out a spinning blade that you can move around to tear apart enemies, or fire at them
- flamethrower
- energy shotgun
- gun that fires spikes to impale enemies, can pin them to walls if fatal, has an alt-fire that makes the spike electrocute them, can be further upgraded to explode
- assault rifle with a grenade launcher
- sniper rifle
- energy sniper rifle that's so powerful it tears enemies apart in one body shot, but the alt-fire does a radial blast around you and can be upgraded to apply stasis to enemies
- mine launcher

So, a lot of the same weapons as TCP (albeit with different flavour), but also unique and distinct-feeling ones like the Javelin Gun or Ripper. You don't get anything like that in TCP, and it's actually kind of confusing - how could people who made Dead Space look at the cool arsenal those games provided, make a spiritual successor, and decide to just give the player a few bland samey guns? I don't know what was going through their heads.

It actually makes sense given the setting. The weapons in CP are what prison guards would be armed with. Alot of Dead Space's weapons weren't meant to be weapons. I'm not excusing the bland ass guns but it does make sense that they would be regular guns.

 

[Ezekiel]

Another thing about auto-checkpoints... There were two paths. I didn't want to miss something important and optional, but didn't know which was the way forward. Took one, received checkpoint. So knew it was the way forward. Went the other way for the optional path, knowing that I'd have to be very careful because I wouldn't get another checkpoint until I came BACK and went farther ahead to the next one. I made it through the optional path, continued onward, but died before the next checkpoint. So my progress through the little optional path was not saved. Saving manually makes more sense.

I'm in that place where the Last of Us clicker-like enemies start to appear. This place looks so good. Funny there's that whole setup with him trying to be super quiet while hanging upside-down and then when I actually get to playing again, I give them an easy beating and later sneakily stab them in the back of the head one by one. This is horror? Game's rather easy. Glad Resident Evil never adopted the stupid crouch makes quiet shit. But I never played Village and barely played 7.

 

[Ezekiel]

Stealth is exceptionally bad. Just this very boring circle-crouching around the blind enemies, loudly one-shot killing their buddies within two feet of the other, and repeat, and repeat. I know it checks off those boxes, but their choices still are baffling.

 

[Ezekiel]

That's not how you do a cliffhanger. Man, that was bad. Story is the typical dumb video game idea of "Let's make ourselves butt-ugly for transhumanism."

Played through the whole game with just the pistol and shotgun. Because why would you purchase guns and the upgrades for them when you can spend that currency on the few weapons you already have?

 

[Ezekiel]

Left right, left right, left right dodge makes the bosses fucking shit. Also a good lesson as to why every third person game shouldn't be the cramped over the shoulder: you can't run away properly most of the time because the character is steered by where the camera is pointed and the combat relies on evading while facing the enemy.

 

[KIss My Ass]

How does this beast look on PC? I don't think it's a great game but I'll be damned if it ain't the best looking game I ever seen. Those sequences in the snow with the lit up helmet are sublime on PS5.

 

[Psquit]

Glad Resident Evil never adopted the stupid crouch makes quiet shit. But I never played Village and barely played 7.

Ummm...

 

[lightbane]

The DLC plus the ending. The final scene is a joke by the devs placed after the credits.



Seems slightly more fun than the base game, for what's worth.

Spoiler

It's the ending for Derp Space 3 all over again, but worse!

 

[Child of Malkav]

What a way to shit on the people who actually bought and played your interactive movie. Wow. Shit movie, shit DLC, Glenn's a hack. Thank God we won't be hearing of this IP again.

 

[Fedora Master]

This is why you don't give a shit about big name developers

 

[lightbane]

I like how the DLC not only retcons the base game's ending, it literally and figuratively squeezes the MC until the last drop. Chances are that if there's a sequel, the chick will be protagonist, or a new guy, or, if the devs wish to be bold, the cyborgized, resurrected MC from the first game. Chances are the chick will take over though.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.ign.com/articles/striking-distance-studios-callisto-protocol-layoffs

Callisto Protocol Publisher Confirms 32 Striking Distance Studios Layoffs to 'Realign Priorities'​

Layoffs follow release of Callisto Protocol DLC in June.​

Striking Distance Studios, the studio behind the 2022 survival horror and Dead Space spiritual successor the Callisto Protocol, has laid off 32 employees in what it's calling a move to "realign the studio’s priorities to better position its current and future projects for success."

Spotted first by X user @bogorad222 and independently confirmed by IGN, more than 30 employees were impacted by the recent layoffs.


CALLISTO PROTOCOL WAS MET WITH MIXED REVIEWS WHEN IT LAUNCHED IN 2022.

In a statement sent to IGN, a spokesperson for Krafton confirmed the studio had layoffs and that 32 employees were impacted.

Striking Distance Studios and KRAFTON have implemented strategic changes that realign the studio’s priorities to better position its current and future projects for success. Unfortunately, these changes have impacted 32 employees. Honoring the invaluable contributions of each departing team member with material support in the form of outplacement services and meaningful severance packages is our top priority during this difficult moment.

Striking Distance struggles forward​

Striking Distance was founded over three years ago and is led by Glen Schofield, the creator of Dead Space and co-founder of Sledgehammer Games. The studio was originally formed to create a narrative-driven game set in the PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) universe, later revealed as The Callisto Protocol. However, in May 2022, Schofield revealed that The Callisto Protocol no longer takes place in the PUBG universe, stating that it “grew into its own world..”

However, when The Callisto Protocol was released, it was met with mixed reviews and several issues, from performance issues to studio crunch, and issues with crediting people who worked on the game. Additionally, it was reported that The Callisto Protocol failed to meet the sales expectations set forth by Striking Distance Studios’ parent company Krafton.

In our review of The Callisto Protocol, which we awarded a 7 out of 10, my colleague Tristran Ogilvie said “The Callisto Protocol is a satisfyingly gory spiritual successor to the Dead Space series, but it’s ultimately more of a striking modern mimic than a scary new mutation.”