The Callisto Protocol - new survival horror from Dead Space creator

[gerey]

This game will be derivative and drab shit nonetheless, hard work or not.

Dunno why people are disagreeing with you.

On the one hand, there's a lot of people responsible for Dead Space 1 and 2 working on it, on the other hand the gameplay they have shown so far has not been very good. Animations and sounds are good, both the melee attacks and the gun sound meaty, but melee looks to be severely underpowered and the environmental hazards and stealth trivialize combat.

The latest gameplay video reminded me of the Citadel sections in Half-Life 2 with the overcharged gravity gun - what's stopping the player from picking up monsters and tossing them into the grinder or fan, or simply backstabbing them all since the AI seems braindead?

Evil Within 1 and 2 constantly struggled, and mostly failed, to balance the game around stealth and action - the games being focused on survival favoring the resource conservation of the stealthy approach. I feel like they should not have implemented stealth, or only reserved it for enemies like the robots.

 

[lightbane]

I don't get it. Why is he being attacked by saying he's working hard at making the game, as he should?

Because he's the CEO and he's saying "we're" hard at work making the game, which presumably includes people hired on salary under terms he is most assuredly breaking.

While having the game devs work excessively hard is unfortunately common in game development, the alternative is worse if it results in lazy asses that do very little, if at all, which result in no games being delivered in years (see Valve), or games with shit programming (see Battletech 2018).

The latest gameplay video reminded me of the Citadel sections in Half-Life 2 with the overcharged gravity gun - what's stopping the player from picking up monsters and tossing them into the grinder or fan, or simply backstabbing them all since the AI seems braindead?

Perhaps the enemies drop no loot if killed with environmental tools?
Even if the game is mediocre, there's been no Dead Space equivalent for years, so it's the closest thing we have.

 

[Morgoth]

 

[toro]

Honestly it's the only game I look forward this year ... which means that it will probably suck.

 

[manifest]

I don't see anything this game does that I wasn't already bored of by hour 18 of the first Dead Space.

 

[Morgoth]

Honestly it's the only game I look forward this year ... which means that it will probably suck.

Such refreshing candor coming from you...

 

[Ivan]

Dead Space 3 lookin' good

 

[gerey]

Naturally they had to go and find the ugliest gook actress they could to sully the game with.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't get it. Why is he being attacked by saying he's working hard at making the game, as he should?

Because gaming journalists are allergic to the idea of hard work, and they perceive it as "exploitation"

Hmm... and what has coincided with this... hmmmmm....

The development rate of videogames has become insanely slow. This can't be attributed to them making more technically complex games as we're effectively past the era of regular mega-AAA blockbusters, something only a handful of studios do now. This can't be attributed to the coofdemic either, as it was something that started before that and was only exacerbated by it.

It explains why you see games released 10 years ago on sale for $30 when you used to see old games for only a couple dollars. They're no longer used to pull you into a series to get you to buy the newest titles.

To put it into perspective: Dragon Age: Dreadwolf currently has no release date. Dragon Age Inquisition is nearing a decade old, the time gap between DAO and DAI is nearly half the current timegap of DAI to ...nothing. This is the studio that was previously pumping out two major franchises simultaneously.
And it's most definitely not limited to Bioware, it's across the entire industry. It's taking developers 4-5 years to make games they used to make in 2.
Batman Arkham Asylum? 2009. Arkham City? 2011. Arkham Knight? 2015. 5 years later they announced the Suicide Squad game they're still working on with a planned release date in 2023. Rocksteady has released 0 titles since 2015 except some crappy VR shovelware game in 2016.
Firaxis: Civ 5, 2010 with a stupid amount of DLC. Nu-Xcom, 2012 with major expansion in 2013. Civ: Beyond Earth, 2014. Nu-Xcom 2 in 2016 with a major expansion in 2017. Civ 6, 2016, more stupid amounts of DLC. ... Nu-XCOM Chimera Squad, 2020. ... Marvel's Midnight Suns, later this year. delayed!
Harebrained Schemes: Shadowrun Returns, 2013. Dragonfall, 2014. Hong Kong, 2015. Battletech, 2018. Nothing since besides a recent poor console port of the Shadowrun games.
Bethesda: LOL
Techland: Call of Juarez Bound in Blood, 2009. Jaurez: The Cartel, 2011. Dead Island, 2011. Dead Island: Riptide, 2013. Juarez: Gunslinger, 2013. Dying Light, 2015 with an expansion in 2016. ....... Dying Light 2, 2022.

Are there some exceptions? Sure, but they're definitely in the minority, and I have a feeling a lot of them will end up being Japanese.

Gamedevs are relying heavily on profits from older games now, that's why you aren't getting your sales anymore. Also, remasters for everything!

 

[Morgoth]

"Gone Gold"

"Please stay tuned for the 30GB Day 1 patch"

 

[good fucking shit happen]

Naturally they had to go and find the ugliest gook actress they could to sully the game with.

Shieeet, she has that azn bitchface that I could nut buckets into forever. Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Karen Fukuhara's face except with jizz megatons.

Only reason why EA is remaking Dead Space: Jewbois in Space is cuz they fear The Glen and this dope game. 100% horror and not a gay ass space commie in sight. Morgoth be sweatin.

 

[Dadd]

Naturally they had to go and find the ugliest gook actress they could to sully the game with.

Shieeet, she has that azn bitchface that I could nut buckets into forever. Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Karen Fukuhara's face except with jizz megatons.

Only reason why EA is remaking Dead Space: Jewbois in Space is cuz they fear The Glen and this dope game. 100% horror and not a gay ass space commie in sight. Morgoth be sweatin.

Are you blind?

 

[good fucking shit happen]

Are you blind?

Wdym? Graphics looks crisp as fuck almost photoreal and I'm not seeing any commies or dangerhairs.

 

[notpl]

The idea of anyone looking forward to the game after watching this footage is baffling to me.

 

[Morgoth]

Black Iron, the Free market prison paradise.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

The idea of anyone looking forward to the game after watching this footage is baffling to me.

Doesn't really look any better or worse than Dead Space 1. The monsters look a little lamer than necromorphs though. So probably a better Dead Space 3 than actual Dead Space 3.

 

[toughasnails]

The idea of anyone looking forward to the game after watching this footage is baffling to me.

So what is exactly is your issue here? The only possibly problematic part is the prolonged Uncharted-like cinematic sequence with that water slide but you already had such in Dead Space 2 and people generally love that game.

 

[toro]

The idea of anyone looking forward to the game after watching this footage is baffling to me.

So what is exactly is your issue here? The only possibly problematic part is the prolonged Uncharted-like cinematic sequence with that water slide but you already had such in Dead Space 2 and people generally love that game.

Melee combat looks like crap. Also nobody will melee mutants when turbines or big ventilators are around.

The mutants AI seems to be non-existent and there were too many jump scares in the gameplay video.

I think we all need to lower our expectations for the game.

 

[Alienman]

Looks fine to me. I just hope it has some good quiet parts, not just killing stuff. You know the deal, the walking around, taking in the atmosphere, doing mild puzzles, reading notes, stuff like that.

 

[notpl]

The idea of anyone looking forward to the game after watching this footage is baffling to me.

So what is exactly is your issue here? The only possibly problematic part is the prolonged Uncharted-like cinematic sequence with that water slide but you already had such in Dead Space 2 and people generally love that game.

Seriously? He shoots one enemy 3 times, melees it 6 times, shoots it 3 more times and then just gives up and throws it into the giant flashing ENVIRONMENTAL KILL HERE in the middle of the room because it's such a tedious waste of time trying to engage with the actual combat system.

 

[Gumsmith]

Stealth, great. I'm sick of crawling around with my fucking bum hovering off the floor going up behind everything and pressing X TO STAB. Better if a game didn't have such things.

 

[Gumsmith]

Maybe if we're lucky it'll include detective vision an xray upgrade for your space suit so we can have the full AAA action-stealth experience.

 

[gerey]

Looks fine to me.

As others have said, the melee and ranged combat looks anemic, what's preventing players from just throwing enemies into environmental hazards?

Also, the stealth looks braindead. Enemies don't react to light, and since there will be limited resources players will be incentivized to engage with the barebones, simplistic stealth over the combat, where, I imagine, the vast majority of energy has been put in terms of design.

 

[Daedalos]

Imagine acting like a E3 demo presentation of gimmicks in the game, is a representation of the majority of levels.
You think every room will have environment that can kill the monsters? it wont.

You think every room will have some cutscene-esque type gameplay like the water-shute? it wont.

This gon b gud.

 

[toughasnails]

Also, the stealth looks braindead. Enemies don't react to light, and since there will be limited resources players will be incentivized to engage with the barebones, simplistic stealth over the combat, where, I imagine, the vast majority of energy has been put in terms of design.

I imagine the stealth will be somewhat incentivized only early on, maybe with one or two short forced stealth segments. Much like the first The Evil Within.
It's something tacked on bc people seem to expect it from a survival horror games nowadays, it's not the game's main course in which case the complaints about simplistic stealth would be warranted.

Anyway the ranged combat actually doesn't look as bad as you guys claim. Feedback from the weapon seems to be satisfying enough. Bear in mind also that this is early on in the game, before you upgrade your arm or get stronger ones, plus the player largely doesn't seem to be hitting the vunerable parts of monsters. Think playing Dead Space early on with basic cutter and shooting the necromorphs in the chest and the like (like what is happening here) instead of aiming for their limbs and what you'd get wouldn't be much different from this footage.