Now Playing: The Callisto Protocol

The Callisto Protocol is a sci-fi survival horror that released in 2022. I recall seeing it get somewhat mixed reviews, but when it was recently given away for free on Epic I saw no reason not to give it a spin. You play as Jacob Lee, a space trucker hauling cargo to Callisto on behalf of the United Jupiter Company.

But when your ship is attacked and you crash on the surface, you find yourself tossed without charge into Black Iron Prison. Things quickly go to shit as a virus spreads throughout the prison population, transforming them into monsters. As Jacob, your goal is simple: get the f**k out of the prison and off Callisto alive.

What follows is a very linear, eight or so hour adventure, around half of which I would estimate is spent slowly crawling in vents or squeezing around pipes and through narrow gaps. So much squeezing. So, so much. Your progress through Black Iron is broken down into several chapters and I’m sad to say from a gameplay point of view, the game doesn’t really mix things up as you go.

Every area is just a handful of linear corridors, with several crawls and squeezes to divide sections. Paths may branch on occasion, but they rarely lead to anything more exciting than a few extra supplies and a dead end. Or a fuse and a dead end. So, so many fuses. All throughout the game your progress will be impeded by yet another door with a blown fuse that requires you to backtrack to locate a new one.

Crawling, squeezing and fuses – that’s the holy trinity of progression and exploration in The Callisto Protocol. Yes, it’s about as exciting as it sounds. Which is a shame, because I feel like there’s a potentially really good game buried in here beneath all this tedious and bland game design. The Callisto Protocol is clearly going for that Dead Space vibe – slow, sci-fi horror that’s brutal, relentless and dark.

And I think it does a great job of capturing that spirit – which is why it’s a shame that everything else about the game is so damn flawed. I did like Jacob as a protagonist, but the plot doesn’t really seem to progress for much of the game, not unless you take time out to track down and listen to the obligatory audio logs.

By ‘plot’ I mean the story beyond the simple objective of getting out of the prison alive. I’m talking about where the virus came from, who released it and why. But most of these questions seem totally irrelevant as you progress, at least until towards the very end when the game dumps all the exposition on you at once.

There’s no real ‘antagonist’ as such, but then the game suddenly tries to make one out of a prison officer (Ferris) you met very briefly at the beginning of the game. So . . . he’s my nemesis now? But why? There’s also an odd ‘boss’ monster with two heads that just shows up out of nowhere once and then the game makes you fight it two more times before the end.

It’s not a bad fight, but surely the game could have set it up a little? Teased it a little? Couldn’t it have made Ferris a more constant presence throughout your experience? He disappears near the start of the game, makes a couple of brief appearances as you go and then becomes the final boss fight like you have some kind of history or grudge to settle or . . . I don’t f**king know.

What do you want from me, Callisto Protocol? What do you want me to care about? I did care about getting Jacob out alive, I guess, but beyond that I can’t say the game gave me a reason to care about much else. Everything is so damn predictable. Did the creepy hologram man release the virus? Of course he f**king did. Is the prison experimenting on its inmates? Of course it f**king is. If you’re looking for a story that might surprise you, or take an unexpected twist then you won’t find that here.

The combat has a nice weight and crunch to it. You get a decent selection of weapons, all of which can be upgraded. You also get a limited ‘gravity glove’ type ability that lets you pick up and toss monsters into grinding machinery. So much grinding machinery. So, so much. Black Iron Prison doesn’t seem to have much in the way of Health and Safety regulations given how so many of its rooms have massive grinding machines that can reduce you to a red mist, operating without any kind of safety barrier.

It’s actually kind of ridiculous, even if it is always fun to toss monsters into the machinery and watch them explode. There’s one part where you’re warned that the prison set a trap for prisoners trying to escape a particular way and whilst a simple locked gate would have sufficed, instead they installed a revolving, deadly drill machine that slowly trundles up and down a narrow corridor with very helpful safe alcoves provided at regular intervals.

Wait, what? I guess that’s not as weird as the water slide system that runs for miles beneath the prison and has pillars covered in spikes placed randomly along it to stop anyone from . . . surfing their way to freedom? Who the f**k designed this prison? I guess you could just say ‘video game’ by way of explanation but for me, I like to think the environments of a very serious game like this would make at least some kind of logical sense.

Enemy variety ain’t great. Not terrible, but not great. There’s one part where you encounter a new enemy that hunts by sound. No exactly original, but it’s a nice change of pace to the bum-rush brutes and acid spitters you’ve spent the last 5 hours smashing and blasting. Of course the game then ruins it by making you sneak around these f**ks for way too long. I lost patience and just started shooting my way through.

Enemies nearly always attack you in a repetitive pattern too – left swing, right swing – which you can easily dodge and then counter. Sometimes they mix it up a little, but not much. It means it’s pretty easy to avoid taking any hits even when you’re surrounded.

Visually, The Callisto Protocol looks very nice, but not nice enough to run as poorly as it does. Optimisation isn’t great. I can’t really complain about the cast because they do a good job with what they’ve got but what they’re got isn’t worth much.

Overall, The Callisto Protocol, despite my many gripes, certainly isn’t a bad game. It’s an okay game that if you see it given away for free or on a heavy sale and you like your sci-fi or survival horror then it might just be worth giving a go. But otherwise it’s pretty hard to recommend. It’s like playing a worse version of Dead Space . . . and if that’s all it is, why not just play Dead Space again?

6/10