The Callisto Protocol™

2 hours in I could not understand all the negative reviews. 4 hours in I was getting abit rage-quitty because I could not figure out the combat and it seems so many things were designed to just kill you even if you have the experience to realise beforehand whats gonna happen. 6 hours in I started to realise that people probably leave negative reviews because they remember how amazing Dead Space was and they got a bit disappointed with this not being Dead Space. 9 hours in I'm starting to like it for what it is, a good game with a few bugs that can be worked around. An interesting story I look forward to seeing in it's entirety and a novel combat mechanic. I am still convinced the negative reviews are because of how good Dead Space was, because this game does not deserve mixed reviews, it deserves at least mostly good or better. It is well made and has a few new ideas that may or may not work depending on you, the player. The horror part of it is fairly predictable if you played Dead Space but they also surprise you from time to time. Jump scares are cheap but that's not all we get even if they may have overused it at times. I get this feeling that they had to balance on a legal line when doing this as to not infringe legally on the Dead Space franchise that was butched and left to rot by the publishers. It is similar in many ways but it is not Dead Space If the first Dead Space was a 9/10, for me it was a 9.5/10, Then I say this deserves at least 6.5 or 7/10.

This is my first game review ever. I recently finished the Callisto protocol I was naturally attracted to the game as a fan of the dead space series and so I thought id give this game a chance. Does this game top dead space I would say no but boy did I enjoy it. I played this game long after issues where fixed with updates and it was a pleasant surprise. The game has great pacing and there were plenty of situations where i was on the edge of my seat and freaked out. The graphics are amazing and the combat In my personal opinion was lots of fun the melee combat was repetitive sure but it would hit hard the variety of guns with upgrades brought it to another level as well as the gravity glove mixing all the weapons you have at your disposal into combos is rewarding and every fight feels rewarding and intense. So to sum it up if your a fan of deadspace give this game a shot I think you will come out with a smile on your face.

Very good plot with a reserve for the second part. Actors - my respect. Sweat on the neck has never been so realistic lol. Very high expectations that broke the ceiling were only because of Glen Schofield. That's why everyone tried to mirror it with Dead Space, and not look at it as a separate project. But with all due respect, this is a very worthy project that deserves a sequel. It contains the best elements of this genre and fans of Resident Evil and Dead Space must be satisfied. Let's be honest, if there was a second part, you wouldn't be interested in finding out the continuation of the story considering of how it is ended?

Great game! The combat feels brutal and satisfying, and the enemy designs are genuinely terrifying. If you're a fan of sci-fi horror and loved games like Dead Space, this one is definitely worth playing. It’s a thrilling ride from beginning to end!

I can't believe I ignored this title specifically because people were trashing it so hard. This game has so many elements I love; Horror, sci-fi, cinematic and fun. This game really draws you in. It's been a very long time since a game has kept me glued to the screen like this. Not only is it fun and creepy, but it looks so good. Give this game a chance.

Great Action and horror experience with a good story.... (optimization is the only issue sadly)

Проект мне очень понравился. Хочу отметить боевку - она здесь интересная. Не помню, в каких играх я видел боевку, наподобие этой. Но, сука, как же меня бесит то, что разрабы очень сильно растягивают саму игру. К примеру, мы идем тысячу лет к определенному лифту. Оказалось, что лифт не работает, и для его включения требуется включить генератор. Через еще тысячу лет приходим к генератору. Оказывается, что он тоже не работает, и для включения требуется включить определенные рычаги! А возле этих рычагов кишат миллиард "зомби". Не знаю, кому это может понравится, но такое растягивание игры мне вообще не нравится.

Played it about two years ago but forgot to leave a review back then. Let’s start with the positives. The atmosphere in The Callisto Protocol is absolutely fantastic — the first half of the game is just amazing. The opening sequence is what really hooked me in and kept me playing it till the end. The game does a great job at building tension, mystery, and intrigue at the start. And I won't say anything about the graphics, it is just incredible. But then things begin to fall apart. The biggest issue I encountered was optimization. I played the game after the major patches had already been released, but I still ran into noticeable stuttering in several scenes during the second half of the game. This seems to be a persistent issue, and even players with high-end PCs may not be able to avoid it. So be ready for that. Another major flaw is the story. The first part had a ton of potential: beautiful environments, intriguing characters, and hints of deep lore. It really felt like the developers wanted to build a rich, immersive world. Unfortunately, the second half comes off as rushed. There are still some good moments and characters that expand the world, but they’re far fewer than what we get at the beginning. A strong indicator that the game wasn’t ready at launch is the post-release DLC "Final Transmission." It is the actual ending of the game, and that says a lot about how incomplete the original release was. I honestly wish Striking Distance Studios had one or two more years to finish and polish the game. The game needed a more complete ending, stronger antagonists, and a few more interesting side characters. The villains especially felt underdeveloped. After brief interactions at the beginning, they largely disappear from the story until the very end, leaving a massive gap in the middle with little narrative tension. I don't want to spoiler a lot, but I think that we needed a more interesting secondary antagonist that would be like Hans Tiedemann from the Dead Space 2 who was EarthGov's Director of Operations on Titan Station and was trying to somehow save that place with the personal in it. As you can see I am also a Dead Space fan (especially Dead Space 2, which I consider the best in the series), and that is why I also want to clarify something important: don’t expect similar gameplay like in the Dead Space. That game is not a Dead Space, they are really different, stop expecting the same experience like from the Dead Space, you will just ruin your experience due to that. The combat in The Callisto Protocol is heavily melee-focused, with ranged weapons serving more as backup tools. It’s a completely different experience. I liked the concept of prioritizing close combat, but the execution felt lacking. The melee system needed more variety, like combo mechanics, to keep it engaging over time. So, will the story pull you in? Probably yes, thanks to the cinematic presentation and strong opening. But I highly recommend playing it on a really good PC and giving yourself time to get used to the combat system — especially if you are a Dead Space fan. Overall, The Callisto Protocol is a good game and has some standout moments, but the execution and technical issues hold it back. With better pacing, antagonist development, and polish, this could have been something even more unique. Final score: 7/10. A solid experience if you manage your expectations.

As someone who has waited years for a new dead space game (the remake doesn't really count) this is everything I had hoped it would be. Brilliant atmosphere, setting, characters and story. The cutscenes were really well done and felt more fluid and "alive" than those in a lot of other games. Gameplay wise it definitely has its pros and cons, and I kinda get why a lot of people are divided with this game. Though I personally didn't find any mechanics to be troubling or annoying; it's a survival horror so things like slow walking in certain areas didn't bother me at all. Having said that, I'm glad I waited 2.5 years till it was all patched and on sale (bought for $11) instead of buying it new and experiencing all the performance issues that were present back then. Overall, had a great time with this one. Can't speak for anyone else but I didn't have any bad experiences. The combat system was really unique, learning the dodge system and timing gunshots after a few good swings felt really satisfying. I never thought making a game like this melee-focused could work, but I think they pulled it off pretty well. I didn't know what I expected going into this game blind as a dead space fan but I got everything out of it that I wanted. They really killed it in this genre.

I got this on sale for $8 and I can't complain at all. Really good game and I came out really surprised. I had a lot of games on my backburner I have been trying to beat all slowly, and when I got this and played 2 hours of it, I got hooked and played till I finished it the next day lol. The story is good, atmosphere is amazing, graphics are insane, the horror elements are great. Voice acting is great as well. Lots of good stuff overall. My only nitpicks are: -Optimization is a bit all over the place, definitely took a lot of tweaking for this to get working for me good. Once it did though, 150+fps majority of time maxed out at 1440p. Was smooth -The combat is VERY repetitive. However the game is also short, so I do not mind this as much. -The final boss is..... a boss to say the least lol. That much I can say. I don't think there is anything positive to say about it though Overall 8/10, really solid game and for fans of obviously Dead Space, but also just fans of horror games in general. Pick it up on sale like I did and this should be a fun 8-10 hours for you.

I saw a lot of the reviews and figured this game would be a little fun, just not THAT good. The truth is this game is probably one of the most boring games I've played. The melee combat is very weighty and can be fun at times, but the game basically invalidates it with the whole "shoot the tentacles" gimmick. They only spawn tentacles after you melee them a few times, so the intended way is to melee them until the tentacles spawn and then shoot the tentacles then stomp the corpse before it comes back. The actual correct way is to shoot off their legs with one or two bullets then go over and ground execute them, no muss no fuss. This is just one example really of the poorly designed gameplay imo. There were a couple of fights where I thought the game was heating up a bit before the momentum was completely thrown in the trash and I was lulled to sleep. The worst example was after you get your first suit, but before you go down into the tunnels to fight the clicker type enemies. I was having some fun with the combat but the clicker enemies (They can't see and you have to be quiet) are probably the worst enemies I've ever seen in a game. They make this big deal about being quiet and having to sneak, but these enemies are the least threatening ones to date. They are slow, die easily and do no damage. I was never quiet again and just went guns blazing and mopped them up with ease. I was only playing on the middle difficulty and maybe I would be having more fun at a higher difficulty, but nothing about this game would make me want to play it again. The game is also really ugly. I don't mean the graphics, but the design of the areas, suits and weapons are just so bad. Even something like the habitat dome which I was hoping would add a dash of color to the game just blended into the desaturated rest of the game (Though looking up at Jupiter was pretty). Most of the game so far has felt like running through a subway from Fallout, but with none of the charm. You'll notice I said most of the game so far because the game has deleted one of my manual saves and all of my auto saves, leaving only a manual save from 4 hours back. This has been a problem since the games launch and still remains one over two years later. Apparently restarting it a "few times" fixes it but after 6 restarts I came to leave this comment before trying again. If I can't get my saves back this game is going into the trash and if I do I'll probably finish it and update this comment if I change my mind, but that seems unlikely. Oh, also the story is uninteresting and bad.

the story is good but the game is easy because of the dodge mechanics but i love the game

The Callisto Protocol wanted to be the next Dead Space, but ended up more like Dead Hype. It tries too hard to impress with flashy gore and moody lighting, but forgets the basics—like fun gameplay, good pacing, or not running like a potato on decent hardware. The story has a flicker of interest, but it’s buried under clunky combat, dull design, and lingering performance issues. Save your time (and your wallet) for something that actually works. This one's best left floating in deep space.

Bruh, there is no doubt that the negative reviews of this game are true. I ignore those then get this game on sale and oh boy. While the art direction is excellent and body horror is top notch, I can't say for the gameplay. The gameplay can be fun for some but not for the majority. It is flawed to the core where melee combat while 1v1 is kinda fun, but facing more than 1 lets say 2 is already a cluster fk. But if facing 3 enemies, prepare to load your save game. And what are with the vents? I am sorry Glen Schofield but I can't understand your design choice sometimes. You kill 1-2 enemies, move to next room, oh a vent. Crawling thru the vent, kill 1 enemy or dont, oh why not another vent to crawl. Moving to next rooms, not vent this time but you have to crouch thru a bunch of pipes... Seriously? It is really tiresome after like 2-3 hours of playing, seeing all of these patterns, my head is full of these design questions more than paying attention to the story. And the story is full of unlikable characters, where some spout out evolution and crap, i thought i play some bad copy of Resident Evil game

Game has some CoC which says no offensive user name, it's suppose to be a single player game, I'm not sure why they're talking about usernames for a single player game, but I go to Steam to buy things, I don't play games to get ads about more games or content, the store page is where I want to see that stuff, not in-game, I don't care how pretty the game looks, I'm not okay with ads.

I refunded pc because the ps5 version was a bit more stable with no stutter but i love this game. Lots of the complaints about the melee have to be from people who didnt play long or are playing wrong, because after the first main chapter its pretty much 95 percent guns unless if you play right.

Playing this game is like shooting yourself in the foot i have never disliked a game this much the only thing going for it are the amazing facial work but other than that the only reason i am going to finish it is because i paid full price on pre order for a promise that was never fulfilled

Missions & Fightings being very tedious is times, this game holds up pretty well. Level Designs are great along with how well the game looks. Would Definitely appreciate a Sequel.

This game runs like absolute dog shit. Progress, very early in the game is stopped due to a game breaking bug. This game is a perfect example of devs who didn't know how to program a game. DO NOT BUY.

Never in my life have I actually quit a game and uninstalled it without finishing it. The save system is absolute garbage, the game is poorly optimized, and the technical issues ruin what could have been an incredible game. Great vibe, amazing visuals, the combat is engaging and fun. However, it deserves the mostly poor reviews it has received due to the game's issues, which at the time of development should have been easily avoided. Get on sale if it's less than $5 and try for yourself, any higher than that is a waste of your money.

crouch here. crawl through 50000 vents there. squeeze yourself through 19994 gaps . ladder here ladder there. This game will make you end up hate all of this in every other game. Literally one of the worst Leveldesigns i've come across. Gameplay is so repetitive and annoying even the damn accessibility options won't help. Every NPC in your vicinity won't shut the hell up about what you have to do, while you collect items or upgrade your stuff.

[h2]No highlight, but also not a bad game.[/h2] The price during the sale (around €13 for the Deluxe Edition) is definitely okay. The game shouldn't have been longer, as it already became somewhat monotonous at times. The story was better than expected. The gameplay is solid. If you're in the mood for a very pretty, gameplaywise mediocre but atmospheric horror shooter, it's certainly not a bad choice. Generally, though, there are definitely better story shooters out there. Unfortunately, the game has been abandoned by the developers, and there are gameplay bugs as well as a bug that only allows the English voiceover. There are workarounds, but it’s still a shame of the developer. For around €10, it's okay; at a higher price, I would definitely prefer an alternative.

I bought this at the same time as Dead Space, but I specifically played The Callisto Protocol before it because of all the reviews. It’s not a bad game, it's actually pretty good. I had fun the entire time, and the pacing of the game was honestly a lot better than other games I've played. It felt like each moment was contributing to the story and I could actually feel it leading up. There were just some annoying parts like vent crawling and wall shimmy-ing that were kinda slow and got annoying fast. Combat is decent, sometimes hard but when you get into the flow of it it feels satisfying. I don't think I'd buy the game at full price, but regardless it's worth picking up!

Totally understand why this game would be disliked due to its short run time, lots of unnecsary vent/shimmy scenes, and that DLC ending, but it was an enjoyable space horror and while not up to "dead space" standards, I would be excited for a sequel, which is unfortunate to ever happen due to the studios fate. Awesome satsifying melee combat

This game was cool, until, almost immediately it wasn't. Its not a hard game, In my opinion it has a lot of blunders that don't make sense, especially within the second half of the game. For example, I played it on normal difficulty. At the beginning, it was giving you more loot that you could carry. Then, towards the end there was no loot, heavy story (Which is interesting and not bad to sit through, up until...), weak combat, and a cliffhanger ending. And to get to that ending , you have to purchase the DLC (...That part). Honestly a good looking game, looked like a lot of time went into the look and aesthetic of a, "Dead Space" Atmosphere to current gen graphics. But I wouldn't recommend unless on sale.

[h1]WAIIIIIIIT!!!!!!![/h1] I do need to coment my opinion here, because there alot of reviews talking about this game is negative way, but [b]THIS GAME NEED A SEQUEL[/b], the people here is just complaing about gameplay and history, but the gameplay is similar to silent hill 2 remake, its not difficult at all, u just need defend or dodge and attack, NOT MORE THAN THAT, no way a gameplay like that be some kind of horrible. [b]AND THE LORE ?[/b] its good, very sify thing, remember me some about Prometheus with dead space, and i love it, but its not finish, the lore tell it will have a second game. there some bugs, but not something u will be frustating or make unistall the game, people here need to know that game [b]ITS NOT[/b] dead space, [b]AND[/b] be more [b]OPEN MIND. GIVE A CHANCE.[/b] [b]CONGRATS TO THE DEVS, AND THE CREATIVITY!![/b]

this game might be not as good as dead space series but it does fulfill my itch for action survival horror sci-fi genre

So, I got this for 4$, and for that price, I think it's worth playing, but for anything more than that, just skip this one. It starts out pretty strong, but after the four hour mark, it's like the designers just fucking gave up, and the game just starts throwing as many enemies as it can at you, which completely destroys any horror elements this game had to begin with. To add insult to injury, the combat is extremely samey, and only gets worse when mutations are introduced, which discourages the player from playing the game in any way except for using ranged weapons, which is honestly really frustrating, seeing as this games marketing is entirely focused on the fact that it's got a bunch of cool finisher animations, which you will never see after the 4 hour mark. When it comes to the story, the characters are all underdeveloped, boring, or just simply intolerable. None of its story beats are memorable, and its villain is just plain embarrassing. Just get Dead Space instead.

love the horror aspect and great details and game play

Сюжет: Сбеги с тюрьмы 3 раза, потом упади в недра тюрьмы и сбеги еще раз, а также найди предохранитель на другом конце карты

[h3] TLDR: Try it if you really think you want to, but you are not missing out on anything if you don't. [/h3] This game relies [b]HEAVILY[/b] on jumpscares. Every single attempt at making the player feel fear is through some kind of cheap jumpscare attempt. I am not someone that plays horror or survival horror games, I do not enjoy them and I do not enjoy feeling fear or terror. I avoid them like a plague. Thankfully (and also unfortunately), this game does not do any of that. There is nothing frightening or "scary" about this game. There is no terror. Every jumpscare is extremely predictable, so they rarely work, if ever. Later on in the game it becomes "roll your eyes" laughable even. I think one big reason why this game also struggles to make the player feel any kind of fear, is that the player is WAY too powerful. Yes, you can run out of ammo, and ammo isn't always abundant, but the melee combat system, while innovative, is also so simplistic that it rarely matters. The player is also always aware where enemies will come from or when a fight will take place, as there are environmental objects like conveniently placed spike walls, explosives, grates on the floor, or air vents that always signal this. Upgrading your weapons is a chore as credits (in game currency) are difficult to come by. You are guaranteed to not upgrade all weapons or items on your first playthrough. Visually the game looks great, but suffers from some performance issues at times. Audio and sound design are good. Voice acting is good. Combat is okay. I enjoyed it for the most part, despite how divisive of a topic it is, but it can quickly become repetitive. Story is nothing to write home about either. There was great potential in terms of the futuristic setting and politics involving bioweapons and the future of humankind in space, but the game never really dives deeper into it beyond a surface level presentation. Everything that happens in the story is also very cliche and predictable. Character development of our main protagonist, Jacob, is also pretty mediocre. That's a lot of negatives, so why would I still recommend this game? It's not a [i] bad [/i] game. It's just okay or "meh". That, and Steam does not allow a "maybe" or "indifferent" vote. Also, i'm quite convinced this game took an even more major hit in reputation and negativity by trying to "piggy back" or build hype off of the Dead Space name (and ultimately failing to meet those expectations). I however, have not played dead space, so I am able to remain completely neutral in that regard.

it deleted my save after i left the game 7+ hours worth of progress LOST AND NOT ONLY THAT the final boss is nearly impossible to defeat, even on the easiest mode and maxed out weapons. total dogshit game || IF YOU VALUE YOUR MONEY AND TIME || DO NOT BUT THIS GAME, EVEN IF ITS 99% OFF ||

I dont know about the hate, this games fire. Hack up monsters with an electro mallet, Shoot them, too. It has all the Dead Space gore, suspense, with a little last of us thrown in. They even improved on Isaac's clunky slow stomp and swing. This guy throws it around. The story that unfolds is also similar and alien, and feels just like that first playthrough of DS feels. Absolutely get it. I grabbed a deep sale, and it is absolutely worth it.

(REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS) After experiencing the base game of The Callisto Protocol and the story DLC 'Final Transmission' on Maximum Security difficulty, the only way I can recommend this one is on sale, if you're craving something like Dead Space, and if you're willing to deal with the annoying issues. First off, the game looks beautiful, and the animations are amazing. The visuals come at a price, however. The performance isn't the best, even with frame generation enabled, compared to something like the Dead Space Remake (I'd argue that DSR actually looks better but you get the point, not the best optimization). This is something that I can consider forgiving if the rest of the game was great, but it's alright at best. It also feels very on rails, where if you don't do exactly what the developers intended, it ends in a fail. The combat is a mix of melee and guns for the most part, but I used melee mostly and played the game inefficiently. This combat system has a major issue, where it doesn't handle a fight with more than one enemy well in the slightest. Only one enemy can attack you at a time, that being the one you focus on. The rest watch until you decide to hit them or don't hit the targeted enemy quick enough or if you kill the targeted enemy, or the enemy has a ranged attack or some other special condition. I also encountered a major issue where a boss of the game is not killable with melee, and I had to reload an earlier save due to my decision of selling all the ammo that was meant to be used for the fight. This ammo is accessible in the arena before the boss appears, and no other enemy I had to kill was ranged only, so I had no way of knowing. This would be easily fixable by having the crates containing the ammo open when the boss appears, or since it's on a tram, when you actually start moving on it. Speaking of saves and easily fixable issues AND game breaking bugs, let's talk about that. I was about to quit the game before finishing because the game did not show my autosaves upon exiting the game and opening it back up. I didn't do a manual save for more than half of my playthrough because these autosaves existed. I found the fix on Reddit. You have to start a new game and walk around for a bit when you gain control of your character, pause the game and enter the load save section, and they will be there. Why??? There's also a minor bug where Jacob cannot interact with various objects (doors, crates, objectives, etc.) until you have your baton in your hand. It happens only sometimes, but it happened to me a LOT which is annoying. There's also a lot of minor clipping, but the story DLC is buggier than the base game. There is a game breaking bug where if you use a fuse to open a door that you may already have in your inventory instead of looking for the one they want you to, the script will be bugged and the door won't open, softlocking you. That's most bugs I can think of, but I wanted to touch on the story briefly. Jacob and Dani are the two main protagonists of the story, and I have to say that I didn't like Dani very much at all. She's an asshole for more than half of the game for something that you don't even know about until near the very end, and she feels extremely incompetent. Besides that, villains and most characters in general are forgettable, and they apparently didn't want to program partner AI, because the game will literally always find an excuse to seperate you from the other people. It gets tiring. And, in true Dead Space 3 fashion, the game leaves off on a cliffhanger that is finished in a story DLC. I actually like the ending of the DLC, but I know that most people do not. Most enemies in this game are fine to fight. However, the blind enemies can be quite annoying. For a long while in the story, you'll be fighting enemies that work solely on sound. Except the developers don't know how sound works. Walking will make them move towards your position, crouching is silent, and running, pressing shift for even less than a second, will alert them permanently. You can tap it once in their vicinity and they will know where you are until they die. You're supposed to stealth kill them, with violent and loud animations, and stomp on their corpses to get items like Dead Space. This is so much louder than running that it's hilarious, but they'll never notice, even if you do this to an enemy that is clipping inside of them. The DLC is also way more difficult than the base game. The entire thing is basically an enemy gauntlet, but not in a fun way in the slightest. Especially the new robot enemy. I won't get too specific but the DLC was just annoying in a lot of ways, mainly a room near the end where you're locked in with a lot of them that spawn. Items are also extremely abundant, and I found no purpose to hold onto healing items instead of selling them, as there are smaller pickups that give you health that drop from enemies and around the map. Some animations are also way too slow, like healing or swapping weapon frames, making it useless most of the time in combat. It's another reason why I sold pretty much every health injector I got. And jacob will frustratingly slow walk at random times, making you unable to sprint. Most of the time it's because of the biophage on the floor which is already annoying enough because it happens often, but he'll just do it because he feels like it. All in all, if you want watered down Dead Space with a cheap price tag, annoying issues, and samey environments outside of a few exceptions (This game has less area variety than the first Dead Space, and that entire game takes place mostly on one ship), this game could be for you. But it's just alright at best, as the mixed reviews imply. I also forgot to mention that the security robots sound pretty dumb in my opinion. And the entire prison and other facilities are inexplicably covered in spikes + dangerous gears and saws.

I just finished the game and I have to say that this was awesome. I dont understand why this game got some hate. If you go into this game thinking its Dead Space then you may be disappointed. It does have Dead Space feels to it but its its own game with its own spins. I very much enjoyed this game from beginning to end. The ending leaves it open for either a second game or DLC and I know this game has that I just havent started that yet. I am currently going through newgame plus and Im just as driven to play it again. If I had any thing to complain about it would be that this game did crash twice on me but that maybe due to my PC. And there is just a tad bit jank when it comes to controls with climbing sometimes. The combat is awesome and would love to see more of this type. I highly recommend this game if you want that slight Dead Space feeling or something similar.

Mid game with almost no story. Feels like a bare bones version of Dead Space. Performance is mid to horrific even with a good PC. 2 hours into the game it won't even load saved games anymore. Stay away from this trash, even at 85% off.

The Callisto Protocol is a game that I think, deserves a sequel. This game really has good bones for something great, I just think they made some strange decisions to differentiate it from its obvious influence, Dead Space. The games graphics are quite impressive, and feature what I feel are some of the best facial animations in the business. It at times looks highly photo-realistic, which really elevates the horror theme. Unfortunately, where the game shows its issues is the combat. I personally love how the guns feel. They have great sound design and feel punchy. Melee combat at first is kind of interesting, but quickly falls apart once multiple enemies are on screen while you are trying to fight one. It just seems to fundamentally break the game. Oh, and don't try to melee any enemy on an incline/stairs. I think if they just take some of it back to the drawing board it could be so much more. Story is somewhat predictable, but decent. Should be really familiar to most fans of sci-fi survival horror. I did quite enjoy the vocal performances from the main cast, solid work. Sound design is VERY good. Play with a good headset to experience some great ambient noises that add to the atmosphere. The game did feel quite easy at times on normal difficulty. I think it would probably be better starting the game on a higher difficulty. At first it felt pretty balanced, but after just a few weapon upgrades I felt as if I was just rolling through most enemies. Also, the GRP (pick up enemies from afar and throw them) is pretty OP even at base level. There are literal hundreds of opportunities to throw enemies into spiked walls/fanblades etc... and that definitely took a lot of the fear out of some encounters as it one shots just about any enemy. Speaking of enemies, the variety is certainly lacking. I think there are maybe 5 actual variants of enemies to fight and a large portion of the middle of the game focuses on a certain type that are just not really fun to deal with. The game wants you to use stealth, but I often felt the stealth was completely unnecessary and it was more effective/fun to just start blastin'. Boss fights are basically non-existent and they chose for some reason to repeat the same type of boss several times towards the end of the game. The final boss was a little more enjoyable, but the whole melee system just really makes 1-on-1 encounters completely brainless and not at all scary, which really hurt the quality of the final encounter. Overall, this game is definitely not a bad game. I would say its a serviceable sci-fi survival horror experience that could have been so much more with a bit of tweaking of these systems. I would hope that we could eventually get a sequel or spin-off in the same universe with some changes as I really believe there is a great game underneath some wonky design choices. 7/10 definitely get on sale.

Meh... this game tries so hard to be Dead Space, it's actually pathetic... and yeah I'm aware the guy who made Dead Space made this game. EA basically stole his brain child and legal stuff happened and he lost the rights to it... yadda yadda... this is why you hire lawyers before dealing with greedy ass corporations. All that drama and information aside... this game is just crap. It's like Dead Space except the focus is way more on melee weapons and timing attacks than it is about dismemberment and fun. The combat is also very low brow and juvenile, prison style combat where you're beating a monster to death like he was a human inmate in a prison... I mean that's the theme but honestly... they're monsters we're dealing with here... give me a break. In Dead Space, there were a variety of weapons, if you were bored of one style, there were like 9 other weapons to choose from. Save points were in abundance and spaced out properly as well as shops / upgrade stations. This game? Absolutely ridiculous... You can save where ever you want to but the game forces check points upon you. You could go around collecting stuff, save your game, close it down, restart it 3 days later and be completely lost when you return. So even if you manually save (which I recommend doing) it needs to be near an auto save spot, otherwise you just lose progress and have to get your bearings again upon reload. It's insanely linear and there are SO many points of no return it's insane. Most areas are a 50/50 path branch and if you take the wrong one (a.k.a. the right one) then you just missed out on something, so reload one of your 9 auto saves and re-do all the stuff you just did... it's a joke and takes you out of the immersion every chance it can... I hate games with missible nonsense... it's so 2007... like get over this crap already and just make a good game... There's a ton of useless data log's to collect and yes, you can miss all of them. If you do happen to miss something (and you will without a walk through, trust me), you have to start the entire run over again if you've saved past a point of no return. For some odd reason the developers decided to patch the game and moved around most of these data logs as well... So unless you have an up to date guide, you'll literally be scratching your head as to why the log isn't where the guide says it is. This actually happened to me and prompted me to want to make a negative review right there on the spot. I had to start the entire game over from Chapter 1 and I was in Chapter 3. I decided to not be so harsh and played for a few hours longer and then it really hit me how bad this game is. I was finding all kinds of loot and there were no shops a.k.a. "print stations" to locate and sell all of this junk to. You're forced to leave valuable stuff behind in favor of health items and resources like ammo, which means forget ever getting stronger unless you're half dead and used all your health items... it's piss poor design and just way too extreme. I found 7 or 8 of these energy converter items to sell and there were ZERO shops to sell them to for days. The pacing is absolute garbage and your inventory for resource items is limited to 6 slots for half the game but there are like 9 giant slots for giant weapons, go figure. This game is literal hot garbage and these developers are incompetent. I heard bad things about this game's performance when it released so I didn't bother with it, my 5090 Astral OC brute forces this trash, everything maxed out at 185 FPS... so whatever... this game's not even worth a toss, it's so poorly optimized, there's no reason you should need a $4000 video card to run this trash on max settings in 4K... it's inexcusable. The biggest offense this game committed was right when I bought it. I was missing two of the skins from the deluxe package and I had to MANUALLY create a KRAFTON (wtf even is this company?) account and link my Steam to it... so yeah great start. More security breech points to my Steam account and corporate data acquisitions, so they can steal my information and sell it... lovely... I digress. I had to make this account, link it to my Steam profile and then contact their customer support to unlock these skins that I had paid for... This was already a red flag but I paid $15 CAD for this p.o.s. so I figured, whatever... it's $15... I mean, a fast food combo costs as much nowadays so I figured I may as well give this a go... yeah, it's awful... should have just bought a Big Mac and ignored this garbage. The game play is bad, the direction is bad, the performance is probably bad as well but I'm rocking the best video card in the world on this thing so I can't exactly gauge this aspect much... either way, total dog sh|t... I'll play it through to the end to see the cliche plot unfold or whatever but my God... this is bad. I also researched unlockable content and there isn't anything. There are no secret weapons or skins tied to finishing the game on the hardest settings... only achievements... so yeah, this game is a one and done for me... especially considering how linear and boring it is. The true ending is locked behind the DLC as well, which is just laughable. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME FOR FULL PRICE. Wait for a sale and grab the Deluxe package for the cheapest price possible because man, this game is BAAAAD. Also, there are cut scenes you can't skip, long winded vent crawling sections, tight narrow walls you have to wedge yourself through and door opening animations that rival the original Resident Evil for loading screen time sinks... you'll be dealing with this crap on EVERY play through... what a waste of life. They also expect you to beat this game multiple times (just like Dead Space) and they even have a mode, just like Dead Space's Impossible mode, called Contagion mode. If you die on this mode, you have to start the entire chapter over again... which, okay, fair... it's better than the entire game (Dead Space's Impossible mode) but still, it's ridiculous. There are a lot of one shot death areas at the end of most of the chapters as well as bosses that just 1 shot murk you. I also hate the combat, it's not smooth like it is in Dead Space, it's insanely scripted like one of those Batman Arkham games; except there are no button prompts on screen to take you out of the immersion... but also, it's insanely obvious because of the pauses between attacks. You can't just 5 hit combo an enemy, it's 3 hits, then you have to dodge or block and repeat... it's nauseating how lame this game is. Your gravity bracer (because yes, they had to copy this from Dead Space as well), that allows you to throw enemies around and grab item boxes, is also terrible in this game. This thing runs out of juice so fast you literally have to make snap decisions and pre-plan where you're tossing these bags of meat... it's almost not even worth doing. Rather than the energy being expended per use, it's literally based on time while in use... so the bar runs out while you're holding enemies... what a garbage design. Your gun is OP as hell once it's fully upgraded but good luck finding bullets or credits to upgrade this thing. This game is literally 80% melee and 20% ranged shooting. When you reach the final boss, your melee attacks can't damage him and you have to rely on a gun... so you can literally brick your save file if you spent too much on the baton... which you use for 80% of the game... LOLOL... this game is TRASH. Also, the whole 3D-printing weapons and upgrades is such a 2020 phase, it really dates this game. I remember when everyone and their grandmother were 3D printing crap during covid. Meh... 5/10 at best... combat sucks, game play sucks, design sucks, pacing sucks, balance sucks. It's not as good as Dead Space. Just go buy the remake of that, you'll have a much better time. If you must play this trash, $15 tops for all the content, other wise you got ripped off.

The Callisto Protocol is a good game if you don't go into it expecting Dead Space or Resident Evil levels of gameplay/combat. Story is kind of meh, but it's visually gorgeous and performs well enough (after all the patches, of course.) Sound design and visuals are absolutely top notch, hats off to the devs for crafting this world. The combat is make or break for a lot of people and I can understand why, but I thought it was pretty fun and I enjoyed beating the sh*t out of monsters with melee weapons lol. You can really feel the weight of the weapons smashing into the enemies, it's pretty neat. I'd like to think that I have pretty thick skin when it comes to gore/body horror, but holy sh*t, some of the death scenes are absolutely gruesome. That's not to say I don't appreciate the effort that goes into animating them, and there's some pretty creative ones here, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't cringe through a couple of them. Anyways, I liked it enough to finish the story and buy the DLC. Solid 6/10.

Flawed? Certainly. Bad? Certainly not. Worth the full $60 price point? Fuck no. Callisto Protocol is, in essence, Dead Space. I know pretty much every other review here says that, and it's true. You show up to a prison where some sort of infection has gone rampant around the facility, and now you must escape while fending off hordes of deadly enemies, forming tedious friendships with acquaintances, and facing down a greater evil. It's the Dead Space formula. But I'll start with what I like about Callisto Protocol. The in-game performance, graphics, and art style are really fantastic, which I was surprised by given it's a modern AAA release, especially being made in Unreal. Typically I'd expect to see my high-end computer struggle to even scrape 50 FPS in intensive rendering situations, but the game is really well optimized for what it is. The combat, looting, and upgrade system is well done, though it certainly has room for improvement. I love the brutally fast paced melee combat paired with the quickdraw firearm combos the game lets you chain, but I feel it's heavily subdued by most enemies being trivialized by your ability to dodge left and right. Once you gain a basic concept of the dodging system, you're good to go. With that being said though, I can understand how some people would find the combat repetitive after a time. This is a super small thing I liked, but I really liked how the game actually shows where/how you store your weapons. I hate it when games have the player character just sort of stuff their guns up their ass or put them into some pocket dimension when not in use, but I appreciate the attention to detail here. Some things I really don't care for/could've been improved upon? Firstly the GRP Module (basically a telekinesis module that allows you to pick up and throw things) just feels really weak. It has a battery, okay fine I understand that so players can't abuse it and spam it on environmental hazards for enemies. But using it AT ALL on enemies sucks energy so fast that I found myself ever hardly using it. Another thing I feel the need to comment on is the separation of side-exploration paths, and what leads to the primary objective. Throughout the game you can find side paths that lead you to extra lore or loot, which is cool, but the game LITERALLY DOES NOT TELL YOU IF WHERE YOU'RE GOING IS PART OF THE STORY OR NOT. I had SO many times where I was worried going down one path or another in a split in the road would lead to a point-of-no-return, or would just be a place for me to check out, and is incredibly frustrating, but not something I'm going to count against it. This isn't a complaint, moreso being a general critique, but the game also likes to push the idea of the GRP Module being a crowd-control tool, but it has no *real* utility for that. I would have LOVED to have seen a function for it where players could quickly push enemies back with a burst of energy from it, in exchange for high-battery usage. Without any function besides just tossing enemies into spike walls or into machinery though, I just feel it was very half-baked. Another thing I would have loved to have seen were more suit options/upgrade options. For the first half of the game you're in your prisoner jumpsuit with bare minimum health and storage space. Then later on you get a tactical/environmental suit with upgraded health and access to all your storage slots. I feel a sort of intermediary suit would have been good, like maybe a leftover guard's uniform or something. Narratively, Callisto Protocol is VERY close to Dead Space, and a lot of ambiguity is left to form for the first half of the game, before it really begins to make sense and explain itself. The latter half of the game gets really good though, and I thoroughly enjoy some of the narrative elements and story points that the writers implemented, especially when it comes to Jacob's involvement in the whole situation. Now onto what I didn't really like, the big part of this section namely being the enemy variety. You have your basic slasher-grunt type enemies, with the only variant of them being a fatter one that has more health. You've got other enemies, like ones that sneak around with camo and try to ambush you, ones that explode when they get close, ones that spit at you, etc. All fine. But unfortunately there just isn't a whole ton of variety in threats. Almost all enemies just run at you and start swinging, and the ones that DO have ranged attacks can be turned into basic slashers by blowing their heads off, at which they'll engage you in melee combat. There's no enemies that force you to use guns (yes, including the aforementioned exploding enemies. Your GRP Module can deal with them), no enemies that are actually a hazard to engage in melee combat with (assuming you know what you're doing), and no enemies that really made me go "oh fuck", besides MAYBE the Security Bots, of which you only encounter once or twice throughout the entire game. This goes for the bosses too. The final boss is fine in a general sense, and actually got me moving. But unfortunately, like every enemy, his main melee attacks could just be sidestepped. As for the scare factor of Callisto Protocol, it really just isn't scary, at least in my opinion. I fear the developers leaned on the "loud noise = scary" trope in horror, and while the atmosphere is sort of unnerving, it was let down by the fact I could expect to see a loud noise or something kinda creepy pop up on my screen. I think probably the only time I actually got sort of scared/unnerved was during the final boss ([spoiler] when Ferris is giving you a monologue in the tower and starts to mutate and transform suddenly [/spoiler]). I also feel Callisto Protocol suffers from another problem Dead Space had; turning the player into an errand boy. You'll ALWAYS have someone giving you a "Go here", "Do this", or "Find this" order, where it feels Jacob is just sort of a drone and can't figure out what to do without instructions. Overall? Certainly not GOTY material by any stretch of the imagination, but definitely not as bad as many people say it is. I welcome anyone to give it a try during a sale, or if you're just that certain this is the game for you.

Cant say i don't understand the hate this game got. Its not a bad game, but well, it is EXTREMELY mediocre and had potential to be something nice. The good: -Beautiful graphics, mostly for the scenarios and illumination(even without ray tracing). -Extremely detailed facial expressions -Overall cool atmosphere -Story wasn't anything amazing but not terrible either -I didn't had any performance issues with this game, idk how it was when released, but most of the time i got 100fps+ on ultra without Ray Tracing The bad: -The most critical point of this game is the combat, jeez this must be the worst combat i saw in any game, basically a constant quick time event. You keep holding A or D to dodge(which is automatic while holding the buttons) and smash left mouse button -I don't know if this is because of i was playing at hardcore mode, but the boring combat intensified like 1000x, enemies tank too much, most of the time i was beating them so much that they got basically always stuck at walls being beaten until death, and ffs it takes like 20 hits each mob to kill them. -Map design is really stupid, many times i didn't knew if i was taking the side way or the main path. -Exploration also sucks, there are MANY corners and dead end paths without nothing you just lose time -Talking about losing time, this game has TONS of slow walking obligatory moments, every 10 seconds you are either squeezing through tight walls or in ducts, also there is basically a whole chapter when you are forced to walk crouched to "stealth" -It is obvious that they made this slow walking seasons to make the game feel longer than it actually is, honestly without this bs the game would be 2 hours shorter -The game sold itself as a Dead Space inspiration, but this is such a copy and paste in many aspects, even the story itself is REALLY close to the dead space, they could made something more original and unique in MANY aspects. but no, they just copied lots of stuff and called it "inspiration" Honestly overall this is not a bad game, but it deserves the "hate" it received, the combat is boring, and it has almost nothing original compared to dead space, basically Dead Space from temu. Edit: After playing the dlc i cant recommend this game anymore, everything involved on it is just lazy, they made a dlc for a "true ending" but honestly just made the laziest and uninspired ending possible. Also the dlc overall is pretty cheap, just stupid brainless walking and more boring stuff.

This review WILL contain some Spoilers to story and gameplay! I don't write a review often, but for this it doesn't deserve the hate it gets. For my part i sadly (Or probably luckily) got finally around to play it over 1 1/2 years after release so most on launch bugs and crashes most likely have been fixed (I didn't have a single crash in my 13,2 hours of game time.) Let's start with the negatives. Combat: Combat is.. very simple and I found a cheese very early on in the game if you continuously press A and D while meeleing you dodge pretty much every attack. I very often looked at my second monitor and reading or watching videos on the side while I just kept fighting against multiple enemies. Enemies: There isn't a big variety of enemies. Overall there are like 5 different types of enemies (I count the "fat" and blind ones to the nomral ones). Which is fine but I believe the game would have benefitted from some more one off big monsters that you might not be able to really fight, the 2 Heads are put as a miniboss in too many stages of the game imo and after the first 2 times they were more annoying then adding to the game. Now to the positives. Story: It is a great story. All the elements for a "Stranded survival" experience are there. Isolated on a dying station. No way to get help other then helping yourself. A very interesting plot with backstories to how the place came to be and an ending that leaves many questions behind that need an explanation in the future projects! Graphics and Perfomance: Game is running very stable on my PC (I5 Processor, 16Gbyte RAM and a 3060TI), graphics are very beautiful. A lot of gore and scenes that straight up reminded me of Dead Space (Which is a huge compliment imo). Weapons and Creativitiy: I really like the weapons, there aren't a lot but they show some creativity in design (Still simple tho) and I thought the "frame" for every weapon to then switch out the top part was fun. I sadly couldn't figure out the point of the tactical pistol until the end haha. The Alt fire modes are pretty fun. Overal atmosphere: Game captured the atmosphere of what it wants to be very well. A stranded experienced no help from authorities, isolated with some very strong minded NPCs in the game. Overall opinion: Is it a masterpiece? Far from it. Is it a bad game? Not at all. It is a very solid start from what could turn into a really cool universe with a cult that controls government bodies that want's to bring Humanity to the next stage of evolution by any means necessary. A resistance group that wants to stop them. It is a great concept with A LOT of potential and I hope we can see more in this universe to build on top of this!

Literally the only reason I got this game is because I wanted to see for myself if it was as bad as people said, and it was on a huge sale for somewhere around 85% off. It was pretty much as bad as I expected. The graphics are literally the only good thing that can be said about the game, and even then the PC port is pretty bad. You have access to higher graphics settings but at the cost of the game being buggier. I had some objects or environments loading in very delayed, enemies teleporting up or down certain levels of elevation, getting stuck in the air at certain spots, and at one point my saves seemed to disappear which would have cost me hours of progress. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) it's a common bug and I was able to fix it by starting a new game which caused my saves to become visible again. Even without the bugs though, the game has lots of problems that make it a mediocre slog to get through. The combat is extremely samey across the whole game, with all enemies but the bosses and the one ranged type being fought the exact same way. It's a tedious affair where you just alternate between holding the stick left or right to dodge then counter-attack when the enemy is done, and the enemies are sponges who take a while to kill, especially on higher difficulties. There are also a few stealth sections, but it's probably the worst stealth I've ever seen competing with Ubisoft in how bad the enemies are at detecting you. The blind ones in particular will basically never notice you as long as you're crouching, touching them or firing a gun are the only way you'll be detected so long as you crouch. It's also very clunky clearly not being designed with multiple enemies in mind, and you have no real control of how the main character moves which can lead to you unintentionally falling off elevated platforms or into death traps that insta-kill you. The GRP (basically kinesis from Dead Space) is also lazily implemented, all you really do with it is throw enemies into generic spike walls placed all over and occasionally toss an explosive canister at them. The game is also extremely padded out with tons of crawling and squeezing through tight gaps across pretty much the entire game. There are also various sections where you're unable to run. A large reason for it being done is to give time for characters to talk for the sake of the story, but the story isn't even worth playing through the game for. It's extremely generic, the characters are bland, it's predictable, and it ends on a cliffhanger which was likely intended as sequel bait but just got turned into an overpriced DLC which is apparently just as bad as the main game. And on top of all that the game simply isn't scary. It seems to try to be with cheap jumpscares earlier on and attempts at some cryptic psychological horror later, but at no point was I ever scared. The gameplay does not lend itself to being scary and it seems like during the middle part of the game they give up on trying to make it scary. Don't buy this game, just don't. Even for only about $13 CAD I still feel like I wasted my time and money. Cry of Fear, Darkwood, Spooky's House of Jumpscares, Lost in Vivo, all better horror games for much less.

pretty decent game dont understand the hate. HOWEVER DO NOT PLAY THE DLC ITS UN NEEDED GARBAGE.

I'm giving a thumbs down not because it was a bad game, just painfully average and a waste of potential. Worth it at 8-11$ but not a dime more.

Played this back when it first released on the PS5. The game is pretty good with some heavy Dead Space vibes. If you see it on sale and haven't played it yet I recommend picking it up.

No! I wouldn't recommend this game. I hate to do this and believe me, it's my first time writing a bad review for a game. The combat and physics are buggy, the enemies also appear buggy out of nowhere for no reason. And why is there a manual save game option? It won't save the game at the point you need it anyways. On the other hand, I can't complain about the graphics, they are very good in my opinion. I hope I am not offending anyone but c'mon guys for that price you can definitely offer a better game.

The graphics are great, the story and atmosphere are actually really good, but there are a few glitches/design choices that turn me off big time. Got to a checkpoint and then died. Respawned and found a power converter before the battle, died again. power converter was gone now on subsequent loads. How did this make it into a live game and it's still a problem years after release? This game has manual saves so I did some stuff and saved but guess what? It simply saves your last checkpoint. reloaded my game and all the stuff I sold was back, the 10 min of progress gone. These 2 things are so annoying that I cannot recommend this game.

oh boy where to begin with this game. I enjoyed playing this game (minus the few game bugs i encountered). The game received harsh treatment upon release because of Bugs and people calling it Cheap copy of Dead Space, when in fact it not. Dead space is its own thing and The Callisto Protocol is its own thing even though they both are were created by the same guys Glen Scofield. I would not describe the game as Horror like your typical Resident evil or some other horror games. The Callisto protocol heavily relies on Body Horror and Gore. Visually the game is breath takingly beautiful, its atmospheric, you actually feel like you are on an isolated location. The game is action oriented, I read people complaining about the meele combat system, I on the other hand loved the Meele system. It was sooo good! Kinda reminded me of TLOS 1 and 2 Meele combat. It was brutal and you can actually feel the punches when hitting them. Overall I would I highly recommend anybody to play this game. Buy it on Sale for like $4. You wont regret it. The only issue I had with this game was there was some locations in the game where FPS drops. The unfortunately couldnt patch this because of the layoffs but you can find the patch for it on Nexus mod. It greatly improved the results!

"Did you know they call Callisto the dead moon?" Personally I can't agree with all hate that game received on the gameplay and story side. I didn't played it at launch, so I can't say anything about optimization. Yes, game nowhere near as dead space rival. But should've people compare it to dead space to the point that they call it a clone? No. After finishing the main game and final transmission, I can surely say that I fully disagree with most hate towards this game. It definitely not "Mid", and definitely didn't deserved all the hate. Combat system is pretty neat because you basically have multiple options how to kill enemies and multiple new guns/baton upgrades that improve combat over time. Game constantly Introducing new enemies, and section's where you need to think how to approach the enemies (Yeah, I'm looking at you, blind enemies and stealth sections). I don't agree with people mentioning "multiple enemies situation" as bad choice. Quite the opposite. Game gives you all the tools that you need to counter that. Yes, even in dlc where there are abnormally large group of enemies. Story in this game is good too. At the end of the game you pretty much like Jacob and care about what happens to him. Oh, and wanted to add one thing about "it's just ds clone". When people compare it to ds, they don't mention the god awful 3 game. I wonder why? Overall I even think that after first two dead space games, it's better to play Callisto (Even if they aren't connected). Basically the same thing, but better and not mildly annoying as 3 ds.