Despite looking a whole lot like the spiritual successor to Dead Space, I was surprised by how little The Callisto Protocol terrified me. The setting and enemy designs are certainly unnerving but in a way I’ve seen before, and there is a sense of comfort in that familiarity. The Callisto Protocol stands out in what it does differently, in which it injects a compelling melee combat system into a survival-horror game. Many survival-horror games keep the monsters more than an arm’s length away, allowing you to keep them at bay with a handgun, plasma cutter, camera, or some other manner of clicking-and-shooting. The Callisto Protocol breaks that mold, amping its tension by encouraging you to aggressively deal with whatever gross monster you’re fighting.
Developed by Striking Distance Studios, The Callisto Protocol sees you play as Jacob Lee, who’s being kept in Black Iron, a prison located upon Callisto, one of Jupiter’s moons. Why Jacob is being held there hasn’t been revealed, only that he goes to prison following the death of his wife (I presume he’s blamed for her demise). Regardless of his reasons for being there, Jacob quickly finds himself needing to escape as a deadly infection sweeps Black Iron, transforming the former human inhabitants into monstrous mutations referred to as biophages.
“[Jacob] gets thrown into prison just before this outbreak [begins] and it’s kind of stunning for him,” Striking Distance Studios CEO Glen Schofield told me, following an hour and a half of time with the game during a preview event.