The Callisto Protocol™ Review Summary

Stunning graphics and immersive atmosphere: The game excels in graphics, sound design, and atmosphere, creating an immersive and tense horror experience. Many reviewers compare the game favorably to Dead Space, citing similar gameplay loops and atmospheric tension. The game world is detailed, with impressive lighting, character models, and gore.

Brutal, strategic, and engaging combat: The combat system is a mix of melee and ranged attacks, requiring strategic planning and resource management. Melee combat is brutal and satisfying, with a focus on dodging and counter-attacking. The game encourages players to combine melee and ranged attacks for maximum effectiveness.

Interesting and engaging story: The game features an interesting and engaging story that keeps players invested. While some reviewers find the plot predictable or clichéd, many appreciate the twists and turns, as well as the performances of the actors. The story is easy to follow and understand, making it accessible to a wide audience.

Gore and brutal enemy design: The game features grotesque enemies and gruesome deaths, contributing to the overall horror experience. Dismemberment is a key feature, with enemies reacting to lost limbs. The game celebrates its violence with painful fatalities and brutal finishing moves.

Meaningful weapon customization and upgrades: The game features a weapon upgrade system that adds depth to the gameplay. Players can find and upgrade weapons using in-game currency, making them more powerful and satisfying to use. The upgrade system is streamlined and effective, allowing players to focus on a few key weapons.

Clunky, unbalanced combat system: The combat system is criticized for being clunky, simplistic, and unbalanced, especially when facing multiple enemies. Dodging mechanics are often unreliable, and enemies can feel like damage sponges. These issues make combat encounters frustrating and repetitive, diminishing the overall enjoyment of the game.

Repetitive gameplay, level design: The game suffers from repetitive gameplay loops, including excessive vent crawling, linear level design, and uninspired enemy encounters. Many reviewers found the core mechanics became tedious quickly. This repetition significantly detracts from the overall experience and contributes to a sense of boredom.

Poor save system, checkpoints: Poor checkpoint placement and a flawed manual save system lead to significant progress loss and frustration. Players are often forced to repeat tedious sections after dying or encounter situations where upgrades are lost due to save reversion. This issue is compounded by the game's linearity, which prevents backtracking to collect missed items.

Uninspired, predictable story: The story is criticized for being unoriginal, predictable, and poorly executed, with uninteresting characters and a lack of depth. Many reviewers found the plot to be a generic rehash of familiar sci-fi horror tropes, failing to create a compelling or memorable narrative. The story feels like filler.

Unoriginal, derivative of Dead Space: Many reviewers feel the game relies too heavily on elements from Dead Space, but fails to execute them as well. This lack of originality detracts from the experience, making it feel like a derivative work rather than a unique title. The game is not scary.

Melee-focused combat with directional dodging: The game heavily emphasizes melee combat, often with a baton, combined with directional dodging. Ranged weapons serve a secondary role, and ammunition is scarce, especially early on. The combat system is simple but can become repetitive, with enemies often attacking one at a time.

Linear levels, limited exploration: The game features a linear level design with limited exploration, often lacking a map or clear objective markers. While there may be some branching paths, they typically lead to loot or collectibles. The story is presented in a straightforward manner, and the game's length is relatively short.

Action-horror blend, strategic dismemberment: The game blends survival horror elements with action, allowing players to be durable killing machines. Dismemberment exists, but is not as effective as in Dead Space. Ammunition is scarce early on, encouraging melee combat, but firearms become essential for boss fights.

Telekinetic glove enables environmental kills: The protagonist utilizes melee combat, firearms, and a special glove with telekinetic abilities (GRP). The glove can be used to attract and throw enemies into environmental hazards for creative kills. The GRP system is a highlight, adding a unique flair to combat.

Repetitive use of tight spaces: The game relies heavily on narrow corridors, ventilation shafts, and other tight spaces, which can become repetitive and feel like loading tricks. Stealth mechanics are present but often poorly implemented. The level design is linear, with limited opportunities for exploration.

Inconsistent performance, optimization issues: Many reviewers report inconsistent performance, including stuttering, frame rate drops, freezes, and crashes, even on high-end hardware. Some users have found workarounds, such as disabling certain features or switching to DirectX 11, but optimization remains a significant concern. The game's performance seems to have improved since launch due to patches, but issues persist for many players.

Save system issues, corruption: Several reviewers have encountered issues with the game's save system, including corrupted or disappearing save files. Some have found temporary solutions, such as restarting the game, but the problem can lead to lost progress and frustration. The manual saving feature may also be ineffective, only saving the last checkpoint.

Various gameplay-impacting bugs: Some reviewers have encountered bugs with item boxes that cannot be opened, consumables stuck in textures, enemies spawning/despawning, and characters falling through the world. These issues can disrupt gameplay and require reloading saves. Camera issues after certain enemy animations have also been reported.

Improved since rocky launch: The PC version had a rocky launch with optimization problems, lag, and bugs, but patches have improved the situation. While many issues have been resolved, some chunk-loading lag may still persist. The initial problems left a negative impression on some players.

Missing DLSS support: The game lacks DLSS support, which is a notable omission for a graphically demanding title. Some players have resorted to using performance mods to improve frame rates. The game does include other modern graphics features like Ray Tracing and FSR scaling, but the absence of DLSS is a drawback.

Buy on sale, if possible: Many reviewers suggest waiting for a sale before purchasing the game. The game is considered worth buying only at a discounted price, with specific price ranges mentioned. Some reviewers suggest that the game is worth buying if it can be acquired for free.

Mixed or average experience: Many reviewers express mixed feelings about the game, with some finding it enjoyable and solid, while others consider it mediocre or disappointing. Some reviewers suggest that the game has potential but falls short of expectations. Some reviewers do not recommend the game due to its issues.

Mixed review scores: Many reviewers give the game a score of 7/10 or 8/10, indicating a generally positive but not outstanding experience. Some reviewers give the game a score of 5/10, indicating a negative experience. Some reviewers give the game a score of 9/10 or 10/10, indicating a highly positive experience.

Desire for a sequel: Many reviewers express interest in a potential sequel to the game. They are curious about whether the issues will be addressed in a sequel. Some reviewers hope for a sequel to see the story's conclusion.

Intense atmosphere and combat: The game is praised for its intense atmosphere and combat. Some reviewers recommend playing on hardcore difficulty to add tension. The game is also compared to other horror games such as Condemned, Escape from Butcher Bay, Dead Space, and The Evil Within.

Unfulfilled potential, technical issues: Many reviewers felt the game failed to live up to its potential due to technical issues, level design flaws, and a perceived lack of innovation. The DLC content received mixed reviews, with some finding it worthwhile and others considering it mediocre or overpriced, especially given that the ending was released as a DLC.

Setting: Black Iron Prison, Callisto: The game is set on Jupiter's moon Callisto in the year 2320, within the Black Iron Prison. The story revolves around Jacob Lee, a cargo pilot who becomes imprisoned and must survive a mutant outbreak while uncovering the prison's secrets.

High-quality fan-made voiceovers: The game lacks official Russian and Ukrainian voice acting, but high-quality fan-made dubs are available and recommended by some reviewers. The quality of these unofficial localizations enhances the gaming experience for some players.

Playthrough around 10-12 hours: The game's length is generally considered to be around 10-12 hours, which some reviewers find to be a suitable duration. Some reviewers mention replayability for nostalgia.

Linear, single-player experience: The game is a linear, single-player experience with a straightforward narrative, offering limited exploration or deviation from the main path.