GVMERS: The $160,000,000 Disaster of The Callisto Protocol

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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?




Survival horror has continuously evolved since Resident Evil 4 revolutionized it with intense over-the-shoulder action in 2005. Numerous games have further contributed to the genre's evolution in the years since then, chief among them being Dead Space from Visceral Games and publisher Electronic Arts. A group of the sci-fi horror game's original creators challenged themselves to walk that line again, and usher in another new take on the genre. They attempted to do so by once more exploring the terrors of outer space, specifically the isolation and hopelessness that such a setting invites.

The project in question—The Callisto Protocol—thus bore all the hallmarks of a Dead Space spiritual successor, a dream come true for fans who'd been burned by the franchise's turn towards prioritizing action over survival mechanics. But Callisto Protocol operated on its own terms in a fictional universe grounded in reality. As a result, developer Striking Distance Studios leaned heavily into realism, focusing its technological efforts on graphics and facial rendering that looked nigh imperceptible from their real-world counterparts.

Critics and players would later argue that the studio's insistence on accomplishing next-gen visual fidelity superseded the need to produce a high-quality game worth playing. The title received critical lashings for feeling bereft of original ideas. Repetitious gameplay and cheap scares weighed it down further, even for those who enjoyed it. The harshest criticism labeled The Callisto Protocol a weak attempt at recapturing Dead Space's otherworldly magic. Regardless of public perception, though, unchecked ambition, development crunch, and bullish sales projections derailed this daring adventure on Jupiter's second largest moon.

This is the tragedy of The Callisto Protocol.
 
AAAA all day!

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I mean, it's pretty good for a tragedy . . .
I like it more than other big budget tragedy's like concord or starfield. This one is at least worth a play through imo.
 
Not clicking on more sensationalist clickbait rubbish.
As for the game, I've bought it but waiting till I upgrade to a VRR telly later this year to play it.
 
As somebody who hated the original dead space I actually almost liked callisto protocol. If it wasn't so stupidly linear and the chick such a raging bitch I probably would have it enjoyed for what it was.
 
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Survival horror has continuously evolved since Resident Evil 4 revolutionized it with intense over-the-shoulder action in 2005.

neither RE4 nor Callisto Protocol are survival horror games...
it's really annoying how game genre definitions just lose all meaning these days.


but Callisto Protocol is terrible for sure.
 
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Hopefully Chronos doesn't suffer the same fate since it has a similar vibe to Dead Space and Callisto Protocol. But shouldn't since at least it's not melee focus like this game which was most likely the reason it didn't do so well.
 
Callisto's aight; I've played through it twice.

Disappointing given Glen Schofield's pedigree, and the melee was trivialized with its "Push stick to the left to dodge. Now push stick to the right. A timing window? What's that?" style.

But when you're spending $160M to make a game, "aight" doesn't cut it.
 
I think the game was just decent. TCP should have been a good debut and foundation for the studio to continue making more stuff after.

The real problem is, that idiot Glen wanted to be in the spotlight and did so much pre-release marketing and hyping that it created insane expectations for TCP.
 
I mean, it's pretty good for a tragedy . . .
I like it more than other big budget tragedy's like concord or starfield. This one is at least worth a play through imo.
you say that, but I've tried it twice now, & gotten past halfway both times, & i still can't get it together to finish it. i just don't care about anyone or anything going on in it...
 
The melee combat was bad, but the most surprising thing to me was how goofy the monsters came off in this game compared to how scary the ones in Dead Space were.
 
Still deserved a sequel which could've easily remedied the core issues with this game.

I have made a thread on this game recently and like I said my initial shitting on it was too much because after going through it again this year it's a solid 8/10 for me.

I am bummed this also made it so Glen is likely to never make a game again based off his posts on social media the other day.

We lost 😞 he lost.
 
i bought the game in pre order, i really enjoyed the game, and even the dead space remake has not meet the expectation, outside RE is very hard to a survival horror to be a success enough to make publishers want to invest in them
 
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The game isn't bad but one of its issue is trying too hard to be Dead Space.

I hope Cronos the New Dawn doesn't make the same mistake.
 
I really like Callisto Protocol. This game suffered a bit like Alien Isolation did at the start, where games media was in the absolute trash at the time and it received no positive exposure whatsoever, which destroyed the potential completely.

Atmospheric as hell, carefully styled, thoughtful and fun for the old hardcore gamer. We have a serious loss of games like splinter cell, dead space, doom 2016, half life, etc. Moody, technologically advanced, masculine.

Like where has Metroid prime been for the last 20 fucking years?

It's been very hard to make these kinds of games due to the culture wars absolutely deleting our kind of entertainment off the web.

A kind word of recognition across comm lines or from a games journalist was all this game needed. But it was buried in silence. Same as action arcade racers have been for decades too.

Give the game a chance. It's good. The fight mechanic takes 2 minutes of slow thought during the training session. Give it the 2 minutes. It's different but you can get the hang of it when you think it through and get a few hours of a cool sci fi prison breakout.
 
This game was pretty bad. The only redeeming thing were the graphics.
The rest was average at best. Gameplay was terrible though.
 
This reminds me I meant to reply it on the PS5 Pro, didnt they also make the HDR slightly less terrible?

Can't decide whether to play in 30fps again or not, 6-8K downsampling sounds awesome, but if 60fps is actually close to 4K native then its a possibility I'd choose that.

Its a cinematic game though, timing the melee dodges isn't important and the input lag was very bearable at 30fps.
 
I finished it recently (only cos I got it as a ps essential game) and it was Ok.

I found it quite tedious and frustrating combat wise but the graphics and sound was good.
 
It is still peak irony that Glen Schofield left EA because EA didn't want to touch Dead Space anymore, went on to make a game like Dead Space, only for EA to then make a remake of Dead Space 1, which turned out better than the fucking game that Glen Schofield was working on because EA didn't let him do Dead Space.
 
The amount of "push through hallway" segments this game had was insane. Tons of cheap jump scares (that you see coming from a mile away) over-reliance on audio logs for storytelling, unlikeable characters, and awful pacing. The list goes on really but overall it was mediocre at best.
 
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