The Callisto Protocol (Mini-Review)

The Callisto Protocol is a survival horror game set on Callisto, one of Jupiter's moons. Jacob Lee and his partner Max Barrow are making another standard delivery. Things take a drastic turn for the worse when Dani Nakamura, terrorist leader of the Outer Way, attacks. With Max dead and him falsely imprisoned in Black Iron, he must seek a way out. This is made harder when a mysterious outbreak happens turning all it touches into monsters who seek only to kill everything. The Callisto Protocol was released in 2022. It was developed by Striking Distance Studios and published by Krafton.

Since I'm not able to play this game, I will merely be reviewing the story.

Because this game was supposed to be a spiritual successor to Dead Space, I went into The Callisto Protocol expecting Dead Space styled game. And that is what I got. I adore the lore of Dead Space and was sad when the third mainline game was the final one of the series. Now I understand why that was the case and it took a year or so to have any love for the third game in my heart. Anyways...when this game was announced I was excited to what the creators of Dead Space would do next.

The cast member I was most excited to see was Karen Fukuhara (who voices Dani Nakamura). The role I know her from is Kimiko "The Female" Miyashiro from the Amazon Prime series The Boys. Though I had a little trouble recognizing her in the game as in the series she is silent. But extremely badass. I'm really glad she got another role and she actually got to speak this time. The only reason I recognized her voice was due to watching interviews in the past.

Seeing Sam Witwer (who voices Captain Leon Ferris) was also a pleasure. I mostly know him from The Force Unleashed series and The Mist (2007). I have seen the adaptation of Being Human with him in it, but that's not the role of his that comes to mind when I think of him. I might have made sounds when he used Force powers again. It isn't really the Force but is close enough in my mind.

The story of this game is simple and provides an excellent platform to launch a series from. Players get enough answers but even more questions. You find out what the Protocol is and the gist of the larger plan. There turns out to be a secret group called the Circle that sees the outbreak as a good thing. Something to be cherished and not feared.

Near the end of the game Warden Duncan Cole mentions that for humanity to explore the stars they need to have better bodies. While I'm not saying what Cole did was right, our bodies are weak. Even here on Earth we have climbed to the top of the food chain merely because of our minds. If not for that, we wouldn't be reading a blog article on a computer, phone, ect.

I would recommend The Callisto Protocol to fans of Dead Space. I would also recommend The Callisto Protocol to fans of survival horror games.