There was one trailer at Sony’s June 2022 State of Play that really got to me in all of its filthy, grimy, gore. That trailer was for The Callisto Protocol, a sci-fi horror game that has some serious Dead Space vibes. The opening seconds had me almost jumping for joy, as something brutal and disgusting flashed across the screen.
If the Dead Space comparison seems like a stretch, it should be noted that The Callisto Protocol is being developed by Striking Distance Studios, which was founded by Glen Schofield, the co-creator of Dead Space.
In The Callisto Protocol, you follow protagonist Jacob Lee from a third-person perspective and wander through derelict buildings, fighting off slimy face-hungry mutants and giant hostile robots.
The story supposedly takes place in 2320 on Jupiter’s moon, Callisto. On this moon resides a prison colony that Jacob Lee is confined in. Awakening one day to discover some sort of invasion or infection spreading throughout the area, grotesque creatures and massive machines are out to consume Lee, and break him down to nothing but biomass — or maybe just reduce him to a smear across the wall.
The creature design takes me back to the glorious world of John Carpenter’s The Thing (happy 40th birthday, The Thing), and the prison setting gives me notes Ridley Scott’s Alien, as well as Prometheus. All of this makes me very excited.
The Callisto Protocol should be coming out at the end of this year for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It was originally supposed to take place in the same universe as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), but that is apparently no longer the case.
I, for one, am very hyped for this project, and I hope it lives up to my darkest desires.
You can check out the State of Play trailer for The Callisto Protocol below.
