PLEASE NOTE: This article contains MASSIVE Spoilers for The Callisto Protocol. Proceed at your own risk.
The Callisto Protocolis not entirely a revolutionary game, in the sense that it does build on the foundations laid by other survival horror games and takes a lot of its themes and mechanics from theDead Spacefranchise. This doesn’t go to say that Striking Distance Studios' new game is entirely deprived of a sense of novelty and surprise, but rather that its core gameplay loop and its major sources of inspiration have already seen a lot of similar attempts over the years. WhatThe Callisto Protocol’s story does is create a new interesting universe that can be further expanded in the future, and it also takes some of the classic tropes of the horror genre and turns them on their heads.
A big difference betweenThe Callisto ProtocolandDead Spaceis that the former goes out of its way to try and provide as many combat options for players as possible, which is an interesting take on the survival horror genre because it makes managing resources even harder. This is becauseforging new weapons inThe Callisto Protocolcosts credits, and so does upgrading each weapon with the various new perks it might have, meaning that players can’t possibly have every weapon and upgrade by the end. And yet, one of the most intriguing aspects of the game comes from the way the biophage virus spreads, as it completely breaks a staple of horror media.
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Why The Callisto Protocol’s Infection Being Instantaneous is So Refreshing
When players are first confronted with the virus, they are immediately called to action to defeat a transformed inmate in Black Iron Prison, but theorigin ofThe Callisto Protocol’s biophage infectionremains unknown until much later. This is because the outbreak in the game’s present is actually started by Warden Cole in the hopes of making a superhuman - an individual with incredible intelligence, strength, resilience, and other capabilities that can represent a sort of improved version of humanity. The original infection happened years before in the colony of the miners that Jacob and Dani visit during their journey.
The game reveals that thebiophage pathogenis capable of rapidly evolving in the host’s body, distorting it, and making it a perfect vessel for infecting others through violent means. This extremely quick evolutionary process also means that the virus is transmitted in a matter of seconds, and then it takes hold of the host’s body and its functions just as fast, which is a sort of anomaly in the horror genre.
In fact, a typical way to handle virus infections in horror media is to make them infect the host slowly, which is used as a narrative device to forward the story and make character arcs more significant, and it can also be used to up the stakes of survival. InThe Callisto Protocol, being infected means that the host will die almost immediately, ceding ground to the virus to control the body and transform it in horrifying ways. ButThe Callisto Protocol’s story relies too much on deus ex machinas, which then leads to Dani being infected and not transforming right away, which gives Jacob enough time to find an antidote.
Despite this,The Callisto Protocol’s ending sets up multiple sequelsthat could explore the implications of a powerful oligarchy trying to build the perfect humans through the virus, which means more outbreaks will occur everywhere. This means that the biophage pathogen could change even more in another game, maybe breaking even more traditions of the genre as a whole. Still, making the infection immediate is a very compelling turn of events from classic horror media, and it does make the game stand out more in its own niche.
The Callisto Protocolis out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.
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