The Callisto Protocol | Hello Moon ? Here the terror
I've been playing The Callisto Protocol for an hour and I'm dripping with sweat. Not so much because of the game, even if it's not very relaxing: it takes place in a prison-station on the eponymous moon of Jupiter which, as luck would have it, is infected by a mysterious mutagen. Chaos ensues, both warders and prisoners are transformed into disgusting zombies in the style of a Chernobyl cowboy, and who must escape from the Baumettes 3000?
Glen Schofield is the co-creator of Dead Space, the saga that makes all horror game developers drool with envy. But the game's sequels were created while he was already gone from the Visceral Games studio, and after ten years of overseeing Call of Duty (including Advanced Warfare and WWII), here he is at the head of a brand new studio set up by the owners of PUBG, creating a new modern Dead Space (not to be confused with the one currently developed by Visceral Games): The Callisto Protocol. And he spent the afternoon watching his game crush me over and over again.
Legion of horrors. We were warned before playing: The Callisto Protocol is difficult. Despite that, at first I thought it was mostly an atmosphere game, because you spend a lot of time playing in gorgeous, creepy settings that are a cross between Alien and the cold vastness of a Death Star with the "corpses stuck to the ceiling" option. It's pretty immersive - there's not even a HUD to distract us - and at first I was more than happy to just crawl through ventilation ducts coated with a viscous substance, discover filthy windows overlooking Jupiter and wade through sewers churned up by angular machines. But now I've discovered my first enemies.
I love it when the most common enemies in a video game are still a serious threat, and you always face them with care. I can tell you that after having my lower jaw ripped off five times by a two-headed zombie (the death animations are particularly violent), I'm satisfied. The fights are demanding but not unusual, with their mix of slow and fast moves, dodges and parries. You have to watch your opponent carefully, not get caught off guard and avoid bludgeoning the buttons - even though you die after taking only a few slaps and are therefore quite feverish.
Like in Dead Space, the life bar is replaced by an indicator on the back of the hero's suit.
Have some Glen. The first zombie, I finally manage to smash with my space baton. But a little further on, there are two, then three, then two more, including some sneaky, acid-spitting ones that stay away. This fight, I do it ten times over, while the journalist next to me is already on the other side of the level. So yes, I discovered the game twenty minutes ago, but I'm also an idiot: I forgot to use the homemade gravity gun that my hero carries around to throw enemies into the air, or into spikes, or into the unfathomable abyss. A stratagem as enjoyable as Dark Messiah's famous kick.
But don't expect to use this gravity gun every time: not only does it run on batteries, which are in short supply, but some levels lack environmental hazards in which to dispatch zombies. In these cases, you have to fall back on guns with scarce ammunition, or on punishing hand-to-hand duels. But here too you can choose your approach, since as the game goes on you collect credits that allow you to improve each weapon so that it fits your style more and more. Despite this, The Callisto Protocol is not just a series of fights either, as I also went through several suspenseful sequences without enemies, as well as a whole scene where my hero was swept away by a gigantic waterfall and where you had to avoid obstacles in the current.
Jupiter in Silk. Glen Schofield confirmed that the team is trying to "diversify the gameplay to keep the player on their toes. Some levels focus on exploration, some on infiltration, some on combat and action. There are also more than fifteen enemies, to surprise the player in many different ways. We'd like him or her to always be wondering what's going to happen next." Compassionate, he also slipped me that when the game is released, it will have several difficulty levels. Yeah, well there wouldn't have been any need for that with a walking simulator in the PUBG universe.
The Callisto Protocol
Genre: survival-horror
Developer: Striking Distance Studios (USA)
Publisher: Krafton
Platforms: Windows, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series
Release Date: 12/02/2022
