Get Ready For a Fright
Do you remember The Callisto Protocol? Hopefully, you do, because it was just announced last week, and we’re still hyped as hell for what’s shaping up to be a spiritual successor to Dead Space. Striking Distance Studios is a new team that has worked on classics, dedicated to bringing gamers the most immersive games in the industry. Their current project is shaping up to be viscerally horrifying, which is exactly what we’d expect from Founder and CEO Glen Schofield, AKA the guy who created Dead Space. He’s the best at what he does, and what he does is make gruesome sci-fi horror games. As you might expect, the extended, uncensored Red Band Cinematic Trailer released today made us cover our eyes at one point and that last jump scare got us good. Guess which parts got under our skin. Go on. Guess.
Schofield and Striking Distance Studios’ Chief Development Officer Steve Papoutsis also held a Q&A over on the game’s official Discord server this morning, right before the new trailer dropped, where they answered several questions from fans. They did their best to avoid giving too much away, but we know a bit more about The Callisto Protocol now than we did last week. The game will be a single-player, third-person survival horror game set on Jupiter’s moon Callisto–specifically, the Black Iron Prison, a supermax jail on the supposedly-dead moon. Players will be tasked with escaping from the prison and uncovering the dark secrets of the United Jupiter Company. We’re going to out on a limb and assume they will also be struggling to fight or avoid those terrifying tentacle-alien-corpses, too. The devs noted that they chose Callisto as their setting because Callisto is believed to have a salty underground ocean, making it a good target for potential terraforming.
Okay, but why a prison? Schofield said: “To start with, prison is a very scary place, and a prison on Jupiter’s dead moon is terrifying. Can’t think of anything more desolate and isolated than that.”
The game is unlikely to feature a co-op campaign. Striking Distance Studios wants players to experience the narrative in a certain way. By which we mean, they straight-up said, “We wanted you to be alone.” Way to sound absolutely terrifying, guys. The devs also went on the record as being excited about new audio and lighting possibilities afforded by next-gen hardware, but made it clear that they were going to focus on delivering a good story and interesting concepts first. After all, Papoutsis stated, “It all starts from connecting with the story.”
The ‘it’ in this case is fear. We definitely approve of their priorities. Here’s hoping The Callisto Protocol is absolutely terrifying.
The Callisto Protocol is expected to ship for PC and consoles in 2022.
What scares you most about outer space? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.
