Callisto Protocol Review: Final Transfer

With a massive marketing campaign and a reputation as something of a spiritual successor to Dead Space, The Callisto Protocol was eagerly awaited by many space horror fans, but ended up being a disappointment. The problem was not only the not-so-interesting storyline, but above all the creepy melee-focused combat system, but combined with the large number of enemies, didn’t work at all. After more than six months, during which several patches with various modifications were also released, we received the first and at the same time the last story DLC called Final Transmission. But is it worth paying attention to it at all?

• Platform: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (Remastered), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
• Publication date: 06/27/2023
• Developer: Studios of astonishing distance
• Publisher: Crafton
• Genre: third party action
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Data to download: 49 GB
• Game time: 2 hours
• Price: 369 CZK (PlayStation Store)

Same problems and benefits

The expansion takes place after the very end of the main game, even giving you the choice of continuing with your saved position (and therefore weapons and upgrades) or starting over. After a reminder of the events and a brief introduction, you take the main character Jacob and start playing the game. But here comes the first serious problem.

A lot of people have pointed out the bad combat system, so I expect to see some changes in the DLC. And yes, you’ll find a few stealth passages here, which, just like in the base game, are by far the best the expansion has to offer, but they’re few and far between. Fights as such then proceed exactly the same way. Strange dodge system and clubbing enemies with periodic shots, while the camera is constantly fixed on one monster, not giving you the opportunity to know what is happening around you.

By the way, here I’m mentioning the club from the base game. But if you’ve been following the content that the developers have been gradually introducing, then you may already know that the expansion was supposed to include a kinetic hammer. And this is also there, but the problem is that you get it almost at the very end, so you will enjoy it for 20 minutes. The whole situation around the hammer is quite strange, its addition was probably intended by the creators to solve problems with the combat system, because the hammer allows you to attack with area damage. The joke is that along with the hammer, the game will send hordes of enemies at you. From something that was at least a little like a horror movie, towards the end it becomes more like Devil May Cry with a clumsy gun and camera.

But in order to pass even for a moment to the pluses, one cannot refrain from supplementing. Like the main game, it offers fantastic graphics. If you’re also using the Quality mode on consoles, you can look forward to a rich use of ray tracing that takes lighting to the next level. But it’s not just about the light, although this is of course extremely important in a game like this, the game offers excellent details in general, especially the faces of the characters. In a word, from the technical side, developers have nothing to be ashamed of. The sound is also great, which adds to the dark atmosphere, but it must be said that you won’t be completely spooked even in the DLC.

Thoroughbred action

In the expansion, you move through relatively different spaces in terms of visuals, but the level design itself is worse. Already in the base game, I had a problem with the fact that it was not clear where the path led further and where the branch with extra supplies was, where I logically wanted to go first so that the game would not block me. Due to the lack of a map, it is simply very difficult to navigate. Unfortunately, the DLC is even worse. The developers play with the hallucinations that change rooms in different ways, but this, combined with the problems mentioned, creates an absolutely confusing environment in which you will often spin in circles.

By the way, during your wanderings you will meet not only familiar monsters, but also completely new enemies in the form of some kind of biorobots. This is a very nice addition and they seem scary at first. But after a few stealth playthroughs, you’ll face them in head-to-head combat where you’ll be head-to-head with each other. And you just keep watching death animations over and over that look “cool” but in fact the developers could have paid more attention to more important things. By the way, you will not die just because of a bad combat system, the speed of healing is also associated with it. This has been sped up since the release of the original game, but is still too slow to use in combat.

It remains to discuss one more important aspect – the plot. The base game has a very open ending, which caused a lot of criticism, as it seemed that the real ending would only be in the expansion. But I can reassure you, because nothing revolutionary in Final Transmission awaits you. Aside from the few main discs you’re tasked with compiling, there aren’t any detailed audio logs or any kind of explanatory sequences. In terms of plot, there is nothing here, at least, except for the ending, which is not very happy.

The icing on the cake is the subtitled scene, which the developers couldn’t fix either. Instead of reading the names of the creators, you should stare at the glitched logo of the studio Striking Distance for several minutes. So what you end up with is a shot that looks like the developers have completely abandoned the brand.