What makes for a good horror title? More than a smattering of jump scares, critically acclaimed titles are often smooth assemblages of grotesque imagery, chill-inducing sound design, and foreboding background storytelling. By themselves, these elements can create an amazing film or series. However, a horror game needs so much more to be effectively scary.

Today, a lot of games rely on a bag of tricks — sparse resources, brutishly overpowered enemies, emphasis on sneaking — to keep players on their toes throughout the entire playthrough. Branching from a long tradition of similar games, The Callisto Protocol is the latest title to take on the genre. Can it leverage horrifying storytelling with tense gameplay?

Back to sci-fi basics

The sci-fi horror genre needs no introduction. Over the years, it has spawned several notable titles like Alien: Isolation, Prey, and Dead Space. Besides waving the flag of the genre, The Callisto Protocol also comes from Glen Schofield, the co-creator of the Dead Space series. With that distinction, the title should be primed for success. Or so one thinks.

As the name implies, the title takes players to the frozen climes of Jupiter’s moon, Callisto. Jacob Lee, played by Josh Duhamel, finds himself trapped inside Callisto’s Black Iron Prison. Coincidentally, both inmates and guards alike are getting infected by an unknown virus, turning them into mutating zombies. Like other survival horror games, the title features dark hallways and a limited array of resources to fight monsters.

A feast of viscera

Given its creator, The Callisto Protocol successfully recreates the dark and ominous atmosphere of its spiritual predecessor. The game is as creepy as its gory. Claustrophobic, unlit hallways open into veritable museums of the human anatomy in various states of disfigurement. Entrails splayed out, entire torsos chopped off, naked bodies dangling on alien cobwebs. Even if you’re already used to the gore of the horror genre, there’s something in Callisto that can still inspire awe and disgust.

The same goes for the game’s limited-but-adequately-spaced out enemy design. Though most of the monsters you’ll face in Callisto are humanoid, there are a few enemies that escape comprehension including a human body contorted into a spidery crawler and another squeezed into a snake-like form. The game can always use more enemy types; however, it adequately spaces out special monster types, ensuring that the limited number we see keep their scare factor.

Clunk

The Callisto Protocol deserves praise for its excellent environmental storytelling. However, a game needs more than just an environment. It also needs a complementarily scary gameplay system. Unfortunately, the title does little to deliver.

Though the game takes scarcity of resources to heart, The Callisto Protocol’s combat system is clunky. Instead of two dedicated buttons to dodge and block, the game asks players to use the left thumbstick, the same one you use for movement. Players have to accurately predict which side an enemy is attacking from and counter with the opposite direction on the thumbstick. Otherwise, players can block attacks by holding down on the stick. It’s certainly a chore to get used to, especially when most games these days use either the X or the O button to dodge.

Once you do get dodging down to a rhythm, the game doesn’t offer much variation for attacking. There are light and strong attacks, but it’s ultimately a spam of the right trigger then an occasional burst of gunfire. There are a variety of guns available, but a lot of the latter enemies are bullet sponges so it doesn’t matter much.

It also doesn’t help that the targeting system freaks out in scenarios with more than one monster. Most of the time, a strike just fails to land or mistakenly lands on an entirely different target, often leading to the player getting hit instead.

The game’s horror finds itself tied so much into the foreignness of its gameplay and the controls. As such, the fear factor quickly dissipates after mastering the system. A couple of hours into the game, the monsters stopped being scary. Whenever the game told me to sneak past enemies, I still got into fights intentionally just to quicken the pace. Fighting just became an inconvenience, rather than a death sentence.

A problem of pacing

In between fighting, players traipse through dark hallways and cramped vents. The game also offers divergent paths, adding a bit of choice as to where players explore first. In moderation, these elements can help build tension and reward players for exploring beyond the main path. The Callisto Protocol’s take, however, is problematic.

Though framed as a way to increase tension, the game also uses empty hallways and vents as cleverly disguised loading screens. Jacob crawls through at a snail’s pace so the game can load the next area. While other games use this moment to build lore or continue the dialogue, a lot of Callisto’s loading screens offer nothing but silence or the same, reused set pieces of monsters running offscreen to parts unknown. One segment even had a vent, an empty room, and another vent follow each other — basically, three loading zones in quick succession. It’s just a tax on time.

The divergent paths aren’t as effective either. There are several times when exploring a hidden room ends up with nothing, a battle, a middling reward, or just an audio recording. It’s hardly rewarding enough to explore unbeaten paths.

Is The Callisto Protocol your GameMatch?

For what it’s worth, The Callisto Protocol is still a masterclass in depicting virtual gore. Schofield knows how to make space terrifying. If you’re looking for a quick fix to tide over a hunger for horror, this title might be for you.

Unfortunately, the title’s lackluster gameplay keeps The Callisto Protocol from hanging with other masterpieces in the genre. However, if it’s any consolation, the title still has a post-launch roadmap to follow including story-focused DLC. The game might be more worth its price tag once the DLC comes out.