TLDR: Get it on sale if you are interested. Probably worth like 20 bucks, but the combat sucks bad.


I really wanted to love this game. Dead Space 1 and 2 are in my top 10 games of all time, and this looked like a spiritual successor. Sadly it is just not good. Visually it is amazing, the graphics are among the best out there. Ray tracing is mind blowing. But that is about where the good stuff ends.

On release it was buggy and stuttering like crazy. Devs were very fast about patching it up to run better, but it was a sign. The only version that ran well was PS5. So a console with less power than my PC can run it fine..... not good.

Even with multiple patches and performance pretty ironed out ( still some stuttering but very minimal right now, will probably get better in the next month ) the combat is just not good. You basically have to rely on melee since it is survival horror. Ammo is there but not plentiful. Ok, that sounds good, except the combat is so bad. Like really bad. You have a dodge, but instead of a button it is linked to leaning. So you dodge right by moving ( leaning ) right. This makes sure that your character is locked onto an enemy, so it can know which way to lean. That all breaks down when you have 2 or 3 enemies coming at you. The camera will lock onto 1 enemy and so the others will just hammer you to death. And death comes fast.

And then there is the level design. This is basically a corridor shooter. Most of the areas are no bigger than a hallway. Most likely to help with the graphics, it is easier to do amazing lighting and textures when the world is so small. But it just doesn't feel good to play in. Just walk down a hallway, fight a few enemies and then open a door.

Then there is the shimmy. Oh My God.... This game has almost no loading screens at all, so awesome right? wrong. No loading screens means that your character has to squeeze through a small opening / pry open a door / shimmy through a tight space like all the time. This is obviously a way to let the game load a new area. But holy hell, it feels like you are doing it every 10 minutes. Just constant shimmy. It would be like playing Mass Effect 1 and instead of a loading screen once in a while you had to ride the elevator every 10 minutes. It is just bad.

Overall it isn't a terrible game, it is just a disappointment. I wanted this to be a new Dead Space. I went back to the original Dead Space just to see if I am crazy and it is so sad. A game that is over a decade old is better than this. Dead Space is still king, Callisto Protocol feels like a generic knock off that had extra money for graphics.

TLDR: Get it on sale if you are interested. Probably worth like 20 bucks, but the combat sucks bad. I really wanted to love this game. Dead Space 1 and 2 are in my top 10 games of all time, and this looked like a spiritual successor. Sadly it is just not good. Visually it is amazing, the graphics are among the best out there. Ray tracing is mind blowing. But that is about where the good stuff ends. On release it was buggy and stuttering like crazy. Devs were very fast about patching it up to run better, but it was a sign. The only version that ran well was PS5. So a console with less power than my PC can run it fine..... not good. Even with multiple patches and performance pretty ironed out ( still some stuttering but very minimal right now, will probably get better in the next month ) the combat is just not good. You basically have to rely on melee since it is survival horror. Ammo is there but not plentiful. Ok, that sounds good, except the combat is so bad. Like really bad. You have a dodge, but instead of a button it is linked to leaning. So you dodge right by moving ( leaning ) right. This makes sure that your character is locked onto an enemy, so it can know which way to lean. That all breaks down when you have 2 or 3 enemies coming at you. The camera will lock onto 1 enemy and so the others will just hammer you to death. And death comes fast. And then there is the level design. This is basically a corridor shooter. Most of the areas are no bigger than a hallway. Most likely to help with the graphics, it is easier to do amazing lighting and textures when the world is so small. But it just doesn't feel good to play in. Just walk down a hallway, fight a few enemies and then open a door. Then there is the shimmy. Oh My God.... This game has almost no loading screens at all, so awesome right? wrong. No loading screens means that your character has to squeeze through a small opening / pry open a door / shimmy through a tight space like all the time. This is obviously a way to let the game load a new area. But holy hell, it feels like you are doing it every 10 minutes. Just constant shimmy. It would be like playing Mass Effect 1 and instead of a loading screen once in a while you had to ride the elevator every 10 minutes. It is just bad. Overall it isn't a terrible game, it is just a disappointment. I wanted this to be a new Dead Space. I went back to the original Dead Space just to see if I am crazy and it is so sad. A game that is over a decade old is better than this. Dead Space is still king, Callisto Protocol feels like a generic knock off that had extra money for graphics.