It’s hard to look at The Callisto Protocol and not see Dead Space. Even while playing it during last month’s preview event I couldn’t help noticing everything Glen Schofield and Striking Distance Studios chose to keep from Dead Space. It’s not just that they’re both survival horror action games set in alien-infested space stations - Dead Space’s signature iconography is present here too. It has the same minimalist UI that expresses health bars and inventory screens as diegetic elements. It has monsters that transform if you aren’t able to dispatch them quickly enough, which adds an additional layer of tension and challenge to every fight. It even has the stomp attack for finishing off grounded enemies and bursting open their bodies to get at the l♉oot inside.
The Callisto Protocol is not shy about reusing Dead Space’s style and mechanics, but it’s also not a simple rehash of Dead Space either. The biggest difference between them - and something that the gameplay footage hasn’t been effective at communicating - is just how involved Callisto’s melee combat is. Given the extreme limitation of resources, brawling enemies is extremely necessary and effective. Dodging, blocking, and counter-attacking the monsters is even more important than landing headshots. Sometimes when you’re weaving in and out attacks with perfect timing, The Callisto Protoc♛ol can start to feel like a boxing game more than a shooter. It is undeniably a spiritual successor to Dead Space, but surprisingly, it also borrows a lot from Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! too.
The Dead Space series is pretty reserved when it comes to ♚melee combat. You’re limited to just two attacks: the aforementioned stomp, and a melee swing with your currently equipped weapon. The stomp is useful for executing necromorphs that crawl toward you after you’ve already taken out their legs, as well as smaller enemies that scurry on the floor like Dead Space 2’s crawlers. The punch, on the other hand, is a tool of last resort, only meant to help you create space and slow down advancing enemies when you’re overwhelmed. Neither melee combat tools are very effective, especially compared to Isaac’s arsenal of weaponry.
The Callisto Protocol takes almost the opposite approach. Jaco💙b’s gun, at least early on, is not an efficient way to kill biophages. If you try to keep your distance and focus 🌠on precision shots like you would in Dead Space, you’ll quickly find yourself out of ammo and options. Instead, it requires a mix of both ranged and melee techniques in order to conserve resources and, more importantly, kill the monsters before they kill you.
It’s best to think of your gun as a utility rather than a weapon. It can be used to separate enemies and give yourself better positioning, but it can also be used to brieflyꦯ stun targets to create openings to 🍌advance on them. Once you’re within striking distance of a biophage you can usually take them out quickly - assuming you don’t get clobbered yourself.
As I mentioned before, fighting in The Callisto Protocol is a lot like fighting in the Punch-Out games. You can’t simply mash your attack button endlessly to take down an enemy, you have to time your attacks carefully and avoid getting hit yourself. Biophages are quick and lethal, but they telegraph all of their attacks with enough warning that you can dodge or block when you need to.𝓰༺ While your instinct might be to keep backing up from attacks the way you would in other games like this, you’ll lose your ability to evade and block attacks if you don’t plant your feet. This is because the stick you move with becomes your dodge control when in combat, so tilting in different directions with precise timing will allow you to duck attacks and counter with your own.
When you dodge and counter perfectly, you’ll open the enemy up to a precision hit with your weapon. This is another quick-react moment where you need to whip out your gun during a melee combo and shoot them in a weak spot, which will often kill them instantly. This is a clever way of teaching players to hold onto their ammo unti⛄l it really matters instead of kiting enemies and shooting weak points at range like Dead Space.
You also have to be vigilant of parasites, which will burst out of the biophages' skin while you're punching them. If you don’t pull out your gun and shoot these parasites right away, they’ll transform into a bigger, much deadlier enemy. You will have a much harder time boxing them when this happens, so you need to be vigilant about using your bullets when the time is right.
Gameplay trailers don’t do a good job of showing how technical melee fights are, and we don’t have many other games - other than Punch-Out!! - that feature this kind of combat. Dead Space fans should prepare themselves for a much different combat experience than the one they’re used to in Dead Space. It may be a spiritual-successor, but it's still a very different game.