In the last decade, video games have evolved exceptionally, with a larger share hold among people who are now more into playing games. With properly established fan groups and gamers, and even now as a profession, gaming has been something that everyone loves.
One of the most thrilling and challenging genres to play in is horror and survival, which is enjoyed by a lot of people. The Callisto Protocol is the perfect fit for this genre as its grim and scary graphics makes it a perfect horror treat, and the challenges to make it through and the quests to complete in order to save oneself are truly enthralling.
The game was developed by Striking Distance Action and was published by Krafton in 2022. What makes the game direction more excellent is the detailed direction of Glen Schofield, who is well known for his direction of the Dead Space game series.
Striking Distance studios began with the initial development of the game in 2019, and then it was meant to be a part of the PUBG: Battlegrounds universe, but as the development of the game reached its latter stages, it emerged as an original intellectual property, hence being out of the PUBG universe.
The game is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The game is a Role-Playing Game wherein the player assumes the role of the player character from a third-person perspective. The game is not only filled with realistic graphics and animations but also an intriguing storyline that keeps the player hooked till the very end of the game.
The Plot
The game’s first scene unfolds with the introduction of the character player, Jacob Lee, in the year 2320. He is shown along to be a contract freight transporter with his partner Max Barrow working for Unites States company called United Jupiter Company.
They have transported volatile cargo from Europa to UJC-operated black iron prison located on Callisto. Callisto is the second largest moon of Jupiter hence making the game highly future-oriented. What they don’t know is that their ship is also habituated by a terrorist group who are purportedly known for planning attacks on civilians called the “Outer Way.”
On reaching Callisto, their ship faces a harsh crash landing, killing Maxin in the accident. He, along with the Outer Way leader Dani Nakamura are incarcerated on the orders of Warden Duncan Cole of Black Iron Prison.
As he wakes up in prison, he finds out that the place and people have been infected by parasitic biophages, which has been deteriorating the people. He meets another inmate, Elias porter along with whom he makes an escape plan as they both try to overcome the cause of the unknown disease and overcome the prison security system to safeguard themselves. They also meet an infected man named Ferris, who, regardless of being ill, is able to retain his rationality.
They try to convince Dani to join them in their pursuits, but she doesn’t join them until the death of Elias due to suffocation. She helps Lee to regain Elias’s memories as they try to navigate through Black Iron. With their only way of escape being shut off by Cole, they are forced to confront him and look for answers themselves. The go-to was an original colony named Arcas, which was abandoned with the establishment of Black Iron Prison. They find that the place was also infected with the same infection and unravel the actions of UJC, who exterminated the whole colony.
They also find a corpse of a dead alien who was accidentally unearthed by the people of Arcas. They experimented with the larvae of the corpse to use it for evolutionary purposes, but on the contrary, it caused an infectious outbreak. Subject Zero was killed in the process by the security guards.
The game is followed by Dani being infected and Jacob being imprisoned by the UJC guards.
The Callisto Protocol: Ending Explained
Jacob is rescued by a prison doctor, Dr. Caitlin Mahler, who turns out to be his last hope. She informs him that she has kept infected Dani under her observation to cure her. She reveals the secret of Cole, who is a part of a religious sect called The Commonality and is on their way to implementing their plan called the ‘Callisto Protocol.’
They were trying to recreate the same outbreak as it happened in Arcas in order to replace Subject Zero with subject Alpha. With this, Jacob also retains his memories wherein he remembers carrying the same larvae samples from Europa to Callisto and Dani, and their group wasn’t really a terrorist group. Rather, they were trying to prevent these outbreaks. It is further revealed that Dani’s sister was also killed in the Europa outbreak.
Dr. Mahler explains that the only way to save Dani is to source out the samples from The Alpha to generate the cure. He goes ahead to confront Cole and succeeds in fetching the samples by defeating the mutated Ferris, who was The Alpha all along. He uses the sample to cure Dani, which results in Cole being angry as he initiates the self-destructive countdown.
They both rush to the escape pods and find only one, which on the insistence of Jacob, is occupied by Dani, along with proof of the outbreak caused by UJC. The game closes with Jacob accepting his death on the planet, with is stopped by a holographic image of Dr. Mahler appearing as she states that there’s a way to escape and that all she needs is his help.
The game ends with a terrifying scene of Jacob being attacked by the still-alive Ferris, leaving the players on a cliffhanger. The game is set to renew for the next installment in the year 2023, with the story continuing from hereon.
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