What began as an endeavour to expand the world of PUBG: Battlegrounds has instead morphed into an original narrative-driven horror experience known as The Callisto Protocol. Crafted by Striking Distance Studios, home to veteran Dead Space developers, the game leads the charge back into the depths of sci-fi horror. With promises of intricately detailed visuals and authentic character rendering, The Callisto Protocol stands to deliver one of the most visually striking Unreal Engine games to date. We’ll examine what makes it special, including its reliance on ray tracing and its 60fps performance mode, focusing on the PlayStation 5 version of the game.
Based on our testing, PS5 is most obviously the lead platform for development – it’s been solid throughout the review period, while we’ve had a bunch of problems with Xbox Series and especially the PC versions of the game (the latter of which is essentially unplayable right now). We’ll be talking about the various issues on other systems in a separate article, but to see Striking Distance’s vision best realised, it’s PS5 that’s the best place to play for now.
The Callisto Project was created with one of the final iterations of Unreal Engine 4 and with access to a full motion capture studio – and this game makes full use of both in its stand-out character rendering, with a cast rich with Hollywood talent. Performance and motion capture help bring these characters to life, but what separates Callisto is the fidelity with which these characters are presented in-engine.
Skin, hair and eye rendering are hauntingly lifelike, while clothing material perfectly suits each character. Sub-surface scattering is used to more accurately simulate the penetration of light across the skin, while beads of sweat help convey the tension of each moment. The characters all manage to feel grounded within the world too, a testament to the lighting team, with minimal specular glow as is common in many Unreal Engine titles today. This leads to one of the best examples of real-time character rendering you’ll find in a modern video game – not quite on par with the The Matrix Awakens demo, but it’s close.
These details are preserved well in gameplay too, backed up by armor and equipment that exhibit unbelievable depthn and detail – even zooming all the way into Jacob’s high-tech ensemble, each chunk of his multi-segment armor delivers rounded edges, realistic material response and precise shadow work. All this works in tandem to create something that feels suitably ‘next gen’. The environmental detail is also impressive, with a range of locations that boast a staggering volume of hand-crafted geometric detail, evident in every pipe, panel and structure.