The Callisto Protocol made its first appearance at The Game Awards where it debuted as a survival-horror game already featuring some ghastly creatures considering we’ve only seen one trailer. The game’s created by Glen Schofield, the same individual responsible for the creation of the Dead Space games, and it’s being developed within the new Striking Distance studio. Another interesting fact about the project that may surprise some is that it’s set within the universe of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
From watching the trailer below, you’d be hard-pressed to make any connections between this new game and PUBG if that was all you had to go off of. Everything about the trailer is as different from the battle royale game as it could possibly be, but it’s indeed part of the PUBG universe, Schofield told IGN.
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From Striking Distance Studios and the creators of Dead Space, comes The Callisto Protocol โ a terrifying, story-driven, survival horror game set in a prison colony on Jupiterโs dead moon Callisto. Coming 2022. #CallistoTheGame pic.twitter.com/k9b8KkfpXB
โ The Callisto Protocol (@CallistoTheGame) December 11, 2020
“The funny thing is, I came in with this story when I went and met with the PUBG people for the first time and started talking about [The Callisto Protocol] and building a studio,” Schofield said. “I presented this game to them, and so what we did was we made it fit within the PUBG storyline.”
Schofield said in the past that he was working on a new game within the PUBG universe, but that most natural conclusion people drew from that was that it was some sort of narrative-driven shooter. It’s a far cry from that, but however it’s managed to fit into PUBG, it’s caught people’s attention already. It gave off some serious Dead Space vibes from the trailer alone even if you didn’t know at first that Schofield was working on it, and the creator has said he wants to make it “the scariest game” on next-gen platforms and on PC.
That work may take a while though since we’ve only been given a 2022 timeframe for the release of The Callisto Protocol. The timeframe was given at the end of the trailer above, and in part of Schofield’s talks with IGN, he said the level of detail being put into the game slows things down.
“We’re getting so detailed, it slows us down on production, you know what I mean?” Schofield said. “We can get so detailed now and fit those graphics on the screen and it’s taking a lot of time to build it.”
The Callisto Protocol is scheduled to release some time in 2022.