How The Callisto Protocol Offers a Fresh Take on Melee Combat in Survival Horror

By Tanner Dedmon

Melee combat is almost always an option in a survival horror game, but it's rarely the best one. It's typically a last-ditch effort, a way for players to put some space between them and whatever baddie is trying to chew their face off so that they can catch a breath and aim their next shot. That's why it's interesting then that The Callisto Protocol, the new horror game from the creators of the original Dead Space and its follow-ups, is putting more of an emphasis on melee combat compared to other games in the same genre.

This close-quarters combat method has been showcased in some of the trailers we've seen for the game already as well as in past interviews like the Game Informer issue about the game where we learned more about the combos and environmental interactions the game's protagonist, Jacob, can use to dispatch Biophages to conserve ammo or just to be stylish.

Intrigued by the prospect of bashing Biophages with batons and other means instead of just shoving them away, we spoke to Striking Distance Studios chief development officer Steve Papoutsis prior to the reveals from last week to learn more about The Callisto Protocol's emphasis on melee combat.

"So, as you may have seen in our trailer that got released recently, we have the notion of melee combat now, that is more significant than what perhaps we have seen in previous installations of horror games," said Papoutsis, a developer who also produced the first and second Dead Space games and other spin-offs. "So we really wanted to create something where you are mixing and matching the range combat with the melee combat and creating very intense scenarios where the melee is effective and brutal and then the range is a strategic option when you're trying to keep the enemies off of you. So, pretty excited about that and seeing how people react to that, because that is, we feel, very different for our game."

That's not to say melee will be a go-to option in The Callisto Protocol. We asked Papoutsis what there was in place to stop players from chaining combos and going toe-to-toe with every Biophage they meet.

"We intentionally want the game to be challenging so that you don't ever have that feeling of, oh, I can just mash the button to dispatch the enemies," Papoutsis said. "That's absolutely not what we're doing. One of the things that was intriguing about allowing for melee combat was just creating more of an intense up-close connection to the enemies, so you can see them better. We put a lot of attention to detail into the enemies and it just intensifies the life-or-death struggle, I guess, during the game, so when they get on top of you and you're reduced to meleeing, yes, you can be effective, but they're very brutal."

Papoutsis continued to say it's more about options for players so that they can choose how to navigate a situation while still ensuring that a Biophage getting too close isn't an immediate death sentence.

"What we're trying to create is player choice, so that players can manage the combat the way that they would like," he said. "And also just not ultimately feel like, 'Oh, well they're on me. I'm done.' We want to give you a chance. That doesn't mean that you're always going to survive, but we want to give you the opportunity, if you're skilled with our systems, that you might be able to eek out and survive a battle where they do get on top of you."

We've seen in recent trailers that brutality that transpires when the Biophages get on top of Jacob and quite literally do chew his face off. For Dead Space fans who were wondering, yes, those are indeed the cinematic death scenes specific to certain enemies which were a sort of gory consolation prize in the older horror games.

And yeah, we plan to have some of those types of scenes, certainly. I think it's a brutal world within Black Iron Prison and the monsters are dangerous. So yeah, I think, not only are those things kind of in a weird way almost like a reward when you fail. You fail. I know in other games when that happens, it's like, okay, I failed, but oh, look at this. It's interesting and gruesome and I guess in a morbid way, it's fun. So, I think, yeah, stay tuned for that too."

The Callisto Protocol is scheduled to release on December 2nd.

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