The Callisto Procotol creators Striking Distance Studios confirmed back in May that its new horror game would in fact not be connected to PUBG: Battlegrounds after saying in 2020 that the two games would be related to some degree. Though we haven’t heard as much about how this connection would’ve been implemented and what we would’ve seen in The Callisto Protocol to bridge it with the PUBG universe, we’ve learned a bit more now about why the planned connection was scrapped.
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Speaking to PCGamesN as part of the Gamescom proceedings, Striking Distance’s chief technology officer Mark James addressed the topic of the PUBG connection and said that as The Callisto Protocol grew, it became more challenging to both tell the game’s story and still have it connected to PUBG. The studio approached Krafton, the publisher of The Callisto Protocol and the developer and publisher of PUBG, and got the go ahead to abandon the connection if it was felt that was best for the game.
“We looked at the two universes, and there were a good 400 years in between both of them,” James said. “It started to be so large – the connection would have taken away from the Callisto universe. It became so difficult to tell our story and still make that connection. So we were like, ‘we’ve got one game to kind of establish this universe, and we hope to take it forward as, finger crossed, a franchise’, so we spoke to Krafton and said ‘we don’t want to make this part of the PUBG universe anymore.’ And they basically said if you think that’s the right decision for the game, then you don’t have to do it.”
Sharing similar comments in a previous interview with Game Informer, Striking Distance Studios CEO and The Callisto Protocol game director Glen Schofield said the game “outgrew” its PUBG connection.
ComicBook.com interviewed Steve Papoutsis, the chief development officer working on The Callisto Protocol, back in June, and while no info was offered as to where this PUBG connection would’ve gone, Papoutsis did offer up some interesting insights into things like the game’s melee combat system as well as the idea of having a more talkative protagonist.
