The Callisto Protocol’s Gross Mutations Make It More Than Just Dead Space 4 [IGN]

This warning marks the start of a 15-minute hands-off demonstration that I saw behind closed doors at Gamescom 2022, which was an extended version of what was shown at Opening Night Live. Mutations, as I soon discovered, transform biophage enemies into more grotesque versions of their original forms. A guy with no arms suddenly had limbs erupting from bloody stumps, and those clawing hands naturally cranked the danger up a notch.

Not every enemy mutates, but those that do can be identified by the writhing tendrils that emerge from beneath their flesh. That “shoot the tentacles” warning should have come with an added note, though: do it quickly. If you spot those wormy appendages growing, you have just a few seconds to act before they trigger the mutation. Get the shot in and you’re safe, but play it too slow and you’ll soon be dealing with an even worse nightmare.

While it’s impossible to tell until we go hands-on, it looks like mutations will introduce a level of strategic crowd control beyond what we saw in the Dead Space games. You’ll want to survey groups of enemies for the ones that are ticking time bombs and make sure you prioritise blasting them to pieces.

Talking of blasting, it appears that you’ll have a lot of control over exactly how you shoot the biophage to pieces thanks to an unexpectedly deep weapon upgrade system. The demonstration showed protagonist Jacob slotting his pistol into a 3D printer which then added new physical components to the gun. The detailed and tactile nature of the animation reminded me of a sci-fi take on The Last of Us: Part 2’s weapon benches. It’s a small thing, but I genuinely got a lot of joy out of seeing Jacob’s handgun and stun baton physically change within the printer’s chamber.

But long-term interest in The Callisto Protocol’s weapons will hopefully come via the web of upgrade options. Rather than the linear-ish, left-to-right upgrade paths of Dead Space’s Benches, new enhancement options at the 3D printer are arranged much like a skill tree, with individual branches. It seems as though, over time, weapons will evolve from simple slug slingers to tools that are both more advanced and more specialised. I’m hoping that the upgrades include meaningful enhancements rather than basic stat increases; I quite like the idea of tailoring the pistol to be the perfect anti-mutation device, for instance, honing in on its accuracy and power to allow for precision tentacle-severing shots.

When you’re not given the luxury of the distance needed to fire a gun, you can fall back on melee attacks. Jacob has a stun baton, but to be honest it seems to behave more like a blunt cleaver, hacking away chunks of flesh and lengths of limbs with each strike. It looks heavy and satisfyingly brutal, but most importantly it acts as a core ability in a combat loop that’s admirably varied for a survival horror. The combination of anti-gravity manipulation via the Grip power, long-range guns, melee smackdowns, and the environmental deathtraps that litter each level will hopefully add a creative edge to The Callisto Protocol’s combat. Using the Grip to hold a biophage in front of you as a makeshift meat shield, as seen in the ONL demo, certainly hints at a system with the potential for some very fun (if grim) improvised tactics.

Another area in which The Callisto Protocol reconsiders the Dead Space playbook is through stealth segments. The demo showed a short sequence in which Jacob quietly inches around a location while crouched, sneaking up on enemies for a takedown attack. Director Glen Schofield told me that this kind of approach is largely optional, but that there is at least one stealth-focused segment in which you’ll have to get through a location infested by ‘The Blind’. These sightless enemies camp out on walls, presumably listening out for you with sharp hearing that makes up for their lack of eyes. It sounds like very softly-softly tactics will be required to prevent being mobbed by a bunch of them. Again, there’s an element of The Last of Us here, but I’m interested to see Striking Distance’s take on how a Clicker-like enemy works, particularly if they’re a biophage capable of mutating.

While it’s undeniable that The Callisto Protocol has Dead Space vibes, it’s the small factors that suggest it could feel more of its own design and not just a fourth Dead Space by a different name. The stronger role melee plays in combat, the mutating enemies, the stealth design, and the weapons upgrade system all have the potential to make the fundamentals of The Callisto Protocol play significantly differently, even if the overall atmosphere and trajectory of the game still follows in the footsteps of Isaac Clarke. But that would be within the traditions of Glen Schofield himself; Dead Space was recognisably a game in the lineage of Resident Evil 4, but you’d never reduce it to just RE4 in space. And, from what I can see in this short Gamescom demo, The Callisto Protocol may share plenty of DNA with its spiritual predecessor, but it looks like it’s mutated into something new.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.