Reviews
‘The Callisto Protocol’ DLC Review – “The Final Transmission” Fails to Improve on a Flawed Base Game
In Thomas Wilde’s review of the Callisto Protocol last December, he wrote that the game could have used more time in development to reach the full potential of what developer Striking Distance was going for. In the last seven months, the game has received patches fixing bugs and adding new game modes, including New Game+ and a combat-focused Riot Mode, culminating with its last piece of content, a story DLC called “The Final Transmission.”
Unfortunately, even with the extra time, the core problems of the base game still plague this expansion, highlighting the fundamental flaws in the game’s design. “The Final Transmission” takes place after the events of the main game, following Jacob (Josh Duhamel), under the orders of Dr. Caitlyn Mahler (Louise Barnes), in his efforts to escape Black Iron Prison with data about the nefarious experiments taking place. Aside from the additional story content, the game adds a new weapon and enemy type. The Biobot enemies are a neat idea, combining the big robot guards with the mutated Biophages, which is important to the narrative of the DLC. The added Kinetic Hammer weapon gives you an additional area of effect attack that can damage crowds while also granting you the extra oomph you need to take out the Biobots.
Despite these additions, combat feels similar to the base game, which to me, was very flawed. The core mechanic of alternating holding left and right to dodge attacks remains uncompelling, especially since so much is out of your hands and mostly handled by the game’s autotargeting. The melee, while viscerally satisfying to watch due to some very chunky animation, never feels like it has the nuance to be the focal point of the combat. The enemy variety isn’t robust enough to make the encounter design interesting, just throwing larger numbers at you in ways that don’t feel like you can mitigate cleverly.
The area of effect attack from the Kinetic Hammer does seem to work towards alleviating that concern, but the charge-up for it felt like it made it useless when you’re at your most overwhelmed. An instant slam with a cooldown would probably have made it a lot more tactically interesting, making you think carefully about when you want to use it. Guns in the game are entirely unchanged, which is to say there are too many to justify, given the game’s emphasis on melee. I would much rather have them work like Bloodborne’s guns, where they are something to stagger an enemy or break its attack animation in a pinch, instead of just a mechanical carryover from the game’s Dead Space roots.
Much like the encounter design, the level design in “The Final Transmission” doesn’t have any new tricks up its sleeve. It’s primarily hallways that lead you to the next encounter arena mixed in with some bland mazes that got me turned around frequently. There were lots of dead ends that had resources in them, but usually, it was just ammo or batteries to recharge your telekinesis, so it was rarely anything that felt worthwhile. At times I could only tell that I was going down the right branch of a maze by seeing the autosave symbol appear in the corner, which isn’t the greatest sign for a feeling of meaningful progression.
Jacob now experiences hallucinations as you explore the new areas of Black Iron Prison. Still, to me, he’s never really had enough depth as a character to have these be emotionally impactful. There are some cool moments where it plays with the geography of the space, looping things back on you, but it never really feels like it goes anywhere with the concept. On the Resident Evil to Silent Hill spectrum of horror styles, The Callisto Protocol always felt way more Resident Evil to me, so they feel out of place here, perhaps again, another attempt to add something from the Dead Space series.
The hallucinations are explained through the narrative, which, once again, isn’t that much to write home about. The actual actions of the game are a lot of unlocking doors with fuses to progress, and the lore you discover that sheds light on what’s going on at Black Iron never really goes beyond early Resident Evil-levels of ‘bad people doing experiments with viruses.’ I wish the game had used the prison planet setting to say something clever or exciting, fully integrating it into its theming, like the PlayStation 2 game The Suffering, rather than just using it as a grimy and bleak backdrop for the action. The two to three-hour narrative definitely wraps things up for the story of The Callisto Protocol while also having one of the most bizarre post-credits sequences I’ve ever seen in a game. Still, it doesn’t leave me in a place where I’m dying to return to that universe.
One thing “The Final Transmission” does is maintain the base game’s high visual quality. While most areas are still bland stone or metal hallways that are occasionally covered in gross-looking goo, every once in a while, I’d come across an image that would immediately make me jump into photo mode. The game’s stellar lighting allowed me to frame some truly great screenshots. It’s some of the highest visual polish I’ve seen in a game and shines as the game’s strongest element. That said, even when it’s at its best, it’s still borrowing from better series like Aliens or Dead Space without adding much personality of its own.
Despite all my complaints about The Callisto Protocol, there’s still something there that made me want to give the DLC a shot. There’s a certain late-night movie appeal to the simplicity of its setup and the crunchy and brutal nature of its combat that is satisfying when you’re in the right mindset. I just wish it was a game that took some risk to establish a stronger identity rather than just trying to be a more cinematic and modern version of Dead Space. I wish I could say “The Final Transmission” was the strongest part of the game that improved on the flaws, but it’s more of the same. I’m very curious to see what’s next for Striking Distance, as they clearly have a talented group of people there who can visually realize a world in striking (no pun intended) detail. Hopefully, they can move out of the shadow of Dead Space and find a way to forge their own path into something unique.
The Final Transmission DLC code was provided by the publisher. The Callisto Protocol is out now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam.
It’s a day of the month ending in Y, and that means it’s time for another killer shark film. Why? Because they’re inexpensive to make, play into an easy fear, and keep finding audiences willing to give them a spin. The Bay is the latest entry in the shark attack subgenre, and while it’s noticeably better than last month’s Chum, it still struggles to barely stay afloat.
Emma (Francesca Eastwood) and Lani (Dani Oliveros) are best friends who’ve traveled to Thailand for a destination wedding, and a chance encounter at the buffet table leads to an unexpected adventure. Mandal (Alexander Wraith) is a friendly, knowledgeable transplant who connects with nature and makes a living by offering boat tours through the area’s scenic waterways. The trips culminate with the opportunity for tourists to witness a shark feeding with local tiger sharks. The tourists aren’t meant to be the food, obviously, but sometimes accidents happen.
The Bay checks off most of the subgenre’s expected beats – an attractive location, an iffy ensemble of characters, a series of poor choices – but it does a few things differently along the way. For one thing, while we see plenty of sharks in the build-up, the first attack doesn’t happen until past the film’s midpoint. Writer/director Phil Volken fills the time leading up to that attack with engaging enough character beats, some genuine suspense, and an abundance of dialogue about how sharks aren’t typically a threat to people – or threats like people. “Sharks hunt,” says Mandal, “humans kill.”
It’s a bit of foreshadowing, perhaps, but it’s also the film’s presiding theme. Sharks don’t want to hurt or kill humans, but “mistakes happen.” Mandal offers up numerous eco-friendly spiels about the role sharks play in the environment, how overhunting could lead to disaster, and how humans are the ones invading their territory. “Don’t act like prey,” and you won’t be bitten, eaten, digested, and shat out by a shark. Pretty simple, if you think about it.
Trouble starts when they toss a chunk of meat into the water attached to a chain and a large female tiger shark gets caught up in it. Mandal’s sidekick, a local man named Ruhan (Ta’imua), panics and starts stabbing at the thrashing creature. He has a history of being bitten by a shark and is clearly frightened, and as the situation worsens, he becomes a far more active threat to the others’ safety than the actual sharks. That character type is pretty common in these films, but it’s a curious choice to make the film’s sole indigenous member of the ensemble the morally weak link.
To be clear, Ta’imua is playing a local but isn’t actually Thai. He is, however, Hawaiian, and The Bay was filmed off Oahu, meaning he’s the only indigenous representation on both counts. The other three characters, all Americans, are brave and willing to risk their own safety for the group, leaving only Ruhan to put a face to the cruel, selfish humans mentioned earlier in the film. It’s certainly a choice!
His performance is somewhat stifled by the desire to make him seem menacing, but it’s passable. The others are equally okay as performers, but it’s only Oliveros’ Dani who stands apart as a spirited individual worthy of viewer fist pumps. Cinematographer Helge Gerull delivers some attractive landscape shots destined to make you consider a Hawaiian vacation, and composer Gad Emile Zeitune finds some effective aural backdrops for the film’s teasingly emotional moments.
Then there’s the sharks. A major drag on the subgenre these days is the use of cheap CG effects (including the abysmal use of A.I. in Chum), but The Bay sidesteps that problem for the most part. There are real sharks here, lots of them, but they appear to be solely present via stock footage edited into the film. Some CG is used here and there, too, with shots being comped together to tighten the proximity between humans and sharks. Most effective, arguably, are the practical effects used to create fins cutting through the water near the characters.
There’s a sense of grounded reality to the shark kills, and while they’re less showy, they’re weightier as a result. Wounded bodies drift away, and the moment where shark nibbles turn into ferocious feasting feels more inevitable and affecting than sudden or scary. The sole exception to the general quality of those kills is the film’s final shark encounter, which doubles down on the poor choices by pairing a silly CG beat with some poorly matched stock footage.
Pretty much every shark attack movie lives or dies on its presentation of the sharks themselves. There are exceptions, of course, with Steven Spielberg’s Jaws being chief among them – everything about that film, from the writing and acting to the directing and editing, helps make it a masterpiece despite the mechanical shark looking goofy as hell outside of the water – but The Bay isn’t Jaws. It’s not even Jaws: The Revenge. Its live sharks are mildly effective, though, and give it a subdued realism that will likely appeal to viewers averse to CG intrusions. Will that be enough to win them over, though?
“When you enter the ocean, you enter the food chain… and not necessarily at the top,” says an opening onscreen quote from Jacques Cousteau, and something similar could be said for shark attack movies in general. When you make one of these movies, you enter a well-trodden and densely populated subgenre… and you’re all but guaranteed to not be at or even near the top. The Bay is closer to the ocean floor than the water’s surface, and while that still puts it above the bulk of the genre, it’s probably not enough of a reason to step foot in these waters.
The Bay opens in theaters and on demand on July 17, 2026.
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