Video Games
‘The Callisto Protocol’ Devs Explore Horror in New Docuseries [Watch]
We’re all hungry for Striking Distance Studios’ The Callisto Protocol. The studio knows it, and are keeping the anticipation building with the release of part one of their docuseries on The Callisto Protocol entitled “Mastering Horror”.
The first of a three-part series, Episode 1 sees director Glen Schofield, along with members of the development team and personalities from the horror genre (such as The Walking Dead‘s Robert Kirkman) go behind the scenes of The Callisto Protocol and discuss their shared love of horror.
Entitled “Brutality”, this first episode shows plenty of it in The Callisto Protocol. If you’ve been keeping up with the various previews (including our own by Thomas), you know that the game is going to be a bloody affair.
In fact, it’s so bloody, that according to the game’s Japanese Twitter account, the game’s release in Japan has been cancelled due to being refused classification by the country’s CERO rating system. In order for the game to have received a rating, Striking Distance would have had to censor the violence and gore. Apparently, the developers weren’t able to compromise, and as such, The Callisto Protocol won’t see a release in Japan.
One could see this as a gimmick that harkens back to EA’s infamous Dead Space 2 marketing campaign where they were showing moms footage of the gory goodness. Of course, it only helped Dead Space 2‘s popularity. Will a similar tactic work for its spiritual successor in The Callisto Protocol?
The Callisto Protocol arrives December 2nd for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam.
Up next from Hideo Kojima is OD, an enigmatic new horror gaming experience in collaboration with Jordan Peele. While Kojima remains tight-lipped on details, he has recently teased the game’s innovative new fear-based mechanics.
Speaking with EW on the state of Xbox at its 25th anniversary, Kojima, in typical fashion, cryptically skirted details but teased an entirely new gaming system built for the upcoming game. One that’s unlike anything else, and designed with the scary experience in mind.
“I wanted to do something new. I wanted to do something different. I had this OD concept since I was working on DS1 [Death Stranding], and I was working on it just by myself. I can’t reveal much detail, but it’s something that no one has ever seen before. A new game system,” Kojima tells EW.
Whatever it is, it’s revolutionary enough to have scared off all companies, big and up-and-coming, from tackling OD. Until, that is, former Xbox CEO Phil Spencer and successor Asha Sharma saw the project and decided to publish it. Sharma called OD a “deeply moving game. I’ve got great artists and creatives that can pick a great game better than I can, and so I want to give it space, but most importantly, I think it just represents another kind of game.”
OD is meant to test players’ mettle when it comes to fear, but the new system will also make the game more accessible for the more scare-averse players.
Kojima teased, “I wanted to go beyond the limit of the ‘scariness’ that other games had reached. It’s a single-player game, and I wanted to make it as scary as possible. But for those that might stop playing when it gets too scary, I have thought of a system that will allow them to keep going. I can’t say much more, because it’ll give too much of a hint on the system, and I could get in trouble for saying too much!”
The tease also comes with a new look at OD, below, one that instantly brings Hideo Kojima’s ultra-terrifying P.T. to mind.
Plot details are under wraps for OD, but the upcoming release stars Sophia Lillis (IT, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves), Hunter Schafer (Cuckoo), and the late Udo Kier (Swan Song, Flesh for Frankenstein).
You must be logged in to post a comment.