'The Callisto Protocol' hands-on: Think Dead Space, but grosser

engadget.com:

It’s a strange feeling. The Callisto Protocol is a new game from a studio with zero releases to its name, but playing it feels like coming home. Its mechanics, environments and monsters are deeply familiar, unapologetically feeding off the immersive sci-fi horror concepts of Dead Space. While playing a preview of The Callisto Protocol on PlayStation 5, I was reminded of that scene from Wayne’s World where the boys are looking down on a film set that looks like Wayne’s basement, but it’s not actually Wayne’s basement, and Garth says, "Isn’t that weird?" They all agree it is.

Playing The Callisto Protocol, I found myself trapped in a world between old and new. Like I said, it was strange. However, once the weirdness wore off, playing The Callisto Protocol just felt good.

Callisto is the first game out of Striking Distance Studios, a team led by Dead Space co-creator Greg Schofield — so yeah, all the references are coming straight from the source. And there are plenty of similarities to go around: Callisto stars a lone space dude fighting through rooms of mutated humans; headshots are less effective than shooting extremities and tentacles; there’s no UI and the protagonist’s health is displayed on the back of his neck; stomping enemies is the best way to ensure they’re dead; there’s a gravity gun that functions like a kinesis ability; and the death screens are particularly gruesome. One early level even has a vignette with the phrase, "shoot the tentacles" scrawled across the wall in blood, riffing on the classic Dead Space blood tag that read, "cut off their limbs."

I had the luxury of playing the Callisto Protocol preview just a week after trying out Motive Studio’s Dead Space remake, so the similarities stung sharply — but