I really wanted it to be a masterpiece...
This week saw the release of the much anticipated, not least of all by me, spiritual successor to 'Dead Space': 'The Callisto Protocol'. Or is it a 'Direct Successor'? Hmm... I mean, it's more than just 'inspired by' considering it was fronted by the same director of Dead Space, and though it's not an actual 'sequel' you can definitely see the brain matter of Isaac Clarke splattered all over the cover of this game. And what even marks the difference between a direct and spiritual successor and why is that distinction important to Callisto Protocol? Quite simple; by my own definition, a Spiritual Successor is an attempt to capture the spirit and feeling of an influential game of yore, whilst a Direct Successor is a step up and forwards and whilst this type of game might not perhaps by continuing the same story, it stillbuilds upon an expanding game concept and builds itself off that concept. By that expectation I expected Callisto Protocol to be a Direct Successor to the Dead Space franchise, and may have to instead settle for a temperamental spiritual successor.
It is the trap that can easily be fallen into as a fan, loving what came before and not really wanting to see anything that veers to much from that beloved and sacred vision in your mind. Whereas in the mind of the creator, the last thing you want to do is get stuck recreating the same game you did ten years ago; you want to challenge your abilities and creativity to bring something new to the table. Callisto Protocol doesn't really go for the same sort of gameplay style that Dead Space did, swapping a tense shooter survival game where keeping the horrific monsters as gun's reach was the goal; with an in-your-face melee focused horror game where the player is forever one slipped dodge away from getting mauled by a monstrosity. That's not really the game I was hoping for, even if many of the elements around the game are reminiscent of the horror game I once lauded. (Integrated HUD, heavy gore-focus, body horror enemy design etc.) Which is why I think it's so very important, when harkening to a specific fanbase with a successor title, to lay the groundworks and draw the boundaries of exactly what sort of game to expect and what not to expect.
Another such game which famously refused to lay these sorts of boundries was 'Back 4 Blood', a game which flooded it's marketing declaring how it was created by 'the team who made Left 4 Dead' and painting the picture of the threequel people had waited over a decade for. A direct successor which turned out of be a lie. Not only was the team who worked on Back 4 Blood only a small fraction of the same faces involved with Left 4 Dead, the follow-up game lacked the resources to even match the level of intricate detail that made the Left 4 Dead games so special; which is why the team knowingly tried to focus their efforts in other areas to make the game systematically different to Left 4 Dead, knowing that they couldn't compete in a one-to-one comparison. A galling switch-up considering the game relied on the 'Left 4 Dead' connection so much that they game literally borrows that franchises' naming convention for it's title.
Midnight Suns, however, is an example of a 'Direct Successor' to the Xcom franchise, even if it does take it's gameplay cues in a decidedly different direction to the game's it learnt from. Midnight Suns replaces the tactical placement of hit probabilities with a card-based 'powers' system which allows for a very different gameplay balance that still harkens to the tactical heart beating in the same development studio. It builds upon the frameworks and foundations that Xcom built, but is trying to evoke a wholly different sensation in the players where they aren't the underdogs constantly scrambling to get off the backfoot against the hoards of enemies stalking them, but are instead heroes that dominate the battlefield with flashy abilities that make the player feel powerful and audacious.
Sonic Frontiers is actually another example of a 'Direct successor' in my opinion, because even though it sort of follows the same narrative of the franchise the only connective tissue is really the main character and the vague idea that 'Speed' is the main gimmick. Frontiers stands on the shoulders of Sonic Teams many many 3D failures to learn from every they did wrong and deliver something that feels like the Sonic we know and love but is actually a real game with a reason to exist. That may seem like small praise, but remember that the last Sonic Team game was Forces; a game that literally plays itself most of the time because the team had literally no idea what they were trying to make and ended up making nothing at all. In many ways, Frontiers is a successor to the '3D generation' of Sonic games into, what we might start calling, the 'Open generation' of Sonic. (If we're being optimistic.)
None of this is to knock the idea of spiritual successors, mind you. Callisto Protocol is said to be a decently fun game provided you play it on PS5 because the team just sort of gave up on optimising it elsewhere before their deadline. (Would delaying the PC version until you got it into working order really have been the end of the world?) And making a product that evokes the same emotion but goes in a different direction is not inherently bad. Some people really enjoy the unique style of repetitive play that Back 4 Blood's card system has to offer Left 4 Dead's comparatively linear presentation, and I already know that once the dust settles around it's rough launch there are going to be Callisto fans that think the more perilous 'in your face' action of Callisto has it's own special shine. I just wish that the marketing was more transparent about selling the inherently different type of experience, instead of complicit in the lie of 'more of the same.'
Dead Space was a horror game, at it's utmost core. Not only in the fact that it dealt with horrific monsters, but in the way it dealt with psychological elements and bone-chilling atmosphere. Ghosts of the lost are haunting you from the first scene, and the concept of The Marker allows for some vaguely cosmic-horror elements to wrap itself around the narrative as things start to get really crazy in the later half of the game. Callisto Protocol, from what I can tell, focuses more on being a suspenseful thriller, reinforced by that aforementioned combat system which forces you to get up close and familiar with the monsters of the game. It's hard to remain scared of a monster you've beaten to death with a baton, and there's no real added layer of fear when one manages to sneak up close to you before you know it, because you're fighting those buggers face-to-face throughout the whole game anyway!
I understand the desire to want to rely on what you've already spent years building and successfully establishing, but we've seen multiple times now how that can create a misleading precedent that scuppers the all-important initial reception. I was bought into the promise of Callisto Protocol solely due to the name lead designing it and not once was it ever even suggested that Callisto might be going it's own way and trying something significantly different. Is that my own fault for not figuring the obvious? Partially. But no one on their Marketing team was interested in disabusing the public of that perception when it was an assumption that could be profited off of. And where has that left Callisto? Squatting in overly-large shoes whilst the infinitely more funded and more staffed team over at EA Motive are moving to reclaim the Dead Space throne with a literal Remake. The moral of the story? Just be honest, ya'll. Damn...
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