THE CALLISTO PROTOCOL - FINAL TRANSMISSION DLC Review: A Fitting End For An Underrated Title

Striking Distance Studios and KRAFTON released The Callisto Protocol last winter to some heavily mixed reviews. Many gaming critics mentioned that the game was buggy and had poor performance on PC, with some minor dips in frames on console. This negative reception seemed to overshadow the positives of this game which was truly an underrated title. The Callisto Protocol is not the most unique and creative action-horror game, but it is a great one.

Striking Distance has released the final DLC for this AAA title, fittingly called Final Transmission. This DLC aims to wrap up the cliffhanger ending of the campaign and take players on one more mission as Jacob Lee.

Story

I will give a brief description of the plot without giving away spoilers for either the main campaign or the DLC. Jacob awakes in the Black Iron Prison, unsure as to what is going on since the ending of the main campaign. He begins searching for an escape route, only to find himself entangled in one last job by helping Dr. Mahler find and transmit her research off-world. This will ensure mankind's survival and give fairwarning of the blasphemy that took place on Jupiter’s moon.

I thoroughly enjoyed this final wrap up of the story. Although I was not satisfied with the main campaign’s ending, this DLC storyline feels like the appropriate ending to the twisted sci-fi horror story that I truly appreciated.

Gameplay

The DLC brings players more biophage to fight and new areas to explore. One of the newest enemies you will encounter in the DLC are the Biobots. Security robot units have been spliced with the biophage and mutated into a deadly enemy. These enemies may seem tough at first but the game eventually shows you how to quickly handle them with the new weapon, the kinetic hammer. The hammer is the coolest addition to the DLC, aside from the ending, that I enjoyed the most. The kinetic hammer allows you to take down hordes of biophage with a charged attack or deal immense damage with single bludgeoning strikes. This weapon essentially replaces the need for a stun baton, which I disliked since the beginning of the campaign. I never was a huge fan of the stun baton in the main game so seeing a much better melee weapon was a treat for me.

The Callisto Protocol gameplay “recipe” is all here in the DLC. Move from room to room, fight waves of biophage, encounter a new enemy, stealth sections are encouraged, and lead up to a final boss. All of this will feel familiar because there isn’t anything new to the formula here. However, Final Transmission shines in its story and how it delivers it. Players will notice things aren’t going the way they should and the game plays on environmental storytelling, which I really enjoyed.

What It Could Have Done Better

Once you run through the DLC, there isn’t much worth treading back for. The game’s new enemies and weapons can only be accessed in the Final Transmission DLC and will not be accessible in any other mode. This was a huge letdown for me. I am a huge fan of the kinetic hammer and would love to go through the main campaign again with the ability to whack some biophage with my new toy. Unfortunately this is a big missed opportunity from the developers that I hope gets patched in a future update. Although, that does seem unlikely due to the game’s underwhelming reception. Sadly, this is likely the last we will see of The Callisto Protocol.

Verdict

The Callisto Protocol - Final Transmission DLC provides a fitting ending to the epic title and offers some new content for fans to enjoy. Well done Striking Distance, I truly believe The Callisto Protocol will be looked at under a different light in the near future and will gather more fans, much like Sony’s Days Gone that caught a lot of flak when it launched but eventually won over the hearts of many. The Callisto Protocol now feels like a complete package with all of its updated post launch content and I think it will eventually be viewed as one of the most underrated sci-fi horror titles in recent memory.

The Callisto Protocol and all of it’s DLC are available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC via Steam and EGS.