The Callisto Protocol

The Callisto Protocol

Developers
	Striking Distance Studios
Publishers
	Krafton
Engines
	Unreal Engine 4
Release dates
Windows	December 2, 2022
Reception
Metacritic	72
OpenCritic	70
IGDB	74
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase, DLC
Microtransactions	Cosmetic
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Survival
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Horror

The Callisto Protocol is a singleplayer third-person survival game.

The game was released on December 2, 2022. At launch the game was suffering from major performance and shader compilation stutter problems.

A patch released on January 19, 2023, which added New Game Plus (originally promised to arrive alongside a Hardcore game mode on February 7, 2023), general performance improvements and other changes. The December 2 and 7, 2022 patches fixed shader compilation related stutters, that were present at launch, by performing shader precompilation while at the main menu. The February 7, 2023 added the previously promised Hardcore mode, while improving performance of ray-traced effects and improving the experience on Steam Deck. As of the latest patch, the game unfortunately still has many asset-loading related stutters hindering the overall experience.

General information

Official Discord server

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Epic Games Store		Digital Deluxe Edition also available. DRM-free when launched using the -EpicPortal command line argument. (Base game only; DLC will not work DRM-free.)
Humble Store		Digital Deluxe Edition also available.
Steam		Digital Deluxe Edition also available.

Denuvo Anti-Tamper DRM was removed on March 26, 2024.

Version differences

Digital Deluxe Edition includes the base game, Season Pass and Retro Prisoner character and weapons skin

Day One Edition was for people who pre-purchased the game, including the base game and Retro Prisoner character and weapons skin.

Monetization

Type	Notes
DLC	Season Pass with content regarding story, skins, new death animations and new mode.
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Pre-purchase incentive	Retro Prisoner character and weapons skin.
Season Pass	Includes Outer Way Skin Collection, Contagion Bundle (March 2023, Contains new Contagion mode: reduced ammo and health drops, a customized difficulty and permadeath), Riot Bundle (Spring 2023, Black Iron Prison area, twelve new enemy death animations and Engineer Skin Collection) and story content (Summer 2023.)
The Outer Way Skin Collection	This collection includes Outer Way themed player and weapons skins.
Contagion Bundle
Riot Bundle
Final Transmission	Story DLC.

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Rename/move/delete logo files[citation needed]
Go to <path-to-game>\TheCallistoProtocol\Content\Movies\. Rename/move/delete the following files: AMD_Logo_4K.bk2 Bink_Krafton_SDS_Logos.bk2 Bink_Krafton_SDS_Logos.uasset Intro_logo_Krafton_SDS.bk2 Krafton_SDS_logos_4k.bk2 Unreal_InstaLOD_logos.bk2 Unreal_Logo_4K.bk2 Wwise_InstaLOD_Logos_4K.bk2

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\CallistoProtocol\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1544020/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\CallistoProtocol\Saved\SaveGames
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1544020/pfx/

At least 99 manual save slots available. Manual saves permanently save the most recent checkpoint.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Epic Games Launcher
Steam Cloud		Saves and some settings.

Video

Only Display graphical settings can be changed while in-game, other graphical settings can only be changed while at the main menu.

Supports benchmarking option in the Graphics menu. This benchmarking option is hidden on Steam Deck only since the February 7, 2023 update.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		75°. Use The Callisto Protocol FOV fix.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Texture filter quality option available: Low, Medium or High.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Disabled, FXAA and TAA Using any different anti-aliasing option than TAA will disable screen space reflections, physical refractions and ray tracing.
High-fidelity upscaling		FSR 2.1, TAAU DLSS SR cannot be injected
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)		DX12-only and requires HDR to be enabled through Windows first. Otherwise option will be greyed out.
Ray tracing (RT)		Ray-traced "transmission" (on/off toggle, enhances lighting of fleshy surfaces), shadows (on/off toggle) and reflections (disabled, medium or high). DX12-only.
Color blind mode		High contrast mode available to separately color player, enemies and pickups.

The game engine may allow for manual configuration of the game via its variables. See the Unreal Engine 4 page for more details.

Disable vignette and chromatic aberration

Use Helix Mod DirectX 11 only

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		↵ Enter and Delete cannot be bound to commands. Some keys for menu navigation cannot be rebound.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity		Separate Aim and Look sensitivity sliders and smoothing options available available.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion		Option also available to invert x-axis.
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping		Only choice to pick between Right hand and Left hand controller mapping.
Controller sensitivity		Separate Aim and Look sensitivity sliders available.
Controller Y-axis inversion		Option also available to invert x-axis.

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration

PlayStation controllers		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		SFX, Music and Dialogue toggles and volume sliders available.
Surround sound
Subtitles		Font size, Font color, Speaker name (and color), Background (opacity and color) and Dyslexic font options available.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian				Fan voice-over by «Mechanics VoiceOver», download
Spanish
Latin American Spanish
Ukrainian				Fan translation, download.

Issues unresolved

Performance is very limited

Due to the game's CPU utilization being very single-thread limited, the CPU is underutilized (only 2 cores are really utilized) and subsequently performance is severely impaired. The game is even more CPU-limited when running under DirectX 11, resulting in even worse general performance than when using the default DirectX 12. The developers of the game have acknowledged this problem and are working on alleviating these performance issues through several upcoming patches.

Stutters while traversing in the game

The game can stutter when moving around in the environment of the game. This is independent from settings or hardware, and is not shader compilation-related as shaders are pre-compiled for this game since the December 7, 2022 patch. It is likely related to loading.

Game will not launch due to VR hook

If VR hardware is used, you may be unable to launch the game without its requisite software running.

Workaround: delete VR hook files
Delete <path-to-game>\Engine\Binaries\ThirdParty\OpenXR\win64\openxr_loader.dll.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	11, 12	Can switch DirectX version in General Graphics menu, requires restart.

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	PhysX
Audio	Wwise

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10, 11
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i5-8400 AMD Ryzen 5 2600	Intel Core i7-8700 AMD Ryzen 5 3600
System memory (RAM)	8 GB	16 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	75 GB	75 GB (SSD)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 AMD Radeon RX 580 DirectX 11 compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 AMD Radeon RX 5700 DirectX 12 compatible

A 64-bit operating system is required.