The Callisto Protocol always seemed like an ambitious project, especially from a brand-new developer crafting an entirely new IP. When the game finally shipped in late 2022, the end product perhaps fell a little short of that ambition - but a new chat with the game's lead dev has explained the situation in a bit more detail.
Glen Schofield, The Callisto Protocol's director, recently talked about the game's development (thanks, PCGamesN) - and it sounds like things didn't go that smoothly working with publisher Krafton. Key content was cut from the game — including four bosses and two different enemy types — and generally speaking it sounds like the team was in crunch mode during 2022.
"In October or September ‘21, I was told ‘You’re going to get the time. Put whatever you want into the game.’ So I spent that Christmas holiday just designing and coming up with ideas with some of the guys. And then January comes around and some of the [Krafton] folks come over and they just said ‘no no no. It’s December 2022."
Schofield also said that, whilst the first few years of development went quite well, going public with the game put a strain on the teams involved in making The Callisto Protocol.
"I really liked working with them for the first couple of years. It was really the last year or so. We went public and it put an awful strain on the company, on the board of directors, and everyone else. And then they [Krafton] put the strain on us probably."
In the end, The Callisto Protocol arrived at the tail end of 2022 to decent reviews - but nothing quite like the game's main inspiration; Dead Space. We largely agreed with the community's mixed feelings on TCP, saying that the game felt "uneven" in our full review.