Exploring The Depths of Fear in The Callisto Protocol
Delving through this punishing penitentiary is not for the faint-hearted.
Studio: Striking Distance Studios
Release Date: December 2022
Platforms: Xbox Series X I S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, PC
Genre: Survival Horror
Developing Scares
Striking Distance Studios’ The Callisto Protocol follows Jacob Lee – a victim of fate thrown into Black Iron Prison, a maximum-security penitentiary located on Jupiter's moon, Callisto. When inmates begin to transform into monstrous creatures, the prison is thrown into chaos. To survive, Jacob must battle his way to safety to escape the horrors of Jupiter's Dead Moon, while uncovering the dark and disturbing secrets buried beneath the surface of Callisto.
Striking Distance Studios used Speech Graphics’ SGX software to add relatable and accurate facial expressions to their photo-realistic human characters, in order to deliver a truly terrorizing experience for gamers.
Reflecting on the project, Emily Peterson (Technical Artist, Speech Graphics) explains how casting well-known film & tv actors as videogame characters influences development:
“It's always cool when we collaborate on a project that uses popular actors as it means we can use footage of their previous work as likeness reference for the muscle setup of the character. For example, if they always lift one side of their mouth slightly higher when smiling, we incorporate that into the setup.”
In this instance, the team was able to refer to Josh Duhamel’s previous work, (in particular the Transformers franchise), to bring even greater nuance to protagonist Jacob Lee’s face in the game. The same is true for Dani Nakamura, played by Karen Fukuhara (The Boys, Suicide Squad).
Jacob Lee, played by Josh Duhamel, in “The Callisto Protocol”
Emily Peterson, Technical Artist at Speech Graphics
Jon Robins, Lead Character Technical Artist at Striking Distance Studios, shared their experience of using Speech Graphics in their facial animation pipelines.
“The tools and quality provided by Speech Graphics allowed us to be very agile while developing The Callisto Protocol. As we edited the script and recorded lines we were able to quickly process large amounts of data and stand things up in-game to make decisions quicker with less overhead.”
“The quality of the output has been fantastic and has helped us breathe life into our characters throughout our game.”
Award-Winning Atmosphere
As well as it’s unsettling story, The Callisto Protocol has been lauded for its visual and audio performance, most notably:
Winner of Outstanding Use of Sound, New IP at 2023 NAVGTR Awards
3x Platinum Winner at 2023 MUSE Awards
5x Nominated at 2023 Game Audio Network Guild Awards: Audio of the Year, Best Game Foley, Best Game Trailer Audio, Best New Original IP Audio, Sound Design of the Year
Nominated at 2023 VES Awards: Outstanding Animated Character in an Episode, Commercial or Real-time Project
Check out the trailer for The Callisto Protocol below:
Trailer for ‘The Callisto Protocol’ by Striking Distance
