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There's something about a survival horror game that's supposed to make your palms sweat and your pulse race, right? You expect to feel like you're barely scraping by, adrenaline coursing through your veins as you limp toward your next objective. 'The Callisto Protocol' tries hard to deliver on that promise. It places you in the blood-streaked boots of Jacob Lee, a man whose only goal is to escape the hellish prison of Black Iron on Jupiter's moon, Callisto. But here's the thing: for all its spine-chilling aesthetics and brutal combat, this game isn't quite the nightmare fuel I wanted it to be.
Instead, it's more like a beautifully made haunted house where the scares never quite land, but the lights and set design keep you walking through anyway.
If there's one thing The Callisto Protocol nails, it's the vibe. Every corner of Black Iron Prison feels suffocatingly oppressive. The air hangs heavy with tension, and the distant hum of malfunctioning machinery makes it clear you're trapped somewhere that's long past redemption. The snowy expanses outside are just as grim. Callisto itself seems to exhale an icy breath, with wind whipping around you as snow piles on dilapidated structures. The lighting deserves special mention—whether it's flickering fluorescents in a dark hallway or the faint glow of bioluminescent spores in an alien-infested tunnel, every scene feels meticulously crafted.
But for all its craftsmanship, I never truly felt afraid. Unsettled? Sure. Occasionally tense? Yeah. But scared? Not even once. And for a survival horror game, that's kind of a problem. Fear is the beating heart of this genre, and The Callisto Protocol's atmosphere, while gorgeous, feels more like a heavy blanket than a shocking jolt to the system.
Now, let's talk about the combat—the meat and bones (sometimes literally) of the gameplay. Right off the bat, melee combat takes center stage here, which is unusual. Normally, melee is a last resort in survival horror, but The Callisto Protocol flips the script. You're constantly dodging and countering, feeling every swing and impact like you're actually there. And I'll admit, those first few encounters feel raw and visceral in a way that's hard to shake.
But then it starts to drag. The dodge mechanic, while intuitive at first, becomes predictable, almost mechanical. Most enemies telegraph their moves so obviously that fights turn into a rinse-and-repeat cycle of "step left, swing pipe, repeat." And don't get me started on the GRP, the telekinesis glove that's supposed to add depth to combat. Sure, it's fun at first to hurl enemies into strategically placed spike walls or industrial fans, but after the 20th time, it starts to feel like the game's designers just couldn't think of more interesting ways for me to use it.
Resources are scarce, and every encounter feels like a gamble. Do you spend your last few bullets now or save them for a bigger threat later?
Jacob's journey through Callisto isn't exactly a narrative masterpiece, but it gets the job done. The basic setup—a prison outbreak leads to horrifying mutations—is nothing new, but it's the grim atmosphere that keeps you invested. As Jacob, you're constantly scavenging for scraps of information about what caused the outbreak and why. Jacob himself is a pretty blank slate, and while the supporting cast tries to inject some emotion into the story, their arcs feel more like set dressing than meaningful threads. And honestly? Sometimes that's enough.
The Callisto Protocol doesn't shy away from violence. It's the kind of gore that makes you wince the first few times but eventually feels more like a gimmick than a genuine shock factor. Personally, I found it less horrifying and more gross, where I would have certainly preferred the other way around. While this observation is probably a matter of test that should not stop those who buy PS5 horror games, I believe that it doesn't really add to the atmosphere, and I couldn't help but feel like it was trying too hard to impress me with its blood-soaked brutality.
Debatable. I prefer survival games more like Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, and horror games more like Resident Evil 4. The Callisto Protocol is not for everyone. Its visuals and atmosphere are top-notch, creating a world that's as stunning as it is oppressive. But the gameplay—especially the combat—starts to feel like a chore after a while. And without genuine scares to keep the tension high, the whole experience feels a bit hollow. Just don't expect to be looking over your shoulder when you turn the game off. Because for all its effort, The Callisto Protocol feels more like a chilling stroll than a heart-pounding sprint through the dark.
Climbing has always been a fundamental pillar for communicating verticality and freedom of movement in video games. Still, it was only a couple of years ago that it began to take center stage in this medium.
The connection between climbing and playing games goes to the very essence of the sport. In 2009, climber Kelly Cordes wrote about The Fun Scale, a concept that he heard in 2001 from another climber. The scale separates the fun you have with certain activities into three types: Type I fun, which is pure, immediate fun, or, in his words, "enjoyable while it's happening." Type II fun is "fun only in retrospect, hateful while it's happening" (every Dark Souls fan knows this type of fun). Type III fun is horrible in the moment, and it isn't even fun in retrospect, but it might give you a sense of achievement.
The Fun Scale has become a fundamental concept in game design, and almost every game attempts to balance the three types to achieve a satisfying flow between difficulty and reward, tension and release.
In previous generations of consoles, climbing meant finding weak spots in giant enemies in Shadows of the Colossus, hiding places in Assassin's Creed, or secret tombs in Tomb Raider.
Everything changed with the arrival of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the Nintendo Switch in 2017, where the protagonist Link could try to climb any surface in the game world. The result was impressively effective; the feeling of freedom and accomplishment once you reached the top of a mountain was unmatched. It also added an extra degree of danger to the protagonist's adventure. If Link ran out of stamina during his climb, he would let go of the wall and fall into the void, usually resulting in his death.
However, climbing remained a means to an end, a transitional action on the way to the place where the adventure resumes. Besides planning your route, climbing in Breath of the Wild, as in most video games, consisted of mindlessly pushing the joystick forward, erasing all the complexities and challenges that the real-life sport offers.
In the ensuing years, a series of events would raise the public's interest in the sport in ways never seen before.
In 2018, the documentary Free Solo, directed by Elizabeth Chai and Jimmy Chin, was released. The story of climber (and absolute madman) Alex Honnold's quest to climb El Capitán without any protective equipment, such as a harness or ropes, had us all on the edge of our seats for its entire 96-minute run. The film received numerous awards, including Best Documentary Feature at the following year's Oscars.
The inclusion of the sport in the 2020 Summer Olympics also helped bring the unorthodox sport into the mainstream, with more than 30 climbing gyms opening per year in the US and a 58% increase in visits to climbing gyms in the UK since 2019.
Since Breath of the Wild, there has been an interest in video games with more realistic climbing mechanics, perhaps responding to the desire of climbers to see the challenges they encounter on the wall reflected in the games they play. Games such as PEAK, born from the collaboration between indie studios Aggro Crab and Landfall, which has sold over 10 million units to date, or White Knuckle, which combines the need to climb with the need to escape from a monster chasing you from below, have dominated conversations in the gaming world in recent months.
I decided to reach out to the developers of some of the upcoming climbing video games to try to understand the effort to create a game that simulates, or is inspired by, this particular sport.
New Heights, by Wikkl, took on the challenge in 2023 of portraying the mechanics of climbing a real wall as realistically as possible. I spoke via Zoom with the studio's co-founder, Guido Boogaard, to ask him about his vision for this new trend and whether it is possible to translate a sport into code.
Where did the interest in making a realistic climbing video game come from?
Can you guess?
I guess you climb.
[Laughs] Yes, I climb. But seriously, it started as just a sketch, because there was nothing before. Now there are more [games about climbing], but in the past, all the climbing was automatic. If you think Breath of the Wild, it's quite enjoyable, but it's all automatic.
Which is a shame, because climbing itself is a puzzle game. I mean, climbing in real life is a puzzle game; it's a very video game-like sport. I do other sports, and climbing is one of the most similar to a video game.
So I thought, why hasn't this puzzle been translated into a computer game? And then there's the audience issue. Climbers are generally millennials and young people, so they are more likely to play video games.
But then I realized that making a game is incredibly difficult; I'm literally still working on the climbing system.
Thinking about what you said about the audience, why do you think climbing has become so popular in that sector?
There's the puzzle aspect, but I also think it's popular because you can do it with your friends, and it's not... Well, it is competitive, but in a different way.
It's also not a team sport, like soccer or hockey, where you have to be much more committed. And maybe people are more interested in nature than before, because of all the electronic, almost dystopian, stupidity we're getting into. So maybe it helps with that. It helps me, at least.
I like being in nature, which completely contradicts the fact that I'm making a climbing video game. But I want to translate this interest into my other interest, which is computer games.
Looking at the game, it's very easy to imagine myself doing all the different movements, applying all the different pressures. How did you manage to translate the feeling of climbing in real life into a video game?
It's very complicated. First, in real life, you have a lot of control. Just standing up and walking is incredibly difficult for a human, which is why children learn it when they are already one year old. So [in the game] we have to make it a little easier than in real life.
So the character will do their best to get into the position you want them to be in. That's the first thing. The second thing is to calculate whether you can actually do that, whether you are in a position that allows for this movement. So if you're above a hold, you can push; if you're below one, you can pull. It's pure vector math. An incredible amount of vector math.
We calculate everything we can, and it's going to look a little rough at times, because if you look at climbing in real life, it's a little rough.
Cairn, from The Game Bakers, was one of the most anticipated video games of 2025, before it got delayed to January 2026. It combines realistic climbing simulation, survival elements, and an intimate narrative. Its Marketing Manager, Lauranne Caudaro, and the game's Creative Director, Emeric Thoa, kindly wrote to me in response to a few questions I asked them.
What were the inspirations for combining climbing with survival?
Cairn is the last entry in what we call our freedom trilogy. In Furi, you fight to "live free," and in Haven, you fight to be "free to love whoever you want."
This latest entry concludes the trilogy with a powerful theme: overcoming your limits and achieving total freedom. That's what alpinism is in real life, too. Why do people climb mountains? What makes them feel the need to risk their lives to reach the summit?
It's always been fascinating to me, and it makes a great video game pitch in my opinion. It's simple, but extremely concrete. You're at the bottom, and you see the goal.
The survival mechanics work along with the realistic climbing simulation to immerse you into the ascent. You need resources for the ascent (climbing gear, but also food and water). But it’s not a 100% “collect and craft” survival game; survival supports the main mechanics, which are climbing and planning your route.
The game has a mix of stylized graphics and realistic mechanics. What was the process for deciding the game's level of realism?
Stylized art directions are a part of our studio’s DNA. It helps our games stand out from other games, but it also means the graphic style never gets old. That’s why we asked comic book artist Mathieu Bablet to join the team and work on Cairn.
The stylized art direction drives home the fact that Cairn is a realistic simulation, set in a fantasy world. It reinforces the idea that Cairn (like all our games) is a journey into a different world.
I was wondering if anyone on your team does outdoor or indoor bouldering, or if the realism of the climbing is achieved only by studying.
The whole team has tried climbing. We went to a workshop in Chamonix, in the French Alps. There, we did rock climbing on the cliffs, learned climbing techniques, talked to mountain guides, and to Elizabeth Revol, who’s an alpinist who did several 8000m climbs. We also hiked, all the way up to 3840m high at Aiguille du Midi, face to face with the summit of Mont Blanc. It was a lot of fun and a lot of learning to apply in the game (and a good deal of sore muscles too!)
Do you think that the proliferation of climbing games is happening naturally? Or is it following a trend (IRL or in video games)?
Climbing is definitely trending, and going back to what Emeric was saying, climbing gives you a very clear goal; you see a summit, and you have to reach it. I think this translates extremely well in terms of gameplay, and games like Peak, Celeste, or Bread and Fred are great examples! But it’s still a very fresh idea, there’s not that many games really focusing on climbing, and definitely none that do it like Cairn, with a focus on realistic climbing and climbing at the core of the experience!
Another reason behind the success of these types of games is "kinaesthetic design." This game design technique allows developers to make the player mimic the actions of the characters on-screen, resulting in more immersion. It's not rare to finish an ascent in PEAK with sore hands, tired from holding the controller triggers in order not to fall, just like a climber has to hold a grip on the mountain wall.
However, if the past years in the video game industry have taught us anything, it's that there's always room for reinvention and innovation. This emerging genre of climbing video games is far from having exhausted all its potential.
Developers seem to have found an activity that perfectly suits the sensibilities of a considerable niche of players, mixing challenge with personal rewards that go hand-in-hand with self-improvement beyond simply leveling up.
Blackroot: Medieval Survival is a brutal single-player survival game where players navigate a medieval world ravaged by a mysterious plague that’s turned the dead into relentless threats while knights hunt down survivors.
In Blackroot you awaken in a fallen kingdom where villages lie in ruins and forests whisper with danger. You’ll gather scarce resources, craft medieval weapons and tools, and build shelters while managing hunger, … Read More
The post Blackroot: Medieval Survival – Beta Sign Up first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.
No Man's Sky founder says "jokes on them" in response to Once Human allegedly stealing assets. Here are more details.
The post No Man’s Sky Dev Responds to Once Human Reportedly Stealing Assets appeared first on Insider Gaming.
I won’t blame you if you look at the title of this game and wonder what I’m going to talk about today. Don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about that sort of adult game and I hope that the SEO won’t bring in that kind of traffic either. Today we are going to talk about a game named “G String” developed Eyaura. This game started life as a Half Life 2 mod just like another game “The Stanley Parable” I took a look at in the past. Now, the Stanley Parable is an amazing game in terms of story telling in games so I have high expectations for this game. Is this standalone game going to live up to it’s expectations or is this game going to fail and disappear in SEO-hell with it’s name? Let’s take an 100% honest look at this game with the developer provided press code I got for this game and let’s talk about my opinion. Meanwhile, I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.
Editornal note: The latest patch for this game has been released on December 23th.
Personal Robots Got Too Real
This game is a passion project of the developer Eyaura who worked on this game for the past 13 years. According to the press kit, this game is 10-ish hours long and is a single player Cyberpunk FPS game that aims to envoke the feel of old science fiction films from the ’70 – ’90.
In this game, you take on the role of a young Korean girl named Myo Hyori. After a sudden earthquake, she is able to escape in her standard issue biosuit into the dystopian world. During your exploration, you learn more and more about your missing parents, what happened to the world and the personal robots and much more.
Due to the nationality of the character, I think this game takes place in Korea. The reason I mention this is because there is voice acting in this game. Dialogue between characters is in English but the suit talks to Myo in another language. I’m not 100% sure but I think it’s in Japanese but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in Korean since the main character is Korean.
The voice acting is decent and adds a lot to the world building, tension and atmosphere of the game. But, on several occasions, the suit and a character were talking at the same time which made it a bit annoying to follow the voice acting. Thankfully, there are subtitles, so I was able to read what was being said.
During this adventure, you go through various locations. You also fight various enemies like soldiers and personal robots. You also meet various other characters that all play a vital part in the story. On the store page for this game, there is a beefy “Quick Reference” guide that contains quite a lot of lore and story details. Don’t read that if you want to go in the game blind. Yet, if you enjoyed this game, I would highly advise you to read through this manual and download it to add it to the collection.
Because I haven’t finished the game, I’m not going to talk too in depth about my opinions on the story. But, so far I have been enjoying the story. While I find it a bit cheesy at certain points, it’s still a good enough story to play through the game.
Let’s survive this world
So, due to a catastrophic event nicknamed the “Friday Floods”, the world got quite dangerous to life in. So, you need to be careful while exploring in this game that you survive the dangerous surface world.
While playing this game, I didn’t really know under which style to categorize this game. On one hand, I would call this an action packed survival horror and on the other hand, I would call this a story driven FPS. In the end, I would say it’s more an adventure game with heavy influences of the FPS genre. The best game to compare it too is Half Life in a matter of fact. In that game you also have moments of puzzle solving and moments of action.
During my playthrough, it was quite clear to me that a lot of love has been put into this game. But, it pains me to say that there are some things that are a bit rough around the edges. A first example is the controls. The controls are great and responsive and are quite quick to learn. But, sometimes they act quite strangely. I especially had problems getting up when I got out of a vent. Sometimes, I was unable to move and I had to jump to get into the right position. Also, ascending and descending on ladders is too fast in my opinion.
A second example of this game being a bit rough is that there is some cheap enemy placement. Especially those exploding floating balls. Some of them come in the most inconvenient moments when the game is quite tense or you are trying to avoid a sniper shooting at you. Speaking about these snipers, I have seen in a gameplay video that you are able to take them out. I was unaware of that because they barely give any feedback when you hit them. I wonder if I could destroy these turrets, but I highly doubt that since they don’t seem to get damaged when I unload a complete magazine on them.
So, a great advice from me is to quick save often. Especially after an encounter, since you never know when something happens and you need to load a save. Now, this brings me right to the difficulty of this game as a third example of this game being a bit rough. I started two playthroughs in this game. One on the medium difficult and one of the easy difficulty. Maybe it’s just my playstyle but I barely felt any difference between the two difficulties. Those flying orbs still gave me as much trouble on easy compared to normal. I think that if those flying orbs weren’t an instant kill, it would be a lot better.
Let’s talk about combat. You have two types of enemies. The robots and the soldiers. Only the turret and the soldiers don’t use melee attacks. All the other enemies use melee attacks. You can play this game without firing one bullet to an enemy since you have a fireball attack. Now, to be quite honest, I rarely used this attack since I found it a tad bit tricky to use and I always ran into my stray fireballs and got damage.
Most of the enemies are quite beefy and require more than one bullet to take out. Rarely I was able to kill an enemy in one shot. Apart from when I got lucky and found some explosive barrels around and use my telekenis powers to throw it at my enemies. The combat is quite enjoyable and if you are a veteran in the shooter genre, I think you will feel right at home here.
Destruction Of The World
I don’t really recommend that you play this game with the default visual settings. I highly advise you to play around with the visual settings since otherwise you will have some issues like textures looking a bit rough or the lighting being too harsh.
It would be a shame since the visual presentation in this game is well done. Of course, you will see some area’s where it gets a bit rough or where it feels like you are playing a game from 2010 instead of 2021, but in my opinion, as long as the presentation of the game sets the right mood without having too much visual glitches or clashing art styles, I think it shouldn’t matter if the game looks like you need the latest graphics card or your old laptop from when you were younger.
Occasionally I had some moments where I felt that the visuals felt a bit more rushed or unpolished like the rest of the game. But, I didn’t focus on these moments since the charm of the world kept pulling me in and I didn’t stop enjoying this game at all.
In terms of animations, I was quite impressed. It’s a shame that sometimes small objects like planks do glitch out a bit but that’s more a problem with the engine then the animations. The only thing I feel that would improve in terms of the animations is a bit more visual flair when you are using your telekenic powers.
At first, I felt that the soundtrack of this game was totally disconnected from the game. I felt that it didn’t match at all. But, when I gave it some thought, I started to understand what the developer was going for. The soundtrack really fits the world before it was destroyed. Now, there are a lot of silent moments in this game that helps with the tense atmosphere but when the music kicks in, you get the feeling that you are destroying the world which gives an even more creepy vibe.
Let’s go from talking about the soundtrack to talking about the sound effects. The guns feel great to fire and they sound amazing as well. The only thing I would add to the game is a bit more grunts to the enemies since it was a bit jarring sometimes when I entered a room with a lot of enemies that after their first shot started with their grunts.
In terms of visuals and audio, this game does a lot right but it needs some polishing in some area’s to get the game to the next level. It would improve the game so much if there was a bit more visual polish and if the sound effects gave a bit more hints to the player on how to solve a puzzle or when there are enemies nearby.
Now, in terms of the visuals, I would like to mention one thing. I think the option & FX UI is somewhat broken. Sometimes I didn’t display the background, sometimes it didn’t even pop-up and sometimes it was a combination of the two. But, I think this something that can be fixed in an update.
In conclusion, I think that this game is a prefect example of a diamond in the rough. All the elements for this game being amazing are there. But, the rough area’s hold the game back. Thankfully, most of the issues have to do with the lack of polish in some area’s. The issues aren’t game breaking and shouldn’t hinder the enjoyment of the game. Well, unless you feel that jank in games is something you don’t want of course.
Would I recommend this game? Oh yes, I would recommend this game to everybody who enjoys more story based FPS games like Half Life or Alan Wake. This game is quite enjoyable and for the low price of 14€, I think you get more than your money’s worth out of this game. While the game is a bit rough in some area’s at the moment of writing but the future patches will improve the game quite a lot.
With that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in a future article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.
