General Gaming The Callisto Protocol - Information Thread, update: Glen Schofield (CEO), CFO, and COO all "voluntarily" depart from Striking Distance Studios

[Brick]

I wonder how many reviews have lower scores because of the bad initial performance, and how few of them will go back and adjust their scores with the game running better. Not too many of them will I think, and that initial kind of bad critical reception can really kill a game's sales quickly. 

[Xbob42]

26 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

I forgot about the performance issues with no dlss. I wonder now if a 4090 can just brute force it to locked 60 though.

The FSR works alright. It's definitely not DLSS but it'll keep you in the 80s-110s most of the time even on a 3080.

 

The raytracing is what really causes some dips, though even that has been tamed somewhat by FSR actually working now. Still, would love to see DLSS, would be WAY better.

 

25 minutes ago, Brick said:

I wonder how many reviews have lower scores because of the bad initial performance, and how few of them will go back and adjust their scores with the game running better. Not too many of them will I think, and that initial kind of bad critical reception can really kill a game's sales quickly. 

I don't think any actual review outlets will do anything like that (and sites like Metacritic have weird "your score is written in stone for all eternity" rules, unless something has changed) but the game went from other Mostly Negative or Overwhelmingly Negative to Mixed on Steam just a couple hours after the patch dropped. It was THAT much of a difference. Last I checked it was 52% positive, but now it's 58% positive, so it's slowly going in a positive direction.

 

It's a shame, too. I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as a lot of outlets are making it seem. It's definitely flawed but some of this shit seems just straight up untrue. But I'll have to finish the game and think it over before giving any real opinions on it. So far I'm convinced that most of the folks who thought the combat was bad may have been playing in a very rigid and boring way. Which is valid, sometimes a game is bad at explaining itself or explains things in such a way as to encourage a boring playstyle. But I dunno, once you get that grip, I have no idea how you could just keep doing rigid combos without fucking yeeting boys left and right. There's a pseudo-stealth section where the enemies are blind and will attack you based on sound and you're supposed to be tiptoeing around, stabbing them in the back or avoiding them. You know how large my nuts felt as I walked in with my poured-every-credit-I'd-earned-in-the-game-into-kinesis self walked in there, blasted one with a shotgun to get all their attention and just started smashing them into walls as they were powerless before me?

 

Dead Space needs to steal this, because goddamn it's my favorite kind of thing. It's like if the Super Gravity Gun were a core gameplay element with some limitations.

[stepee]

It looks to have some really kinetic crunchy combat which I did and why I keep thinking about it since that video you posted earlier!

[stepee]

@Xbob42 One more question since I have an hour left to refund and I’m kinda torn from the first bit - I spent too long on the benchmark, how representative is that? It runs like shit.

 

Really cpu bound with 15% usage on my cpu which is always frustrating to see, but nothing I can do there since I’m not about to turn off RT. It’s obviously only using like 2 threads, I know it’s not that easy but can’t they devote whatever the cpu has to do for RT to it’s own core?

 

Whoops I just started ranting, anyway, then I started the game up to your prison cell, and all of that ran just fine at 80% internal res since fsr didn’t seem to do shit. I’d be happy if that’s how the game was though, 1800p is definitely acceptable and I didn’t notice any stutter. 

 

But am I going to hit a bunch of sections that run like the benchmark? Because if so I’ll wait for dlss3 or play it next year and see if a 7800x3d brute forces it.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Updated the reviews post one last time for the hell of it

 

 

[Keyser_Soze]

7 hours ago, Brick said:

I wonder how many reviews have lower scores because of the bad initial performance, and how few of them will go back and adjust their scores with the game running better. Not too many of them will I think, and that initial kind of bad critical reception can really kill a game's sales quickly. 

 

I don't think a lot of reviews were low because of performance. I think most of the reviews gave it a bad score because of the combat and that it's mostly an unremarkable game. Heck one of the DF guys (that played it on PS5) seemed to really enjoy it and they are most critical of performance issues.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

7 hours ago, Brick said:

I wonder how many reviews have lower scores because of the bad initial performance, and how few of them will go back and adjust their scores with the game running better. Not too many of them will I think, and that initial kind of bad critical reception can really kill a game's sales quickly. 

 

The overwhelming majority of reviews are in the 70s which as @Keyser_Soze said really isn't indicative of scoring based on performance but rather reflects simply a "middle-of-the-road" game.

[Xbob42]

4 hours ago, stepee said:

@Xbob42 One more question since I have an hour left to refund and I’m kinda torn from the first bit - I spent too long on the benchmark, how representative is that? It runs like shit.

 

Really cpu bound with 15% usage on my cpu which is always frustrating to see, but nothing I can do there since I’m not about to turn off RT. It’s obviously only using like 2 threads, I know it’s not that easy but can’t they devote whatever the cpu has to do for RT to it’s own core?

 

Whoops I just started ranting, anyway, then I started the game up to your prison cell, and all of that ran just fine at 80% internal res since fsr didn’t seem to do shit. I’d be happy if that’s how the game was though, 1800p is definitely acceptable and I didn’t notice any stutter. 

 

But am I going to hit a bunch of sections that run like the benchmark? Because if so I’ll wait for dlss3 or play it next year and see if a 7800x3d brute forces it.

No idea, never ran the benchmark!

[stepee]

4 hours ago, stepee said:

@Xbob42 One more question since I have an hour left to refund and I’m kinda torn from the first bit - I spent too long on the benchmark, how representative is that? It runs like shit.

 

Really cpu bound with 15% usage on my cpu which is always frustrating to see, but nothing I can do there since I’m not about to turn off RT. It’s obviously only using like 2 threads, I know it’s not that easy but can’t they devote whatever the cpu has to do for RT to it’s own core?

 

Whoops I just started ranting, anyway, then I started the game up to your prison cell, and all of that ran just fine at 80% internal res since fsr didn’t seem to do shit. I’d be happy if that’s how the game was though, 1800p is definitely acceptable and I didn’t notice any stutter. 

 

But am I going to hit a bunch of sections that run like the benchmark? Because if so I’ll wait for dlss3 or play it next year and see if a 7800x3d brute forces it.

 

To answer my own question as I kept playing too much and I guess I own this now, na it just runs like shit with ray tracing maxed out.

 

At least that whole first section after you get out of your cell. I do have a feeling that due to what was happening there it’s possible the rest of the game won’t be as bad as often for most of the rest, but eesh.

 

Lots of it was cpu locked to the 40s for me while using only 15% of the cpu. Definitely a programming issue, I have a hunch the biggest culprits are the fire and particle effects are bogging down what few threads it uses. 

 

I think DF talks about that but I didn’t watch it yet and just assumed it wouldn’t be this badly optimized but that’s impressive. It’s like they just assumed there wouldn’t be a gpu capable of maxing out RT at 60fps in time so they could optimize the cpu operations after launch or something. It does at least let the gpu flex and looks amazing, but the bad performance isn’t earned since it’s avoidable.

 

Combat is hella fun though so far. Feels good and crunchy yeah. That’s what I was craving.

[stepee]

man though could you imagine how amazing this game would be if you were Josh Duhamal’s ex

[Xbob42]

Oh, I haven't been running with raytracing at all. No DLSS = I don't fuck with raytracing, not ever worth the headache.

[Bloodporne]

4 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Oh, I haven't been running with raytracing at all. No DLSS = I don't fuck with raytracing, not ever worth the headache.

I swear every time I've had a game with raytracing so far, I immediately turn it off for the performance. It doesn't seem worth it at all to me. It looks cool but not at the cost. 

[stepee]

9 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Oh, I haven't been running with raytracing at all. No DLSS = I don't fuck with raytracing, not ever worth the headache.

 

Yeah it’s just with a 4090 it’s usually like having performance dlss on a 3080 before you even turn it on! The only DLSS that will help this game with ray tracing maxed is DLSS3 since the dips are due to poor cpu utilization. 

 

Ideally they just optimize it, since DLSS3 isn’t happening here being AMD sponsored. But I’m sure i’ll have beaten it before anything is done to fix it.

 

It does look REALLY good at least. I hope the performance stays more like in this new chapter now but I’m playing now streamed to my deck anyway which kind of bypasses my annoyances with the frame rate.

 

Honestly it also doesn’t matter as much as I just can’t wait to stomp some more fucking skulls. Fuck that almost feels too good.

[Keyser_Soze]

If you want to see how it looks on retro machines

 

 

[stepee]

I’m a bit over half way now. I’m having enough fun that I’m finishing it because the combat is good and satisfying and it looks amazing (tech wise, the art design could be more interesting) but everything else is very average.

 

Its not just very linear but seriously, I know people think GOW:R has too many load transition points (crawling between walls etc), but that has NOTHING on this. It’s like they designed the entire game around the load points. Half of the game seems to be these sections. 

 

It doesn’t really feel like a successor to Dead Space to me, beyond the atmosphere, the game flows a lot differently. It reminds me more of a game like little nightmares/flashback where you are expected to die constantly as part of the gameplay loop. A lot of it is figuring out how to survive a room which often have to be tackled a certain way using the environment to your advantage. Which I guess is good or bad depending on what you are looking for.

 

I’m having fun streaming to my deck and playing at night but I would not pay more than $30 for it.

[Phaseknox]

33 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

If you want to see how it looks on retro machines

 

 

The PS4 version still looks good enough for $20-$30 which is what I will buy the game for.

[stepee]

1 hour ago, Phaseknox said:

The PS4 version still looks good enough for $20-$30 which is what I will buy the game for.

 

Honestly probably wait for $20 :P

[Keyser_Soze]

2 hours ago, stepee said:

I’m having fun streaming to my deck and playing at night but I would not pay more than $30 for it.

 

42 minutes ago, stepee said:

Honestly probably wait for $20 :P

 

Keeps dipping lower but you paid $60

[stepee]

Just now, Keyser_Soze said:

 

 

Keeps dipping lower but you paid $60

 

Oh yeah, I would have waited but I kept playing past 2 hours so what ya gonna do. $30 is for the current gen version cuz of the RT pretty - :P

[stepee]

I’m about at the end and I think one weird little trick to make their game more fun would have been if they made it so you earned more money and earlier on. Most of the upgrades I’m doing are all in the last two chapters which is a shame. I was devoting my credits to the gravity tool which I didn’t max out until the end here and then now I’m getting a lot more credits to upgrade other things as well and there are some big additions such as a heavy attack and shot that I didn’t get until the last level here. 

 

And I took every side path I could find in this game and feel like I’ve been doing a good job at collecting everything but the reward is always very little credit until the end you start getting some items worth real money.

 

That would have helped with the difficulty complaints as well as just open it up to be more fun to play. But I guess that would have cut further into the game length then, which I guess is what most of the problems stem from, not enough content for a full AAA release.

 

So much of this is slow corridor loading scenes and while it being cross gen is part of the blame the issue is if they didn’t have that, they would need to like double the game size or they would get slammed on game length. 

 

There’s a great sequel to be made here, it needs to be more open, have much more content, and give you more tools earlier on. The problem is that just takes time and costs money, and with the reception of this one, I’m not sure they will be afforded either of those things.

 

I’m surprised at some of the initial reports regarding combat as being poor as that is by far the best aspect of the game outside of the visual tech (which is compromised due to performance).

[stepee]

Oh and a lot of the difficulty just comes from the game springing enemy’s on you in a jump scare or a haha now ur surrounded fashion and not having time to examine the room yet. So you might keep dying as you enter new rooms in a row. But once you see what is going on you can often make very simple work of the situation. 

[Phaseknox]

28 minutes ago, stepee said:

There’s a great sequel to be made here, it needs to be more open, have much more content, and give you more tools earlier on.

And have a female protagonist. 

[Xbob42]

In some ways it's like they couldn't decide if they were making survival horror or action horror. The game can be real stingy with money, but give ammo and health out like it has no value, even on the highest difficulty. There's a distinct lack of harmony in how the systems intermix. i.e. a fairly slow and crunchy melee combo system, but also here's 15 enemies. Which I can deal with because I still have big ass guns and a gravity gun that can fuck everything up, but again, that kind of makes the melee and dodge system irrelevant. There are branching paths and secrets to find, but there should be more, and more backtracking. Or at least the ability to return to previous areas.

 

I think "linear" being used so much kind of undersells it to me. To me, linear doesn't mean what this game is, this game is linear in the sense that there's often no going back, not that it's just a guided experience or doesn't have much exploration. It's like you're walking through a set of doors and they continually close and lock behind you. Very occasionally you get a little exploration or a bunch of rooms to explore, but more often than not the set piece design, while fun and bombastic, often means you leave a previous area permanently.

 

Feels like we need a new word here. Dead Space 1 was also linear. And often in the same ways. You'd leave areas behind and perhaps occasionally return to them, or at least some of them, but it was a very linear game. This is more like Call of Duty where you see a set piece and move on, despite this feeling like a game where you might want to dig in and really get to know a place.

[stepee]

44 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

In some ways it's like they couldn't decide if they were making survival horror or action horror. The game can be real stingy with money, but give ammo and health out like it has no value, even on the highest difficulty. There's a distinct lack of harmony in how the systems intermix. i.e. a fairly slow and crunchy melee combo system, but also here's 15 enemies. Which I can deal with because I still have big ass guns and a gravity gun that can fuck everything up, but again, that kind of makes the melee and dodge system irrelevant. There are branching paths and secrets to find, but there should be more, and more backtracking. Or at least the ability to return to previous areas.

 

I think "linear" being used so much kind of undersells it to me. To me, linear doesn't mean what this game is, this game is linear in the sense that there's often no going back, not that it's just a guided experience or doesn't have much exploration. It's like you're walking through a set of doors and they continually close and lock behind you. Very occasionally you get a little exploration or a bunch of rooms to explore, but more often than not the set piece design, while fun and bombastic, often means you leave a previous area permanently.

 

Feels like we need a new word here. Dead Space 1 was also linear. And often in the same ways. You'd leave areas behind and perhaps occasionally return to them, or at least some of them, but it was a very linear game. This is more like Call of Duty where you see a set piece and move on, despite this feeling like a game where you might want to dig in and really get to know a place.

 

Yeah I think you are kind of describing how I posted above it didn’t feel as much like the same kind of game as Dead Space as I expected and more like cinematic platfotmers or whatever you call them (flashback, oddworld, little nightmares) as in it seemed to be just guiding you to a series of room challenges to beat. Maybe cinematic horror action? idk

[stepee]

Alright I beat it, it was okay. I’d give it idk a 6.8 or something. I’d recommend it for a pickup at $20-$30 if you like sci fi horror and feel like some crunchy action. I would maybe hold off for 6 months and see how much they polish it up before playing it either way though. They already changed things like reload and recover speeds while I was playing that make it play better imo.

 

On easy at least nothing was overly frustrating, I wouldn’t worry about the difficulty too much. It’s biggest issue is just it’s a very mid tier game that doesn’t know what it wants to be exactly. 
 

I was thinking it would at least be something to maybe try again with new game plus to have more fun with the combat after the unlocks from the first run. I actually assumed that was part of the reason why it was so stingy with credit. There is no new game plus.

 

Maybe they will add that down the line as well as fixing the performance with ray tracing (or there will be a cpu to brute force it/dlss3 added) and it will be a decent second play through since it’s so short.

[Keyser_Soze]

7 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I think "linear" being used so much kind of undersells it to me. To me, linear doesn't mean what this game is, this game is linear in the sense that there's often no going back, not that it's just a guided experience or doesn't have much exploration. It's like you're walking through a set of doors and they continually close and lock behind you. Very occasionally you get a little exploration or a bunch of rooms to explore, but more often than not the set piece design, while fun and bombastic, often means you leave a previous area permanently.

 

The term linear gets thrown around so much as a criticism that ultimately doesn't mean much, or much beyond it's open world or not. There are plenty of linear games people love so when someone says the game is bad because it is linear it doesn't make much sense. FFVIIR is about as linear as it comes but everyone loved it. But (I can't think of anything recent off the top of my head) something like one of FFXIII's main criticisms was it was linear. So is linear good or bad? I think it should be thrown out at a criticism because the opposite of linear is making the game a bloated open world mess which in my opinion is more of a turn off these days than anything.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Updated the OpenCritic reviews post even though I said the last time would be the final one

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

If this was deliberate and not an oversight, then it's truly a dick move:

 

Callisto Protocol developers left out of credits

WWW.GAMESINDUSTRY.BIZ

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Last month's release of The Callisto Protocol was supposed to be an unmitigated victory for Striking Distance Studios, …

 

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GamesIndustry.biz has spoken with five former Striking Distance Studios developers who were omitted from the game's credits, and say they've got plenty of company. Separate sources estimate roughly 20 people across a variety of departments were left off the game's credits.

 

A Striking Distance representative did not return a request for comment.

 

"It definitely stings," one source says. "It sucks. I made a good amount of contribution and worked on it for [a length of time]. To just not be there at all is shitty."

 

One describes them as "egregious," leaving off some senior developers, leads, and directors who made significant contributions, including people who had worked at Striking Distance for over a year, or had history working with Striking Distance CEO Glen Schofield at his previous studio, Sledgehammer Games. Another described some of those left off the credits as "really core people who built the studio up."

 

"I understand if a contractor does a small amount of work for a few months and is left off, but we're talking full-time employees with over a year invested in the title, and had a hand in significant parts of the product," one developer says. "That's where the surprise has come from for a lot of us."

 

 

[Keyser_Soze]

10 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

If this was deliberate and not an oversight, then it's truly a dick move:

 

Callisto Protocol developers left out of credits

WWW.GAMESINDUSTRY.BIZ

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Last month's release of The Callisto Protocol was supposed to be an unmitigated victory for Striking Distance Studios, …

 

 

 

This feels familiar. Did this happen with a different game too?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Just now, Keyser_Soze said:

 

This feels familiar. Did this happen with a different game too?

 

Metroid Dread developer leaves names out of credits, ex-staffers say

ARSTECHNICA.COM

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"Why do I not appear on the game's credits? Is it some kind of mistake?"

 

[Keyser_Soze]

2 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Metroid Dread developer leaves names out of credits, ex-staffers say

ARSTECHNICA.COM

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"Why do I not appear on the game's credits? Is it some kind of mistake?"

 

 

Hmm yeah, but the weird thing is I thought it was this game (Callisto Protocol) 🤔 Metroid Dread doesn't feel right.

I think maybe it was Mass Effect.

[Brian]

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Hmm yeah, but the weird thing is I thought it was this game (Callisto Protocol) 🤔 Metroid Dread doesn't feel right.

I think maybe it was Mass Effect.

I think his happened over at Rockstar as well 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

58 minutes ago, Brian said:

I think his happened over at Rockstar as well 

 

That's correct:

 

100 devs protest omission from L.A. Noire credits

WWW.GAMESINDUSTRY.BIZ

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The credits for recent Rockstar hit L.A. Noire omit the names of over 100 staff who contributed to the game, claims a g…

 

[SuperSpreader]

Pro crunch, leaving people off credits. Wow who could that be!? What a mystery!

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The game appears to have underperformed its absolutely ludicrous unit sales projections by about 3 million units and had an estimated budget of $162 million.

 

Krafton′s 200 billion-paid new game sluggish...securities companies lowering target stock prices

M.K-ODYSSEY.COM

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SEOUL, Jan. 13 (Yonhap) - Krafton[259960]′s new ＂Callisto Protocol,＂ which was released last month ata cost of about 200 billion won over three years, is observed to badly influenc

 

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Daishin Securities, Samsung Securities, Shinhan Securities, KIWOOM Securities, Korea Investment & Securities, and Hyundai Motor Securities have lowered their target stock prices of Krafton from last month to early this month, according to securities industry on Friday.

 

As the main reason, securities companies have stated the failure of the Callisto Protocol, which was launched on December 2 last year.

 

Samsung Securities [016360] predicted in a stock report earlier this month, "The company expected cumulative sales of 5 million copies, but considering the current sales ranking, cumulative sales of 2 million copies will not be easy until this year."

 

Korea Investment & Securities also lowered its cumulative sales estimate of the Callisto Protocol from 4 million to 2.1 million on the previous day, and lowered its operating profit estimate for this year from 813 billion won to 629.3 billion won.

 

 

 

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According to Krafton's business report and quarterly report, the company paid about 196 billion won, including 5.4 billion won in 2020, 77 billion won in 2021, and 113.6 billion won from January to September last year, to the US-based subsidiary 'Striking Distance Studio' (SDS), a developer of Callisto Protocol.