The Callisto Protocol

Striking Distance Studios' promise of delivering a triple-A game story does not fall short of its promise.

The story begins with an introduction to a world seemingly corrupted by disease. Cargo ship pilot Jacob lee (Josh Duhamel) and copilot Max Borrow (Jeff Schine) are entrusted with the task of delivering a “controversial package” to the world of Europa. They are interrupted, however, by Dani Nakamura (Karen Fukuhara) who prevents the ship from reaching its destination. They end up crashing on the moon of Callisto. Max is fatally wounded and succumbs to his injuries, whereas Jacob and Karen are captured and taken to B.I.P. (Black Iron Prison).

Here, Jacob meets Elias Porter (Zeke Alton), an inmate of the prison and master of its walls. The two set out to escape from the facility. In an attempt to reach the watchtower, Jacob is forced to fight Captain Leon Ferris (Sam Witwer). An altercation in which the fate of Captain Leon is left unknown as he is thrown out the window by an infected mutant.

Elias and Jacob meet again. This time, Elias explains to Jacob his exit plan: flying a ship off Callisto. To this end, they need the help of a particular new inmate to call it in and have it fly down. As such, Jacob makes his way down to the housing units. Along the way, he is introduced to different kinds of mutants and the realization that the prison has been overrun by a rapid parasitic infection.

After having fought his way through numerous infected, he finally reaches the newly imprisoned inmate. To his surprise, she turns out to be Dani Nakamura, leader of the outer-way terrorist group, and culprit of the crash. Using the element of surprise, Dani locks Jacob in her former cell and informs Jacob and Elias she is not willing to help them with their plan.

Eventually, Jacob manages to escape the cell and arrives at a control room. Here he is tasked with reaching the Habitat Room. Following Elias’s guidance, Jacob makes his way down there but not without encountering stage 2 infected, invisible mutants, and many other hurdles along the way.

Jacob reunites with Elias once more and the two escape via an airlock shuttle. Captain Ferris makes a striking appearance where we learn he has been infected. With the pull of a lever, Ferris opens the airlock causing Jacob and Elias to be suctioned into the empty outer space. Jacob finds Elias in bad condition from the landing and bids him goodbye. Conveniently, Dani shows up and takes Elias’s implant as these allow for the transfer of data and memories. She does this to keep access to the B.I.P. blueprints.

Jacob sets out to the hangar, and after helping Dani fight some more infected, they both work together to open a set of garage doors. Jacob notices how Dani, instead of heading to the hangar with him, rushes towards Jacob’s crashed ship to incriminate him. To her surprise, she only finds medical supplies in the crates Jacob and Max were initially transporting.

As the pair call out for the escape ship to arrive, Warden Duncan Cole (James C. Mathis III) makes a holographic appearance and tells them their trip is over. He then proceeds to destroy the incoming ship. This wreaks havoc separating Jacob and Dani in the process. Jacob maneuvers his way through obstacles in space to later hook onto a pole that projects him into an air vent causing him to fall deep into unconsciousness Eventually, Dani finds Jacob, wakes him up and mentions to him they are now underneath B.I.P. They realize the prison was built on top of an old abandoned colony called Arcas. Dani tells Jacob they need to get back into B.I.P. to understand why the Warden would shoot down one of her ships. To do so, they must cross the colony.

Jacob and Dani get separated. After alot of sneaking past tougher enemies, Jacob resets some breakers for a generator that powers a cargo platform needed to reach the prison. Once at the platform, the pilot is faced with battling a two-headed mutant.

Jacob manages to reach the colony where he finds Dani hooked up to a deceased colonist. He disconnects her causing Dani to attack him in the process accusing him of “killing them all”. They descend to the colony’s high town square and find frozen remnants of the other colonists. They soon realized they were all murdered by the U.J.C. (United Jupiter Company) after an outbreak in the colony. Here the pair get separated once more as another two-headed mutant appears, but they later reunite and ultimately reach a domed area.

Formerly a mine shaft, the area was turned into a laboratory by the U.J.C. where scientists could research intricate organisms. Jacob finds a hologram of Doctor Caitlyn Mahler (Louise Barnes) in which she explains they received a distress call from the miners who claimed to experience a somewhat, familiar to Jacob by now, disease. To Jacob’s surprise, he finds one of the crates he was transporting to Callisto earlier. At the bottom of the crate, underneath the medical supplies, he finds samples of larvae he had seen in the stomach of a massive mutated beast he discovered while at the laboratory. He then recognizes he was in part responsible for the outbreak in Europa.

Ferris appears again in a much worse condition, and Jacob tries to shoot him down to no avail. As the pair escape Ferris, Dani is attacked by a parasite and is left in critical condition: she has been infected.

Jacob and Dani reach B.I.P. and notice the prison has been engulfed by the same biomass as the infected. Dani states the Warden’s signal is active at the command tower and they head there. A security droid blocks their way and Jacob is yet again locked behind bars. With the help of Dr. Mahler, Jacob is set free, but he has to make his way through the decaying prison again. He arrives at a state-of-the-art lab where he meets Dr.Mahler and confronts her about the experiments he saw earlier at the mine shaft and on his way to meet her.

Dr. Mahler makes it clear the lab was built for the sole purpose of human experimentation and explains to Jacob that Dani needs an antidote to stop the rapid infection from spreading. To synthesize the antidote, they need a sample from the Warden’s alpha, a human that reaches symbiosis with the infection. This colonist was initially subject zero but was killed during the sterilization of the Arcas colony. Dr. Mahler discloses to Jacob that Warden Cole attempted to recreate this alpha version by releasing the infection in the B.I.P. An act he named The Callisto Protocol, the next stage in human evolution.

On his way to confront the Warden, Jacob travels inside Dani’s memories. While doing so Dr.Mahler explains a diluted sample that was released from one of her labs caused the tragedy in Europa. It was during this event where Dani lost her daughter to the disease. We are shown a flashback of Jacob disregarding max’s concern for the cargo they were entrusted to deliver at the beginning of the game (one of the samples) provoking Jacob to leave Dani’s memories with guilt.

When Jacob reaches the Warden, he is welcomed as the “sole survivor”. He demands to be handed the antidote and to know where the alpha is. To his astonishment, the alpha comes out and it is none other than Captain Leon Ferris. After an arduous fight, Ferris is defeated and Jacob gathers a sample from him. The Warden tries convincing Jacob of giving him the sample and regaining his old life, but Dani wakes up and Jacob injects her with the antidote. The Warden mentions the data collected from the experiments on B.I.P. will be used to commence the second phase of The Callisto Protocol, nonetheless.

Jacob and Dani run to the escape pods but notice there is only one. In an apologetic measure to Dani, Jacob sacrifices himself for his part in what took place in Europa and pushes Dani into the pod. He is then left to fight hordes of infected while Dani leaves with a sample of the larva in hand.

Jacob does not die. Instead, he is contacted by Dr.Mahler, who mentions she knows another way out of the prison. Ferris appears again and the game comes to an end.

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