This is a continuous problem with video games in the horror genre, but it needs to be said: blood, guts, and grotesque images aren't inherently scary.
What makes games like Dead Space and Alien: Isolation landmark successes within the horror genre is not the blood and guts spewed across the screen, but the genuine terror that comes with exploring the worlds they've created. It's the fear of being caught, wondering what it was that made that sound, or the outline of something disappearing into the shadows. It's not redundantly smashing a gross looking corpse with a hammer as it growls at you.
Callisto Protocol is...okay. The environment and setting? Love it. I'm a sucker for Science Fiction Horror. Cast? Good. Basic premise? Prison planet is a touch cliché but it can work. The story? Eh...I can forgive some of the more derivative plot points and how much it borrows from Dead Space. But what I can't forgive is the boring pacing and repetitive combat that the game forces you into.
Want to sneak past enemies? Nope. They pop out 1v1 and you beat them to death. Every time. Want to find creative ways to solve problems or avoid hordes of creatures? Nope. Go here, open this door, kill that thing, unlock that room, repeat. The environments and corridors begin to all look the same (splattered with blood, echoing with screams). The combat begins to feel like a chore (you're not afraid of the creatures, you're just annoyed you have to beat another one to death...again) and that's *if* the combat mechanics work. If any CP creator is reading this-please realize that I would rather have little to no combat (like a Dark Pictures Anthology game or Outlast) in which I'm just avoiding death versus a game where I stumble into a room and have to begrudgingly kill something so I can move to the next room and do it again.
Horror is not gore. We don't get scared of something gross that growls and vomits up junk. Maybe the first time you see them it's unsettling. The second and third time the shock wears off. By the third hour of gameplay you'll roll your eyes at how annoying and disinterring you find them-and this is one of the biggest draws of the game (there's no puzzles, no side quests, no real RPG elements).
CP focused on the frosting and forgot about the cake. It's lots of blood, shrieks, screams, and gross creatures, but without the underlying gameplay, combat mechanics, and tone that make a horror game worth playing, CP just ends up feeling hollow and never delivers on the terror that it promises.
