The Dead Space Remake is everything fans wanted ‘Callisto’ to be
Last week, the remake of horror classic ‘Dead Space’ was released to universal acclaim. Fans praised its incredible graphics, updated scares and effectively bringing a much loved game into the modern generation with all of the quality of life changes that entails. The praise is clear when looking at the game’s Metacritic profile- which shows the remake sitting at a very comfortable 8.6 user score and impressive 89 Critic score. For a remake where hopes were high, it seems developers Motive Studio have met expectations and then some.
The same can’t be said, however, for last December’s ‘The Callisto Protocol’. This was hyped up as the return of ex-EA developers to create a spiritual successor to Dead Space after its unfortunate fall from grace with Dead Space 3. When EA themselves announced a remake of the original Dead Space around the same time then, fans were obviously intrigued to see which would be the better product. Given EA’s questionable track record, many were banking on Callisto to keep the sci-fi horror genre alive. As it turns out, that was flipped on its head completely.
The Callisto Protocol received very middling reviews- with a 70 Critic score and a 6.9 User score on Metacritic. For a hyped-up return to form for the genre, this wasn’t exactly the response developers Striking Distance Studios were hoping for. The low scores were blamed on corridor-like gameplay sections, a dull story, and (most importantly), the game simply not being scary. For a horror game, that’s quite a big nail in the coffin. After Callisto’s disappointing flat note, hopes for the Dead Space Remake being good were questionable at best.
Thankfully, fans were presently surprised to see that the original Dead Space actually held up much better than they were expecting. With tighter controls and mechanics than Callisto- and, of course, with moments that were actually scary, the remake of Dead Space is currently the highest rated PlayStation 5 game of 2023. Of course, we are only in February, but for such a niche genre, its still impressive in its own right. For fans of horror, this year looks to get even better as the months go on. With the Resident Evil 4 Remake, a new Layers of Fear and a Texas Chainsaw Massacre videogame all coming this year, horror fans will be eating good for a while. Here’s hoping that most of these will be more ‘Dead Space Remake’ than ‘Callisto’.
