Since the end of The Callisto Protocol’s main game, things have gone from bad to worse inside the penitentiary. The virus wreaking havoc within threatens to break out of the prison and it’s up to you to retrieve Mahler’s data and deliver it out of the world. It will not be a walk in the park. You will have to fight tooth and nail to make your way through monster-infested corridors, where new abominations await you.
When it comes to battling Biophage, players need reliable tools to survive. The Stun Baton is a great blunt instrument, but new threats call for new gear. According to Lead Systems Designer, Paul Guirao, the team behind The Callisto Protocol listened to fan feedback and decided to add a new melee weapon to the game. “We wanted to give players something more powerful than the Stun Baton. “, explained Guirao.
The result is the all-new Kinetic Hammer. With its design and shape, you can feel the power and weight behind every swing. It has light and heavy melee attacks that hit harder than the Stun Baton, but that’s not all – explains Guirao, “Holding down the heavy melee button produces an even stronger attack. But mastering the heavily loaded mechanics can be tricky… you become the ultimate badass once you master it. It’s one of our favorite weapons because it obliterates everything it touches. As a bonus, a successfully executed charge attack also creates a powerful area of effect.
However, the thrill of wielding the Kinetic Hammer is only fully realized when pitted against worthy opponents. Final Transmission introduces a new enemy type and a new boss that players can battle with.
With nimble, twisted Corruptors and brutally powerful two-headed brutes lurking around every corner, not to mention hard-to-kill security units, Black Iron Prison has always been a treacherous place. But now, a new enemy lurks its halls: the Biophage Robot, or the Biobot as the developers affectionately call it. This terrifying foe is a combination of Biophage and UJC security units, and a deadly reminder that Black Iron is as dangerous as ever.
“In the main game, the security bots are only seen a few times,” Guirao tells me, “With the last chapter, we really dug into the idea of what happens when the Biophage starts taking control of the machines. .”
Visualizing the Biobot as a grotesque and intimidating biomechanical enemy was an iterative process: “We worked closely with the Concept Art team to create a look that fit into the TCP universe. It took several iterations to establish the look. We went to the two extremes, too robotic and then too organic,” says Guirao. The more robotic iterations looked too much like existing security units and lacked the gruesome looking the team was looking for. On the other hand, the more organic versions seemed too fragile and didn’t do enough to differentiate the powerful new enemies from their Biophage brethren. Eventually, the team “found that sweet spot.”
Affectionate nicknames aside, the Biobot is not an enemy to be taken lightly. According to one of the lead systems designers, “the Security Unit robots were big, intimidating enemies that couldn’t really be beaten and only went down with precision headshots.”
Guirao adds, “We’re not a game based on tactical cover, so making the Biobots a melee unit made more sense to us. We have a direct fighting style and we didn’t want to deviate from it.
Guirao and the Striking Distance team have watched hundreds of hours of streamers play Callisto Protocol, “there was a lot of feedback about how all of our NPCs felt the same way and that was something we had to adjust.” To survive, players must employ new tactics to take down the Biobots, however, once players obtain the new melee weapon, they will have the chance for satisfying and well-deserved revenge on biomechanical enemies and “finally have their chance”. to break them. »
The Biobot isn’t the only new enemy you’ll encounter when returning to Black Iron. Without giving too much away, Final Transmission’s final boss is truly something special. “Our goal was to showcase the power of the Kinetic Hammer and have players strategize on the best ways to beat the boss; decide when to use melee or ranged attacks and use the arena to their advantage,” lead systems designer Quinlan Richards reveals, “we gave the boss mechanics similar to Jacob’s, switching seamlessly between attacks hard-hitting melee and aggressive ranged attacks. And to keep things interesting, we’ve given the final boss an ability that goes beyond anything Jacob can do.
We can’t wait for you to return to Black Iron Prison to face the new horrors that lurk within its halls. PS4 and PS5 players get exclusive 48-hour early access to The Callisto Protocol: Final Transmission starting June 26 at 9:00 PM PST.
