Despite Sharing A Setting, Redacted And The Callisto Protocol Could Not Be More Different
Ahead of the release of [REDACTED] (yes, that’s actually the name of the game, brackets and all), I got to play a fairly substantial part of the upcoming isometric roguelike that takes place in the same world as The Callisto Protocol. And though I can’t talk about my impressions just yet, I can share a conversation I had with Striking Distance studio head Steve Papoutsis and creative director Ben Walker after playing the game. We discussed how the game started as a fun distraction that eventually became a spin-off of The Callisto Protocol, how the studio designed the Rival system to add a frantic undercurrent to each run of the game, and why [REDACTED] isn’t launching in early access like many roguelike games are these days.
In [REDACTED], you play as a guard trying to escape Black Iron Prison during the events of The Callisto Protocol. There’s only one escape pod left and there are other survivors–fellow coworkers or inmates called Rivals–all striving for that same goal. Each failed escape sees the guard die and join the infected, and you start a new run as another guard trying to escape. You can chase after the reanimated corpse of the previous guard you played as to recover some goodies but they’ll have every upgrade you unlocked in that run, making them quite formidable in comparison to normal enemies. As you progress, you can try to slow the Rivals down to surpass them or kill them, but they’ll be doing all they can to get rid of you too.
[REDACTED] is set to launch for PC on October 31.