High hopes were placed on the final DLC. Although the original was a complete story with a logical ending — the protagonist redeemed his sin through self-sacrifice — the story cut off on an unexpected cliffhanger. The plot of “Final Transmission” picks up from that very moment.
And it is terrible. So much so that thoughts crossed my mind that the story of The Callisto Protocol was actually worse than it seemed. But no — it was about human emotions, fears, and the protagonist’s growth. The DLC, on the other hand, tells nothing across its four hours! Jacob wanders through identical corridors of laboratories, sewers, and isolation wards, and then comes the finale.
The final cutscene crammed in 30 seconds of that very conclusion to the story of Jacob and the Black Iron Prison. And it looks as if it was cut from the original game and sold for $15. The essence is resorting to the notorious “it was all a dream” trope.
Spoilers: the DLC runs in circles and leads you by the nose with hallucinations, because Jacob actually died back at the end of The Callisto Protocol. Everything taking place is his death throes. The remnants of his body and mind are used by Dr. Mahler to transmit data about what is happening in the prison beyond Callisto. That’s it! You would have to try hard to find such a pathetic conclusion to a fine story about redemption and self-sacrifice.
While The Callisto Protocol was no masterpiece, the game designers skillfully concealed the flaws in combat and shooting mechanics, keeping the player constantly on edge. Yes, melee fights were duels — at most a couple of enemies would jump the player at once, while the rest approached in waves. Ammo was scarce, making firearms a “last resort” weapon. The DLC broke that balance.
The player gets mobbed by 5–7 enemies at once. And while Jacob swings his baton, beating down a couple of especially zealous foes, the rest just stand around waiting their turn like statues. And you can forget about firearms — a shotgun with a full magazine doesn't kill a regular mutant, let alone the enhanced variants. So you have to sway side to side and swing your baton until you feel sick.
Just like the original, I started “Final Transmission” on the maximum difficulty. The Callisto Protocol blended survival and horror wonderfully on that setting, showcasing its mechanics and forcing you to use every available tool. At the same time, arenas, environments, and situations varied. In the DLC, the developers chose to artificially pad game time by throwing waves of enemies at you and forcing constant deaths.
The new enemy type — biobots, a single hit from which strips a third of your health — is immensely infuriating. Their kinetic blast deals heavy damage and knocks the hero down, leaving arriving enemies to finish him off. Now imagine this: the player is thrown into a small circular room and forced first to deal with two biobots at once, then three more appear with regular infected added on top! After an hour of suffering in that room, my chair felt so hot from pure rage that sitting down was physically uncomfortable.
Only when you switch to easy difficulty do you begin to enjoy the experience. Swarms of infected die from a single blow of the kinetic hammer — the new weapon introduced in the DLC. However, you can't even upgrade it, and all the resources spent upgrading your baton simply vanish after a specific plot point. A great way to invalidate the player’s time, Striking Distance!
The final boss is the pinnacle of the DLC designers' incompetence. It is an upgraded version of the “Two-Head” from the original game, yet it defies the core gameplay logic: the boss has an area-of-effect strike that the protagonist can escape in perhaps one out of ten attempts. The issue is that Jacob is a sluggish guy in an exosuit who moves at the speed of a tank, while the enemy strikes rapidly. Defeating the boss gets even worse when an audio glitch breaks, completely distorting your sense of the boss's position. And dying or reloading from a checkpoint doesn’t fix the bug!
The Callisto Protocol was visually stunning in 2022 — it was true “next-gen.” Playing in “Quality” mode on PlayStation 5 was pure bliss, and photo mode appeared on my screen more frequently than the scripted monsters. But the DLC is so dull, featuring repetitive locations and architecture, that it feels downright disappointing.
Diagnosis
Painful. Suffocating. Bleak. Striking Distance ruined everything that was enjoyable about The Callisto Protocol and put on display the very issues that were masterfully masked in the original. Do not play “Final Transmission” under any circumstances — especially if you liked the story of the main game. To those who purchased the premium edition hoping for quality expansions, you have my condolences.