Upcoming survival horror The Callisto Protocol no longer takes place in the same universe as Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds.
If, at this point, you’re wondering what the hell we’re talking about, we don’t blame you; the original tie-in was tenuous at best and, if we’re honest, pretty baffling. The Callisto Protocol is a space-based survival horror that’s being developed by several of the original Dead Space team, lead by former Dead Space producer Glen Schofield.
However, when it was first announced back in December 2020, it was announced as being set in the aformentioned PUBG universe. PUBG is the battle royale FPS that inspired Fortnite’s current incarnation, and has precious little to do with space. In other words, there was no real reason why the two should be linked.
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At the time, Schofield told IGN: “The funny thing is, I came in with this story when I went and met with the PUBG people for the first time and started talking about [The Callisto Protocol] and building a studio. I presented this game to them, and so what we did was we made it fit within the PUBG storyline.”
Schofield’s studio, Striking Distance Studios, is indeed a subsidiary of Krafton, who also run and update PUBG. It sounds like the PUBG connection may have helped him get a foot in the door, but over time, he and/or Krafton realised how little the connection made sense.
FYI @CallistoTheGame is its own story and world. It no longer takes place in the PUBG Universe. It was originally part of the PUBG timeline, but grew into its own world. PUBG is awesome, &we will still have little surprises for fans, but TCP is its own world, story and universe.
— Glen A. Schofield (@GlenSchofield) May 26, 2022
Which is likely why, yesterday, Schofield tweeted the above, confirming there was now no connection. And you know what? We couldn’t be happier. Sure, some small part of us still wants to smack an alien in the face with a frying pan, but weaving this new title into PUBG’s lore could have gone really, really badly.
The Callisto Protocol, which takes place in a prison on one of Jupiter’s moons, is still pencilled in for a PC and next-gen release this year. We’ll let you know when we hear more but, for now, we’re glad it gets to be its own thing.
