The highly anticipated survival horror game The Callisto Protocol is only a week away from release, but as one final call to get players to the moon of Callisto, Striking Distance Studios put out a new live-action television spot featuring Josh Duhamel. The star voices the game's protagonist Jacob Lee, a prisoner stuck in the Black Iron colony when an alien invasion wreaks untold havoc on its inhabitants. In the new spot, he dons Jacob's prisoner's uniform and sets out to find a way to survive the death and destruction all around him.
Although television viewers will only see one version of this ad, a 45-second cut that takes Jacob through Black Iron with flashes of the surrounding chaos, Striking Distance knows players want to see the more gruesome side of the game and thus also created a Red Band ad that adds another minute to the runtime. The full spot, courtesy of IGN, starts off with a spaceship crashing before showing Jacob alone on Callisto. It then cuts to the prisoner's first look at Black Iron in flames from the recent attack. His exploration of the prison is chilling as he grabs a knife off a body and slowly walks through a medical bay full of corpses with some gnarly disfigurement until one comes to life inside a body bag. The alien threat is slowly teased with another corpse and a message in blood about the creature's tentacles before Jacob finally comes face to face with the monstrous creature. All the while, the footage constantly cuts to Jacob's venture out onto the open surface of Callisto - a harsh environment that itself is littered with zombie-like alien creatures.
Helmed by Glen Schofield, The Callisto Protocol looks to be a spiritual successor to the horror classic Dead Space that Schofield previously worked on through Visceral Games. The hype has been building for the title for some time now, but the march toward release hasn't been entirely smooth. Schofield recently spoke out to reassure players after it was reported that the game would feature additional death animations in its Season Pass. He stated that nothing was being held back from the base game and additional, horrific ways for Duhamel's Jacob to die, along with other content, would be created next year.
Duhamel's Involvement in The Callisto Protocol
Although Duhamel's better known for his work in film and television including Michael Bay's Transformers franchise and more recently in the Disney+ series The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, he's not entirely a stranger to video games. He previously had a major role in Call of Duty: WWII and Skylanders: SuperChargers, but The Callisto Protocol should offer a unique challenge for him as his first leading role. If it's anything like Dead Space, Jacob will be mostly alone for the journey aside from the occasional radio transmission or a run-in with other survivors, only adding to the importance of Duhamel's performance. Given the heavy focus on gore and gruesome deaths like its predecessor too, Duhamel also likely got very good at dying for the game.
The Callisto Protocol releases on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PC on December 2. Check out both versions of the television spot below.