The appeal of Dead Space wasn’t the violence
While I enjoy a good grisly death animation, [The Callisto Protocol’s] protagonist here really does get ripped apart in horrifically detailed and gory fashion. You couldn’t skip past these and some of them genuinely make you wince.
A new patch has streamlined some elements of the game’s combat system, and added the ability to skip the death animations (seriously: some of these things feel like they take minutes).
The approach taken by Striking Distance and promoted during Callisto’s development always seemed antiquated or entirely incorrect to me, that the biggest reason people played Dead Space or games like it was to see their character or those around them be excessively, graphically ripped to shreds every couple of minutes.
For what it’s worth, here’s my take from when the game was shown back at Summer Game Fest earlier this year:
I thought I’d be more interested in Callisto Protocol but the aggressive focus on gore has turned me off from the game entirely.
To me, Dead Space was never about the blood and guts. The world you explored and the atmosphere of it all, the tension and dread, combined with an interesting (albeit repetitive) combat mechanic was what made it special. It really is one of the greatest atmospheric horror games ever made and the violence has little to do with it.
The fact that they’re adding the ability to skip through these scenes so soon after Callisto’s launch and that the game’s received lukewarm reception from players proves to me that, like Dead Space, violence was never what people wanted.