The Callisto Protocol Is Miles Away From Its Sales Target

Much like the monsters you can dismember in The Callisto Protocol, Striking Distance Studios' survival horror is looking a little worse for wear right now.

Coming from the legendary Glen Schofield, this Dead Space pastiche could've been one of 2022's biggest games. Instead, it was plagued by mixed reviews, with the PC version suffering horrendously from launch problems.

The Callisto Protocol has come out the other side into 2023, but as we gear up for EA Motive's full-blown Dead Space remake, the game has been lost in the shuffle.

How Is The Callisto Protocol Selling?

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According to MK-Odyssey, The Callisto Protocol has only sold half of its projected sales. As the game has failed to claw back its apparent $162 million budget, publisher Krafton has reportedly lowered its stock price.

Although The Callisto Protocol was predicted to sell around 5 million copies, it's only scraping by with 2 million. The site writes, "Considering the current sales ranking, cumulative sales of 2 million copies will not be easy until this year."

Korea Investment & Securities immediately dropped the title's cumulative sales projections from 4 million the day before to 2.1 million. Considering The Callisto Protocol was lumped alongside the upcoming Perfect Dark reboot as a supposed AAAA game, it's disappointing that it hasn't performed.

Things aren't great for The Callisto Protocol right now, as multiple Striking Distance employees claim they weren't credited on the finished game. Either way, there's plenty of egg on Krafton's face.

Can The Callisto Protocol Turn Things Around?

There are high hopes that an upcoming cosmetic and story-based DLC can add some more dollars to the bottom line, but we struggle to see how The Callisto Protocol can be classed as a commercial success.

Looking at the bigger picture, it seems Krafton invested too much in a brand-new IP. Let's not forget The Callisto Protocol was once supposed to be set in the same universe as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, before these references were stripped.

Then again, we've been wrong before. Cyberpunk 2077 was a commercial and critical disaster at launch and has since become a juggernaut thanks to an expanded IP.

We'll have to wait and see whether The Callisto Protocol can bring itself back from the brink with its DLC, but with things looking pretty dire, it might be for the best to scrap the whole thing.