The Callisto Protocol - No Death Run - Hardcore - One Sitting (no restarts/no saves)

- One sitting. No restarts, no nothing.
- Hardcore mode - highest difficulty. Contagion mode is significantly easier.
- No death run.
- Fresh new game.
- No contraband pack.
Not my best run, by any means, but it got the job done. Just for the record, I finished this run at around 4:30 am :)
I apologize for the awkward movement sometimes, my joystick drifts like there's no tomorrow! I was battling it more than the monsters! And apologies for the big pause at 3:06:40! I had to go to the bathroom.
About Hardcore mode.
This mode really transform the game into a real survivor horror. If you want the true The Callisto Protocol experience, play on Hardcore. Two-three hits away from death, barely any credits (seriously, get used to getting ×2 credits all the time), enemies don't drop anything 50% of the time, Two Head one-shots you, mutated enemies take 90% of your health with a single hit, you sell everything for half the price, you can barely upgrade your gear, enemies mutate faster...well, it's really hardcore. And I love it!
At first, I was doing this run on Contagion mode, but something felt off. It was way too easy. At the time I thought Contagion and Hardcore are the same, the only difference being the no save restriction. Well, no. On Contagion regular enemies drop converters left and right, enemies die faster and don't hit as hard. It is significantly easier. On Hardcore you get converters and decoders only from chests and robots, or Two Head. Enemies mostly drop x4 credits, if they drop anything at all. It is the hardest difficulty in the game, no question about it.
Last chapter was a disaster, could've played way better. I gotta be honest, I've never experienced them playing dead and suddenly get resurrected in a mutated form! Was this in any other difficulty? It caught me off guard couple of times.
But, the biggest threat in the entire game, as everyone knows, is the water slide!
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[@wade2489]

Great job!!

[@vikikarvikikar4804]

Евала❤❤❤

[@edgarector]

Благодаря!

[@StarKratos]

I find it quite sad that even Hardcore mode is still far easier than the original release of the game despite the fact that that version was inconsistent regarding dodges. The patches to the combat really did a number on this title. I am not sure which game released on 2022 got the worse nerfs to difficulty -Callisto or Sifu-, but both cases were and still are sad to see; any game deemed "too difficult" by the mainstream audience seems to intentionally castrate itself for nothing. Neither Sifu nor Callisto became best-sellers after the patches and it's only the handful of us who did not complain about difficulty that kept playing these games.
I do have to say, however, that I enjoyed the extremely limited amount of resources in Hardcore mode; finally, upgrading the wrong tool was a death sentence, forcing the player to truly think about the most important path to take.

[@edgarector]

Haven't played the game before the patches. How was it? What made it more difficult? How was the dodging inconsistent?
I love this game! Hardcore mode is a decent challenge, in my opinion. And you are right about the upgrade path. Should've taken the upgrade that breaks their arm when they block. Would've dealt with a lot of headaches in the last chapter That was a mistake on my part. But overall, yeah, if you know your dodging (which is super easy to learn, imo) you are set for 80% of the game, regardless of difficulty.
I also completely agree with what you say about castrating themselves with nerfs. Most of the time, the casual mainstream crowd will whine how the game is too difficult, the devs will nerf it, the casuals will jump to another title shortly after, and the real fans will be left with a game they didn't want to be this way. Everybody loses. Devs listen to random people way too much and will alter their vision on a whim. Most of the time there is a solid reason why a game is designed a certain way. The mainstream crowd doesn't care about that. If something is not easily achieved right away, they slam the game immediately. Devs are too afraid not to listen to them because of sales and reputation. But the casuals never care about game mechanics and having to work out how everything works in the first place, but somehow they dictate how a game should be. They just jump from game to game, but ruin them for the people that really cared about them. It's sad, you are right.

[@StarKratos]

​ @edgarector
>What made it more difficult?
Enemies did not use to take turns to strike; on the contrary, they would cover each other, presenting nearly unavoidable situations for the player, who had to quickly snap the stick from one direction to another to dodge two (or more) enemies attacking at the same time, justifying the highly generous dodge window. Striking Distance made foes extremely passive in a patch earlier this year (2023, in case anybody else reads this in the future) Additionally, if an enemy was behind Jacob, they would constantly attack: this was a losing condition and resulted in a restart or death in almost every situation. Grabs from the back were extremely rare back in December, as enemies did not waste their opportunity when behind Jacob, they would simply attack without the player being able to do anything.
The only situation that comes close to this in the current version of the game is a deep run into Riot mode with multiple bosses active at the same time with at least a couple of mobs: if the player, for any reason, ends up at melee combat range, run survival turns into a coin flip (as you would know, having reached as far as you reached in Riot mode) as the bosses constantly attack the player, even from the back, and, sooner or later, two or more strikes will cover each other on the same frame, turning into unavoidable damage. As you can imagine, the bosses did not receive the passiveness nerf that every other enemy received.
Seeing challenge runners actively avoid combat back on release unless they had a properly upgraded gun or unless they could rely on a bottomless pit with which to abuse GRP was the norm as group encounters were suicide. I can guarantee you that the fight right after getting the GRP tool was more difficult by itself than Hardcore mode is in its entirety. I can also guarantee you that the last corridor on release before the final boss took me longer to beat than Hardcore mode just a couple days ago. I died more on the last chapter on release than on the whole of Hardcore mode (not the best comparison, considering a died around six times in Hardcore mode); I had to rely on a completely upgraded assault rifle, pistol and shotgun while entirely foregoing melee combat in comparison to simply walzting in on Hardcore mode with a baton with a single damage upgrade and the arm break upgrade. No firearms needed.
Regarding ranged combat: reload and weapon-swapping animations were sped up (healing as well, and this last one was the most noticeable). Ammo pick ups were made more abundant and I swear to God enemy health was reduced despite this not being listed in the patches I saw (maybe it was stated some time later).
Something else I cannot guarantee as I have not tested both versions side by side (I believe you can downgrade to the release version on Steam, but I have it on PS5 digitally) is mutation health. Either my memory is faulty or mutation health was also massively nerfed because I vividly remember empting entire magazines all to have enemies transform anyway; this was to the point that I did not bother shooting at the tentacles because I did not get a quick kill in the entire game back in December.
Block damage was also reduced, however, I have not found a use for blocking; the leg-break follow up is too expensive and far less reliable than simply shooting the legs off.
You could test downgrading to the release version but I must warn you, Callisto Protocol was a buggy mess, with dodges not triggering randomly, target lock disengaging in every group fight and with pushback on player attacks causing enemies to clip into walls, which also resulted in the target lock disengaging, disabling dodges, which enemies took advantage of by attacking for guaranteed damage. I raged quite a few times when knocking an enemy into a wall only to see said enemy become stuck, my next attack whiffing and the foe strike me back for unavoidable damage.
This game had many issues (it still does, but that's a different conversation altogether) that made it very clear it was unfinished.
>How was the dodging inconsistent?
It was seemingly bugged. Dodges would randomly not be triggered, resulting in death. This was quickly noted by the developers and patched.
While I hated this game on release, I saw the potential and knew it would give birth to challenge runs. I do not agree with the changes, but the reduction in difficulty did come in tandem with a less inconsistent game.

[@edgarector]

@@StarKratos Damn, now I wanna play the unpatched version! I am on PS5 too, so not possible for me too.
Yeah, from the first moment I started playing the game, it was really weird how enemies will conveniently wait their turn while you are pummelling another. It just feels artificial. Also, it's way too easy to dodge their attacks in general and feels kinda basic. But such mechanic makes much more sense if they attack simultaneously. Man, how I wish I can play that version! I guess, you had to be really careful when to strike, and every hit and dodge were much more meaningful. Blocking also makes much more sense this way too. Now, blocking is completely useless. I don't see why would you use it, unless you just want to spice things up.
So, I guess, the game was built with pretty different gameplay in mind. After the changes, some key gameplay elements became redundant. Shame!
Can't they just bring these things back in an "Old school" mode, or something? That would be amazing!
It's such an amazing game, because it was built on ideas that feel fresh. It's strategic and action -y at the same time, and, frankly, I haven't played a survival horror like it. Damn, how I wish they, at least, left the simultaneous attack from enemies in the game, everything will fall into place gameplaywise this way! Damn!