Striking Distance Studios, the team behind 2022’s moderately-received sci-fi horror title The Callisto Protocol, has revealed it’s working on a new game within the same universe and set in the game’s primary location of Black Iron Prison. This time around though, the new title codenamed Project Birdseye is trading in immersive, gritty horror for an arcade-style action roguelike.
“We’re excited to introduce you to something we’ve been working on,” Striking Distance wrote in its introduction to this new idea. “Since it’s still in development, we’re referring to it internally as Project Birdseye. It’s our take on a fast-action roguelike experience set in Black Iron Prison.
“Last year, a small group of us began working on a passion project that was born out of our obsession with easy to pick up and play but fun to master roguelikes. We love the world we created for The Callisto Protocol and want to keep playing in that sandbox – and Black Iron Prison is the perfect future-punk playground for the team’s vision. As you can tell, this isn’t The Callisto Protocol 2 – think of it as a side quest that really resonated with the team – it let us expand the world of The Callisto Protocol and stretch our creative muscles on something a bit different without impacting development on our next AAA game.
“Since so much of The Callisto Protocol’s post-launch journey was shaped by the community, it made sense to bring everyone in during an early phase of development to see if the concept clicks with you as much as it has with us. Please check out the reveal video below and let us know what you think!”
Looking at the first, short video, Project Birdseye is definitely a huge departure from The Callisto Protocol in just about every way, especially visually with its top-down, comic book styled aesthetic. It definitely looks enjoyably chaotic, and hopefully will shape up into something special. Take a look at the video below:
We gave The Callisto Protocol a respectable 8/10 in our review when it launched, and the game received quite a bit of post-launch support that built on feedback from the community. Unfortunately, Striking Distance Studios was since hit with layoffs affecting at least 30 of its employees, and founder Glen Schofield announced his departure from the studio late last year.
