The Callisto Protocol is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series. Which of these platforms is the ideal one to play the game?
The Callisto Protocol is a brand new sci-fi horror from Striking Distance Studios led by Glenn Schofield, who served as the producer for Dead Space. The game was announced in 2019 and within three years, it is already out for consoles. It appears to be a rather ambitious offering and while technically, it is gorgeous, there are a lot of underlying issues with the game.
The Callisto Protocol appears to support two different display modes for the current-generation consoles. There is a Quality mode and a Performance mode. The quality mode runs at 4K resolution which is dynamic and appears to switch between 1720p to 1280p. There is no resolution advantage here for any of the consoles.
The Quality mode for The Callisto Protocol also supports ray-tracing on consoles. This means the game will offer ray-traced reflections as well as shadows to improve the visuals. The same is true for the PC version that comes with ray-tracing support.
The Performance mode of the game removes any ray-tracing support. It manages to run the game at dynamic 4K and 60 FPS. However, the visuals are pretty much the same between the Xbox Series and PS5. The resolution limit is a lot higher here managing to hit 1800p. The Xbox Series S appears to get a setback as it lacks a Performance mode and only appears to run in a default mode that settles at 30 FPS rendering at 1440p. It also lacks ray-tracing support.
The bigger difference between the consoles is the lack of ray-tracing reflections on the Xbox Series X. This appears to be a bug for now because these reflections are present on PS5. The game also suffers from terrible performance on Xbox Series S with as much as 20% less frame rate in similar scenarios.
In the end, due to the issues with the Xbox Series X version, the PS5 is the best platform to play The Callisto Protocol. It is even better than the PC version which suffers from some unfortunate stutters.
The Callisto Protocol is available to purchase and download now for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PC.
