One such sequence came courtesy of a fearsome creature affectionately referred to as “Big Mouth” by the team.

The game’s extremely violent death animations are designed to instill a potent fear of death. Longhi explained that the Proboscis Worm, an insect infamous for vomiting its own intestines ( here’s an example clip Longhi shared with us if you want to ruin your day) set a barometer for the level of disgust the studio wanted to achieve with its monsters.īy capturing that realism and brutality, Striking Distance wants players to feel uncomfortable just looking at the Biophage, let alone getting killed by them. One specific inspiration for the Biophage came from the animal kingdom. By taking these realistic elements and applying their own personal twists, Striking Distances’ design team crafted adversaries Longhi describes as “very gross and interesting and dynamic.”

This focus on delivering hyper-realism led to its artists looking up all kinds of horrifying reference materials, such as human deformations and infections. So really try to hone into the believability of what we're doing.” But in my opinion, it has to be interesting, and captivating, and intriguing, and maybe disgusting…but ultimately, you got to believe that it's real, or it could be real. “It doesn't have to be real, but it has to feel real, right? That can mean many different things.

“It has to feel grounded, it has to feel real,” Longhi explains. He even cites realism as one of his personal pillars of what makes the most effective horror monster. Longhi tells us the Biophage was born out of the studio’s philosophical desire to create enemies grounded in reality while also applying their own creativity. To understand the design process behind the Biophage and the game’s copious amounts of gore, we spoke with Striking Distance’s Character Director Glauco Longhi to learn how the studio created nightmares it hopes will terrify players. The Biophage, The Callisto Protocol’s monstrous antagonists, are as mysterious as they are deadly.

The callisto protocol monster