Mens vi deltok på den lukkede demonstrasjonen av The Callisto Protocol på Gamescom, overrasket utviklerne i Striking Distance oss med det siste av de fem nøkkelordene som ifølge dem selv definerer det mest etterlengtede overlevelsesskrekkspillet i nyere tid. De fem ordene er "Atmosphere, tension, brutality, helplessness and humanity".
Menneskeheten altså? De fire første føltes opplagte, men det femte ønsket vi å spørre studiosjef og regissør Glen Schofield mer om. Den fullstendige responsen er som en leksjon i skrekkdesign:
"It means a few things. One is that there are other humans in the game, and you in some ways get connections between them and something happens. The humanity also is in the monsters. Right? If you look at the monsters, they all have faces, or they all have human parts. Even this one that just comes out of a pod, shoots at you this long 20-foot tentacle and grabs you by the shoulder (or by the face). But look what's grabbing you. It's two faces. There's another one that's crawling on the walls that's invisible, he's made up of four heads, and he opens up the four heads and that's his mouth.
I've always thought that the scariest thing to me was an insane human. So, when I watch a spider-monster movie it's not so scary, or something comes from a fish or whatever... But when I see Jason, when I see Mike Myers, when I see Scream, or Freddie Kruegger, or you know, any of those... Hellraiser! They come from a human, and I think "there's an intelligence there", and that intelligence is scary, specially when it's pure evil."
I det samme intervjuet forklarer Schofield også til Gamereactor hvordan de 87 kameraene i The Callisto Protocol bidrar til å heve den filmatiske actionskrekken.