How long is The Callisto Protocol? Main story length & time to beat

Andrew Highton
overhead bridge in the callisto protocol

The Callisto Protocol is a moderately-sized horror title from Striking Distance Studios, but how long exactly can you expect to spend your time with the space horrors?

Horror games are alive as ever in the last couple of years, with the likes of The Callisto Protocol, the Dead Space remake, and Resident Evil 4 also making a comeback earlier in 2023.

But it’s The Callisto Protocol that begs the most questions as it’s a new face in the celebrated genre. We’ve praised the title saying that it’s an “all-time horror masterpiece” and that it captures the essence of its most infamous genre predecessors.

But the issue of game length is a factor in modern games now with some games outstaying their welcome, and others not giving enough value for money, so how does The Callisto Protocol fare?

jacob lee fighting an enemy robot in the callisto protocol

The Callisto Protocol campaign length

We can confirm that our first playthrough of The Callisto Protocol in the middle of the game’s three difficulty levels took us over 13 hours to complete.

This is completely in line with Striking Distance Studio’s claims that a standard run of the game can be expected to take 12-14 hours – depending on your playstyle.

If you rigidly stick to the main path and don’t really explore, then you might expect to shave an hour or so off of this total. We did not and made sure to find all the hidden extras we could find, going off the beaten path, and generally admiring the game’s visuals and efforts.

Additionally, if you opt to do your first playthrough on the easiest difficulty, then you can expect to take less time to complete the game as you will die less frequently and be able to whip around the game faster.

If you play the game on Maximum Security difficulty though, then it’s going to be a much tougher experience with more deaths and more perfection required to see it through to its end.

So, there you have it, that’s everything you need to know about The Callisto Protocol campaign length. Be sure to check out the runtime of some other major games below:

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About The Author

Andrew Highton is a former Games Writer for Dexerto. He has a Creative Writing degree from Liverpool John Moores University and has previously written for games websites such as Twinfinite and Keengamer. With 13,000+ PlayStation Trophies to his name, Andrew is a fan of a huge variety of video games, his favourites being God of War and Metal Gear Solid. Contact him at andrew.highton@dexerto.com, on Twitter @AndyHighton8 or at www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-highton.