Dead Space's spiritual successor, The Callisto Protocol, was released after years in the making, but it was far from the slam dunk we had hoped for. Our review of the "charming, linear sci-fi survival horror" (opens in new tab) was quite stressful, but the bigger problem was that the game, which was released on Steam, had a serious stuttering problem (opens in new tab) for many users (now fixed, and Glenn Scofield, CEO of the developer, Striking Distance Studios, blames the "unusual error (opens in new tab)")

Performance aside, among the teams that played the game, there was also a There were some common themes. I loved "Dead Space," but I sometimes felt that the sheer oppressive nature of this game was a bit much, and while I love grisly death animations, the protagonist in this game is truly gruesome and finely and grotesquely torn apart. You can't skip past them, and some of the scenes are truly gruesome. As Fraser says, it's enough to ruin the whole experience (opens in new tab).

The new patch streamlines several elements of the game's combat system and adds the ability to skip death animations (seriously, some of them feel like they take minutes). The main adjustment in the game is faster recovery. Jacob heals by stabbing his neck, but at launch the animation was so slow that it was difficult to recover during combat.

In addition to this, weapon switching is now quicker. In short, the general atmosphere made combat just a little less stressful, suggesting that many players kept dying and then perhaps had had enough of watching Jacob slowly get chopped up into 50 different ways.

The patch notes don't go into detail, but they do say (opens in new tab): "Please take a look at the combat improvements, performance and stability fixes, localization optimizations, and general quality-of-life changes. We listen and appreciate your feedback. More to come. Striking Distance Studios also promises that further PC-specific optimizations are "in the works."