Callisto Protocol & gamma waves
[Warning: Spoilers Ahead for The Callisto Protocol]
“Death” as a topic can often be uncomfortable to tackle. As a species, we have actively developed our civilization and social structure around the avoidance of it. And why not? We are intelligent enough animals to understand the obvious mortality associated with simply being alive. This rejection of “death” has actually expanded the average human’s life expectancy, mainly through scientific achievements of the past couple of centuries. This is why it’s often humorous to hear about the latest “eternal youth” trend in the media. But that’s also part of human arrogance—believing there are “easy” ways to avoid the grim reaper, when it has taken literally centuries for the average person to live past 40. Again, that’s likely a byproduct of our minds determined to beat death. Understanding consciousness and death is truly a “wild frontier” that many brave scientists are trying to learn more about. To my surprise, the 2022 survival horror game The Callisto Protocol tackled some interesting concepts on what happens to the mind during death.
It’s not uncommon to hear about near-death experiences that describe a “white light,” a flash of memories, or even the presence of lost loved ones. Some who have even died (briefly) and returned have described going to “heaven.” Many have taken the consistency of these events as a correlation with the existence of an afterlife. And to be fair, I don’t know better. There could very much be an afterlife for human consciousness. While I’m not a religious person, neither am I a scientist, so I remain on the fence about it all (spoken like a true agnostic). With that said, I find all topics associated with human consciousness truly fascinating. And that leads me to Gamma Waves.
According to Google AI, Gamma Waves are “neural oscillations that occur when nerve cells work together.” Essentially, every time you are doing something that puts you into deep thought, your brain is emitting Gamma Waves. They are super common and a marvel of what our brains are capable of. However, there’s a particular phenomenon around Gamma Waves and death. Many scientific studies have discovered large bursts of these waves during the process of dying. These waves can even continue after your heart stops beating (but not indefinitely). Many have theorized that this is the reason for some of the near-death experiences I described previously. In other words, our brains may be responsible for the “light at the end of the tunnel.”
If you’re thinking Gamma Waves at death feel counterintuitive to the act itself, well, you’re not wrong. That was my first impression when researching this topic. But as a non-expert with an inquisitive mind, I quickly discovered an endless supply of research and articles written by people determined to understand the human brain. And the reality is that we don’t fully understand it. Even after centuries of researching it, we are still uncovering remarkable things. In simple terms, our brain has mechanisms in place to protect us. Fear, pain, and anxiety can feel so hard to control for many of us because it’s simply not something we truly can control. We are wired to feel those things in order to keep us safe from whatever perceived danger.
The Callisto Protocol is your standard sci-fi horror game, in which the inquisitive minds of humans bite more than they can chew, leading to disaster. In this case, a prison is built on top of a colony that discovered a species of alien entities with DNA that could trigger more human evolutionary potential. Obviously, that all goes wrong, and you end up with explosions, monsters, and mad scientists.
At the heart of the game is Jacob, our hero and the playable character. The story is told through his perspective—a simple “blue-collar” man doing his job who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Through him, we meet several characters, both victims and culprits, involved in one big web of scientific mischief. If any of this sounds familiar, that’s because these story tropes are not exactly “new.” They’ve been a part of storytelling since the first true sci-fi horror was written by Mary Shelley back in 1818, where she introduced us to what is probably the most iconic “mad” scientist in the form of Frankenstein. Since then, many different stories have tackled the concept of “science gone wrong.”
What makes The Callisto Protocol special is how the game developers decided to conclude the story. The main campaign ends with a big cliffhanger, where Jacob sacrifices his escape to help a friend. Before the credits roll, Jacob’s fate is left “up in the air” as both explosions and monsters quickly approach all around him. Almost a year after the initial release, we got the first and only story DLC, known as “The Final Transmission.” This is where we get the answers that the initial ending left us with.
The Final Transmission starts exactly where we left Jacob: on a tower about to fall apart, with monsters crawling from all over the place. For the next few hours, against all odds, and with the help of a former ally (more about that soon), we embark on an intense journey with Jacob to find a different escape from the nightmare. In this new chapter of the story, the player is put through almost a “greatest hits” of what The Callisto Protocol had to offer. You’ll find plenty of monsters, weapons, and set pieces to engage with. In this new chapter, we also discover a twist: the formerly allied character Dr. Mahler is not nearly as good as she claims. She is actually the true antagonist of the story, and it all culminates in a big boss fight with Dr. Mahler, who has mutated herself into a monster. Literally, she becomes a mad scientist. Jacob overcomes her and finds his way out of the nightmare. And just like that, we have a story of good overcoming evil… or do we?
Shortly after defeating the monstrous Dr. Mahler, we get the actual twist of the story: Jacob has been hallucinating everything about the DLC. Factually, he was mortally wounded at the end of the original campaign. What remains of him is rescued by Dr. Mahler, who manages to keep him alive long enough to collect his final thoughts as evidence to bring down those responsible for all the nightmare.
Everything we did as Jacob in The Final Transmission was simply the Gamma Waves of a dying man. For him, it was clearly overcoming all odds and beating the nightmare around him that provided him comfort. And that’s really what Gamma Waves at death do for the mind—they provide comfort of some kind to those who are breathing their last breaths. It’s one last thing our brains do to keep us safe.
This particular twist is one of my favorite moments in a horror game in recent memory. Naturally, a lot of people were unhappy with the twist. Many gamers simply don’t like to see their “hero characters” die. In many ways, it feels like a failure to them, and that’s understandable. But Jacob is far from one, and his ending is truly something that should be appreciated. It was both original and thought-provoking, with deeper meaning than many realized.