Ever since its unveiling in 2020, Dead Space creator Glen Schofield’s sci-fi horror The Callisto Protocol has conjured images of Dead Space, so it was a bit of a surprise when, due to various studio connections, it was announced the game would be set in the PUBG Universe. That, however, is no longer the case, with Schofield now saying it’s its “own story and world”.

The Callisto Protocol is a third-person horror game set in 2320, with its action unfolding within the confines of the Black Iron prison colony on Jupiter’s moon Callisto. While that set-up mightn’t immediately scream PUBG to onlookers, the connection came from the fact developer Striking Distance was explicitly established by PUBG: Battlegrounds publisher Krafton to create narrative-driven games that would expand the universe introduced in the battle royale hit.

As Schofield explained in a recent GameInformer cover feature on The Callisto Protocol, “When we came in, [Krafton] had a lore team and they were writing this big story, like, ‘Where does PUBG start? Where does it fit in?'”. Had those plans continued, the horror game would have sat “pretty far out” along the timeline, but somewhere during development the idea was dropped.

In a post to Twitter Schofield revealed that while The Callisto Protocol “was originally part of the PUBG timeline, [it] grew into its own world.” Expanding on that in conversation with GameInformer, he added, “The idea of us being in the universe at first sound really good, and then as you start coming up with your story we realised, ‘Wow, this is a little out there.'”

“PUBG is awesome, and we will still have little surprises for fans,” Schofield continued in his tweet, “but TCP is its own world, story and universe.”

The Callisto Protocol, now shorn of any PUBG connections, is expected to launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC later this year.