Dead Space (Series)

[WR91]

Seeing as it's now officially October, that means it's time for some horror games to be talked about. Why not start off with some Dead Space?

[Moonface]

I love Dead Space! I've only played the first two (didn't care to ever try the third one) and they're probably my favorite horror games.

[Moonface]

Dead Space Remake Announced
The sci-fi survival horror classic Dead Space returns, completely rebuilt from the ground up by Motive Studios to offer a deeper and more immersive experience. Harnessing the power of the Frostbite game engine and next generation consoles, this remake brings jaw-dropping visual fidelity and improverments to gameplay while staying true to the original. Dead Space will be available on PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

[Karo]

That trailer was really spooky and cool and I liked the lil bit of the twinkle little star dead space rendition in there just to up the creepiness factor just a wee bit.

Might be the perfect chance to try out Dead Space in this remake assuming its a good one.

[Moonface]

I love that the trailer had all the iconic things from the original game, such as the song and the "Cut off their limbs" message. I think this will be really good, and I heard that it'll be expanding a bit on the characters and such so it isn't going to be the exact same experience with a new coat of paint. I really hope that this allows the Dead Space story to be told better this time around and avoid the mistakes that happened with the series in DS3.

[ShiraNoMai]

I'm really excited and happy about this as I've never played the OGs and this is my chance! I get first dibs at the game, Moony

[Moonface]

I'm really excited and happy about this as I've never played the OGs and this is my chance! I get first dibs at the game, Moony

The chance is available to you, since I did bring the first two games with me and the series itself is always cheap to get on Steam.
I guess it depends on whether you want to be entirely blind for the remake, including the story.

[ShiraNoMai]

I wanna be blind for the remake!

Also, for those interested, the devs are doing a Livestream tomorrow showing off the early stages of the game so far.

[Moonface]

Definitely going to watch the stream. I'm not worried about being spoiled because I know the game already so I just want to see how good it's going to be and whether they're going to add more to the game or just do a literal 1:1 remake.

[ShiraNoMai]

Did you wind up watching the stream? I missed it myself (had a doc appointment) but if you did see it, what stand out moments were there?

[Moonface]

Did you wind up watching the stream? I missed it myself (had a doc appointment) but if you did see it, what stand out moments were there?

Only took me over a week to remember to reply to this...

Anyway, I did watch it, and this is the best summary I can come up with for what was shown that was notable:

• Various pre-alpha build screenshots from the stream.
  
• Concept art shown during the stream. (Corridor leading to The Bridge / the Morgue / Zero G therapy room)
  
• Isaac will speak this time (originally he was mute in the first game and only started speaking in Dead Space 2), however to avoid messing with the feel of the original game Isaac will only speak when spoken to, or in situations where it would feel weird if he remained silent. 
  
• Gunner Wright is reprising his voice role for Isaac.
  
• Isaac is actually going to make an active effort to search for Nicole in the remake, as the reason he even comes with the team to the Ishimura in the first place is to visit her.
  
• Enemies have a new damage system; you can remove the flesh from the bone of enemies (which serves as a health indicator to a particular body part) and hitting areas that are exposed bone will result in a dismemberment. The original game allowed you to strike anywhere on a limb or body part multiple times to remove it, whereas this new system requires much higher precision.
  
• Some weapons are better at flesh removal, some are better at dismemberment. Weapons will also react differently to enemies, and enemies will also react differently to different weapons.
  
• The remake is taking the base layout of the original game environments and adding enhanced levels of detail on top to keep the game as close to the original layouts where possible.
  
• Some areas will be expanded, most notably in Zero G sections.
  
• Zero G has been completely overhauled. In the original game, Isaac could only walk on surfaces and jump between them in Zero G; in the remake, it is more like Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3, allowing Isaac to fly freely within Zero G spaces.
  
• There are no more pauses between chapters or loading screens, with the intention to make the entire Ishimura a seamless experience where you can visit the entire ship. A door shown during gameplay footage featured a new lock that required a keycard to open, implying that areas you reach later in the game will now be blocked off by access cards. In the original, such locations would simply be locked and then be unlocked when that level is revisited later in the game. Access cards may also encourage backtracking to areas of the ship you normally wouldn't go back to in the original game, because otherwise the doors could all just remain locked and then magically unlock themselves when the time is right.
  

The open nature of the Ishimura seems to be similar to Prey, where you can't reach certain areas without the right cards. I expect it won't have the amount of back and forth that Prey does though, since the original only has you revisit two areas and so you would only be going back to other areas in the remake to find goodies, assuming there will be locked card doors added to areas that encourage revisits. I'd think there will be some reason to revisit areas, otherwise the seamless approach doesn't really seem necessary.

[Moonface]

Dead Space (Remake) Audio Showcases
I forgot to share this when it happened but recently the developers behind the upcoming Dead Space remake hosted another livestream where they took a very deep dive into showcasing the audio design for the game:

• Part 1 - The A.L.I.V.E. System
  
• Part 2 - Audio Occlusion
  
• Part 3 - Weapon Sound Effects Comparison
  
• Part 4 - Atmospheric Walkthrough
  

I've not watched any of it myself yet, but I'm excited to get a moment to check it out. The original game did such a good job with using audio to set an atmosphere and I bet there's tons of things that can be done nowadays to take that to the next level.

[ShiraNoMai]

Dead Space (Remake) Launches Next January



In today's Art Developer Livestream, the launch date for this remake was announced for release on January 27th, 2023!

[Moonface]

If anyone wants the notable content from the livestream video, here are the five parts that showcase the art direction for the remake:

• Creating Immersive Environments | Art Deep-Dive Part 1
  
• Amplifying Visual Effects | Art Deep-Dive Part 2
  
• Elevating Character Models | Art Deep-Dive Part 3
  
• Refining Lighting Effects | Art Deep-Dive Part 4
  
• Engine Room Atmospheric Walkthrough | Art Deep-Dive Part 5
  

I haven't watched all the parts yet, but I have checked out Part 1 and Part 5 and what they showed off was really impressive despite none of it being the final product yet. I think it's so cool to see how they construct things for the levels and how they can take a base part like a window and be able to adjust it so easily to suit different areas and levels.

Just the care shown by the dev team really makes me want to see this remake succeed on all fronts. It being a successful remake of a game I'm hyped for is just a bonus compared to it just being a success for a dev team so willing to be open like this.

[Moonface]

So it's been rather quiet on information about this game for a while, but today Motive have published the first of what will be a series of blog posts going into various aspects of the games creation process, similar to the deep-dive videos in my post above: https://www.ea.com/games/dead-space/dead...-a-classic

Here are the most interesting parts for anyone who wants a quick overview:

The story, for example, hits all the main beats and main events of the original, but we looked at the lore of the whole franchise, which is a lot wider than the original game. There was Dead Space™ 2, Dead Space™ 3, the comic books—these all added additional lore that we re-injected into the game.

Some characters who were a bit more secondary, who only appeared in audio logs, like Dr. Cross—we gave them some actual screen time. And we wanted to give a bit more background and agency to some of the characters from the cast, like Nicole. So we’re creating a whole layer of narrative side-quests that will allow you to see, for example, what happened to Nicole during the outbreak.

We’re also actually creating the entire game as one sequential shot. From the moment you start the game to the moment you end the game, there are no camera cuts or load screens—unless you die. The Ishimura is now fully interconnected, so you can walk from Point A to Point Z, visit the entire ship, and revisit locations you’ve already completed to pick up things you might have missed—that’s all new. It’s now a completely unbroken experience.

---

I knew they were expanding on some characters like Nicole, but I didn't know we were going to be seeing other characters that were originally just heard about in audio logs. I also don't recall hearing about actual side-quests before now, which will be interesting since that hasn't been a thing in this series before, and will probably be how we have reason to revisit areas of the Ishimura that in the original are only seen one time. The whole concept reminds me of Prey (2017) which will be really exciting for me if this game does match that at all.

It's a shame that if Dead Space 2 gets remade that it won't really be able to follow this more open feel, since that game is incredibly linear and offers no opportunity for returning to areas like the Ishimura does.