EA could be planning to revive a popular survival horror series in the near future.
Created by now-defunct studio Visceral Games, the original Dead Space and its first sequel (the third game marked a drastic tonal diversion from its predecessors) are often regarded as some of the finest additions to the genre, not least for its truly nightmarish antagonists, the Necromorph. Isaac Clarke, an engineer tasked with answering a distress call by the USG Ishimura in the far reaches of space, quickly discovers most of the crew dead and transformed into hideous mockeries of their former selves.
Noted for borrowing heavily from Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise in a thematic sense, Visceral’s next installment upped the ante considerably with even more cleverly crafted scares and body horror sequences aplenty, though would ultimately fail to follow up the middle child with a triumphant trilogy-making threequel.
While a direct continuation of Clarke’s story, Dead Space 3 would eschew much of its horror roots in favor of action, introducing co-op and microtransactions in the process. EA has been majorly blamed for this drastic and sudden change in tone and direction, which inevitably led to poor sales and the series being put on indefinite hiatus.
According to comments made by GamesBeat’s Jeff Grubb, however, there could be light at the end of the tunnel for this once-revered IP. Grubb says the company has plans to reveal a new game in development by EA Motive – the same folks responsible for Star Wars: Squadrons. The studio is known to be working on an unannounced project behind closed doors, and a supposed Dead Space 4 is high on many fans’ wish lists.
All conjecture at this point, of course, but you can tune in with the hopes of getting some concrete answers during EA Play next month, July 22nd.