After announcing the new version of Dead Space during EA Play Live, EA shared more details about the leadership team working on the game and more about what to expect. The developers also talked about sticking with the vision of the original game, but also cutting out some of the elements that should get you started.
The game’s lead producer is Philippe Ducharme, who spent nearly seven years with EA from 2003-2010 before moving to Ubisoft where he was a producer on Watch Dogs Legion. He returned to EA in August 2020. Roman Campos Oriola is the Creative Director of Dead Space. He worked at Ubisoft from 2005 to 2020, and was the Game Director for For Honor. The Artistic Director of the new Dead Space game is Mike Yazijian, who held the same title in Dead Space 2. He left EA in 2011 to join Warner Bros. He worked on Batman: Arkham Origins before returning to EA in 2018 where he was Artistic Director on Star Wars: Squadrons.
Yazygian said he was able to find his old notebooks from Dead Space 2, and this “has come in handy, and sees all the notes,” he said in Interview on EA’s website.
“We have concept art, visual guidelines, source materials, notes about the conversations we’ve had with them, the knowledge they’ve gained – it’s all here. Everything goes into this game,” he said.
Also in the interview, EA clarified that the new Dead Space is not a reboot or reboot. It’s a new version where “everything” has been rebuilt from the ground up, running on a new engine, Frostbite. EA says the remake will be “respectful” of the original.
“It was completely rebuilt in Frostbite,” Campos Oriola said. “With all new assets, new character models, new environments – although we base those on the original designs. There are new parts, new props, new collision models, etc. We’re rebuilding everything from scratch, but we’re keeping the same story.” The same structure.
Ducharme added that the new Dead Space – which won’t be available on PS4 and Xbox One – will have better volumetric effects. “Instead of just having sprites, you can really feel the depth of the room, the thickness of the air,” he said. “We play with shadows, with dynamic lighting, so it not only creates the mood and atmosphere, but also affects the gameplay, because the player has the ability to control the lighting in certain areas of the ship.
In terms of audio, Ducharme said the team is “working to improve the experience and deliver reliable audio that’s focused on that.”[es] On the locations of objects and the spread of 3D sounds. “
Campos-Oriola went on to mention that the new SSD drives in PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles | S allows the game to “load and unload very quickly”. It looks like there won’t be any loading screens.
“Our intention is to offer a completely uninterrupted experience that will be a sequential snapshot, from the start screen to the credit end, without interruption,” the developer said.
Ducharme added, “The goal we gave to the whole team was to have the players pick up the console and completely lose time. Like, they play through the whole experience without neglecting the console. This is how we want our game to be immersive, for people to go deep into the action and not even go out Credits expire.
As for how the Dead Space remake is different from the original, Yazijian said the studio will “get rid of some things that don’t work,” though he didn’t give any details. But overall, the goal is to follow the story, art direction, and “everything else” out of respect for the original game.
To help make sure the new Dead Space doesn’t stray from what fans want, Campos-Oriola said EA invited some community members to provide feedback on the game after just two months of development. “We want to treat franchising with great care and respect, so we want to make sure that the things we do get home with our community,” Campos Oriola said.
The new Dead Space release will likely be out of release for a long time. In the meantime, you can play Dead Space 1-3, along with the episodic Ignition, now on Xbox Game Pass and EA Play. The new Dead Space game will not contain any microtransactions.
If you missed EA Play 2021 Live, go ahead and check out our summary of the show. Alongside the reveal of the Dead Space remake, we’ve also seen the announcement of the new Battlefield Portal mode in Battlefield 2042, which brings different armies through time together in large-scale battles, along with Lost in Random’s showcase in turn-based combat RPG.