Visceral back on Dead Space franchise after BF: Hardline?

In an interview with Visceral Games General Manager Steve Papoutsis:

"Dead Space is near and dear to a lot of people here and has a definite place in our hearts. Right now we're currently busy with Hardline and other stuff, but it is something we want to look again at the right time."

"We're definitely very keen to continue with Dead Space at a later date."

Via: http://www.play3.de/2015/03/06/dead-...ne-fortsetzen/

Rough Google translate: https://translate.google.com/transla...-text=&act=url

Personally, I hope so! One of my favourite horror franchises despite #3 existing. Thoughts, and general Dead Space 4 discussion?

For me it's:
-Realise what made the first one awesome, maybe find another ship or a larger space station to traverse.
-Revitalise the horror, find new ways to inject that psychological horror again.
-Cut open, clumsily force in a knife or hand, and wrench out that fucking co-op mechanic, put it in a zip lock bag and bury it in the ocean, preferably down one of the fault lines. This isn't Resident Evil.
-Bring back the lonely engineer isaac rather than the pepped up soldier isaac.
-Bring back awesome suit designs, some of the ones in DS2 were epic, especially watching isaac strap in.(dat visor)
-New necromorph designs, retool dismemberment so it's actually difficult to bring one down.
-Tone down the weapon crafting so after a certain point you don't disintegrate anything in one shot
-More diverse and fucked up boss battles, these are necromorphs they must develop in more weird and horrific ways.

One of the main things that devs seem to be working hard on this gen is lighting, now that that consoles can do more(and PC can do this shit already no doubt), I expect a huge resurgence of horror games because of this. Epic horror lighting for a new horror game seems like bliss.

Didn't dead space 3 basically killed every human in the universe?

I am up for a reboot if they stick to horror formula, dead space 3 was an annoying shooting gallery with monsters instead of soldiers.I consider Isaac story finished, i'd rather they take the concept of being alone in some station or ship full of monsters and reboot it properly.

LOL well put. But I am all for good bye Dead Space. I recently played the first on Steam again and it is a great game. But come on Visceral how about something NEW!!!!

I think they should just start with a new game rather than do Dead Space again.

Isn't Visceral doing a Star Wars game after BF: Hardline?

that would suck, i really love the concept of dead space, imagine a next gen dead space 1.

They've done Hardline, that's something different :P. Also they could be doing that TPS Star Wars game, but even so. I'd still be up for either a reboot or a 4(or a real 3 lol)

I wouldn't mind a protagonist change even though Isaac himself and his voice actor were pretty awesome. As long as they keep the 'engineer' aspect of it, I'm all for it. Loved that you weren't a dude bro with a back rack full of weapons storming through the corridors but you were just this guy in a technician suit who was able to grab some EXTREMELY useful mining tools and travel through the bowels of the ship.

EA killed the franchise with the third game.

Prime example of marketers getting their hand on a product and fundamentally changing it in the most cynical manner possible.

What's funny is I remember the video diaries of either the director or the creative director assuring Dead Space fans that they weren't ruining it and that it was still scary lol. Turned out to be more Dead of Duty.

I'd very much like to see a return of the series, but done in a way that doesn't play to our expectations of what Dead Space is... If that makes any sense.

Like, Necromorphs are cool and freaky, but fighting them for three games, especially at the frequency you do in DS2 & 3, has taken away a lot of the tension from them. Something new might need to come in. But then why not just make a new Ip?

There are a lot of things they could do. As long as they look to the original as a guide, I'm interested in seeing what comes of it.

Please let it be, I love Dead Space!!!

There's definitely a lot of design fatigue. The immortal necro was pretty chilling to a certain extent but eventually got over used. A new game would definitely need some monster design re-think and re-tooling. Walking into a new game with the same would be like, hmm, BAM leg, BAM arm, STOMP, done.

It has potential, the designs are still horrific but they're just tired. The suits, the sci-fi in space aesthetics, the space physics, the weapons, the in-game UI, are all on point though. The cult was pretty damn creepy too actually. Had one of those tropes where you were trying to track and follow one of those guys who always appeared in places but, conveniently, you were in a position where you couldn't reach him for what ever reason,

would absolutely like more dead space BUT it must be like the original or even more survival like. if its like DS3, im skipping it without a doubt

Supposedly - that's why they brought on Amy Hennig from ND.

Man I would love this. Even Dead Space 3 was decent. That franchise has so much potential and depth. Hopefully BF Hardline is Visceral doing the company thing so they can do their own thing straight after.

I couldn't get into the first game. The anime short film had me geared up for a great franchise. I left disappointed.

I'd rather them not waste anymore resources.

Yea after 3 I'd rather see them work on something else, curious about their Star Wars game.

I have doubts that as soon as BFH releases they'll be starting a new project. EA is likely going to want Visceral to develop multiplayer DLC, like maps and new modes and whatnot, I worry they're going to get tied down. Oh, and lets not forget they'll probably have their hands tied dealing with post release bugs and making changes to the game for balancing issues. Plus, I think that the critical/commercial response is going to effect Visceral's leverage with EA in getting the necessary funding and freedom to choose its next project. If it's not successful, Visceral will be doing whatever EA wants them too. If it's moderately successful maybe EA will let them go back to Dead Space. If it's too successful then maybe EA won't let them go right back to Dead Space since they might think their efforts can be better utilized elsewhere.

Sure I'd like them to get working on a new Dead Space, I'd be very excited to hear that. But this statement by Visceral, it seems more diplomatic than it is telling. Maybe they really do want to go back to working on Dead Space, but maybe that isn't up to them, and they can't really say for sure whether or not that's a strong possibility. If at the very least Visceral won't be able to work on a new Dead Space game anytime soon, I'd hope that EA would at least allow them a sliver of time to port the trilogy over to the PS4/XBO in a collection, of all the games of last gen I'd like to see a collection for it'd be this and Mass Effect.

As for Star Wars Battlefronts, here's my take on that. The games are basically Battlefield in third person. Frankly I think it should be developed as a FPS/TPS mixture, maybe giving the player preference into which they prefer. But, they're very similar to Battlefield games nonetheless in the gameplay design, just that it's a Star Wars licensed game. I've a feeling DICE will be doing Battlefronts III, of all the studios poised to make the most of that then it's DICE. But surely EA is going to want to capitalize on the release of Star Wars Episode VII with a slew of Star Wars licensed titles, and maybe they'll put Visceral on one of those titles.

I've been following visceral on twitter for several years now and I'm 90% sure they hinted on Twitter at the possibility of another game about a month after the third game was released.

3 had some really cool concepts that didn't quite work out well. For everything that was super cool (huge open areas/flying in space and side missions) there were at least two things that were just ridiculously bad: Weapon creation is kinda nifty, but the weapons themselves were f'd; going back to an area you've been to before brings back all items and enemies; reusing enemies with no explanation; and pretty much all of the side missions were horribly repetitive.

Same here

One of the best new IPs from last gen, would love a next gen version.

Keep the crafting system. It was like playing a delicious mix of Dead Rising and Ratchet and Clank. Shit was good.

Good insight. For the life of me I can't even remember half of the third game to be honest, maybe the drill bit, but that's it lol.

OT: There was this fucking awesome bit in #2 which was, admittedly very cinematic, but it was when you had to get to the station in a short amount of time and you launch yourself out of this propelling machine and have to dodge giant bits of debris, crash through some hatch and use the thrusters to land. Was a like.....**** YEAH!" moment lol.

Edit: Found it!

No, we don't want to imagine any more remasters/remakes.

The Dead Space games are awesome, if they make a new one they should go back to their roots. Don't make it too actiony with too many unnecesary QTE cutscenes, but more scary. I think Carvers hallucinations in DS3 were done really well, and should do more with that.

Basically more psychological horror, which I definitely agree with! I think they should scrap the open area deal they thought would pay off, by having most of the game trapesing round blizzard covered planet, in favour of more creepy ship interiors in space.

I can't believe they managed to nail apprehension when reusing the Ishimura in the second game, the thought of having to step back in that damn ship after just playing the first game. Was awesome.

Am I the only one that thinks the second game is superior to the first by several orders of magnitude, and far and away the scariest as well?

It's only scary when you first enter and nothing happens for several minutes. The rest of it is not.

I definitely thought going back to the what is literally the entire first game was a surprisingly nice touch. "oh I'm being forced back into the place I only scraped by in surviving, do not want....."

I really hope so.

Well I'm a dead space fan myself. I bought all three games and while I thought dead space 1 and 2 was better than 3, I still like 3 a lot. (some minor spoiler below for people who haven't played the games)

Im going to start off why I think 1 is better than 2. It simply had better survival horror aspects but it was also new. I mean that's always the problem I have with sequels, If they can't add, improve and/or change a lot of new stuff it's mostly a bit less than the original. You know the saying 'new knives always cut best'

But dead space is a master piece, so it's pretty hard to screw up a sequel. It's the same with the alien movies, while alien 3 was not such a good movie , I still liked it, I mean i'm an alien fan, just like I'm a predator fan. Even every single alien vs predator movie I liked, some weren't very good at all but I just like alien and predators.

Still to me the dead space series didn't have it's aliens vs predator b-movie yet but there's defenitly some truth to what you're saying. The series didn't got any better overall, but that doesn't mean it got bad because while they screwed up some things in the sequels, they defenitely improved a lot of stuff as well.. I thought dead space 1 wasn't much better than dead space 2 because they improved a lot of stuff, like new artistic suits, better gore, new original enemies (the babies attack is just epic), new and improved space scenes (this was defenitely a plus for me), better graphics.

However , what i didn't like was the addition of cinematic gameplay and some boss battles. I rather had them put more effort in making a longer game than having all those cinematics, wether it's combined with gameplay or not. The sense of isolation was also a bit lost but they recreated it very well in a lot of levels (especially when isaac had to go back to his old ship). But it kind of screws up the atmosphere when he has those security teams after him. Still it's difficult to make a sequel for a dead space game with the same character, suddenly the main protagonist has some kind of special role, while it was a strong point in dead space 1 that isaac was just an engineer suddenly caught up in such a space horror scenario. It's like making a sequel for 2001: space odyssey.

This being said, it only made it harder to make a third series. The whole earth invasion was a bad start because there the whole survival horrror theme was totally lost. The arrival at the mother planet of the xenomorphs (or something like that) was just epic though. The space battle that happened there centuries ago created an atmosphere that fits dead space extremely well. The level with the traps was just a masterpiece. Going from ship to ship, trying to figure out what had happened was extremely well done.

It kind of held that atmosphere when going to the planet, surviving in the cold and meeting the crazies but then changes in a lot levels from survival horror to a third person horror shooter. All dead space titles have this a bit, it's a mechanic they use to build up to a sort of climax and while dead space 3 has the best boss battles in my opinion. They also have the most cinematic gameplay scenes, and the most levels where the survival horror is completely changed into horror action shooting. It's something I didn't like in dead space 2 as well and in three you get even more of that. Again, I would have liked it more if the devs put more effort in making the game longer, making nicer and more suits and so on. That's defenitely something I need to add, the suits were better dead space 2 but they gotten worse in 3 and that's kind of sad, since the suits are one of dead space's trademarks.

I think they did a very nice job on the graphics though, especially the pc version. The consoles simply didn't do the game justice, well i supposse you can say that of any dead space game (or any game for that matter lolz). As for the co op, it was a nice twist, but you're right it doesn't work very well. Again they better put their efforts somewhere else.

So for me the fourth series, it's easy, they have to go back to the roots. Lose all the cinematics, keep the epic boss battles, find some new desolate place (in space), use as much next gen graphics as possible. Make a hundred different suits. Lose the co op. Find a new protagonist, maybe even a reboot or they could also expand the universe, use a new foe but the most important is this , like i said, go back to that roots of survival space horror, it's what made the game good in the first place. Not the great cinematics, not the co op, not the evil armed force, not even the big boss battles (allthough they are a nice addition).

And bring back that saw /cutter from ds1...

Dead Space is one of those series where everybody knows they should go back to their roots but they won't because of a convoluted plot and DLC. It's the RE of the 2010s.

Going off the dlc conclusion of the 3rd game, I'd say it has to resume at some point. It leaves a cliffhanger with those moons closing in on earth or something. I don't think a 6-7 year old franchise needs a reboot.

What Visceral needs to do is stop trying to make Dead Space into RE5; lose the co-op. Make it as tense and lonely as the 1st 2 games. Also stop caving to critics, 'cause losing those necro babies and replacing them with dogs was hardly necessary.

I think Dead Space 3's less emphasis on dementia and hallucination (esp playing solo) also induced a weaker tonal shift compared to the 2nd game, and even the 1st. The dlc after only 1 hour was better than the whole original campaign I thought.

Yes

There's no boss battles in 2.

that depends on how you define it

Alright, tell me a boss in the second game.

There's a boss where you are in zero gravity with jetpack and you have to shoot off a bunch of tentalcles off of equipment and you always have to go back to this air station.

come to think of it there is also a more standard boss fight at the end of the game.

Can't say I know what you are talking about, but I actually think there's three bosses in 2 now. There's one at the end of chapter 1, another right before the Ishimura, and then the end game boss.

However, you can still add all of them together and any of the boss fights from 1 are still longer/more involved.