The rumors were correct: EA is working on a remake of the horror classic Dead Space. What players can expect, the developers indicate with a short teaser video at the latest EA Play event. Shown is a pretty scary environment for next-gen hardware that was created with the Frostbite engine.
That's why Dead Space was good
Dead Space came out of nowhere in 2008 and delivered gripping sci-fi horror. In the game, the technician Isaac Clarke is stranded on the drifting mining spaceship USG Ishimura. The initial rescue mission quickly turns out to be a struggle for bare survival, because the crew, mutated into necromorphs, fights against the newcomers with all possible means.
There is a lot of tension between the struggle for survival, research into the causes and the search for Clarke's girlfriend who serves on the Ishimura. This is exacerbated by the fact that Clarke is not and will not be a soldier, but as a technician has to defend himself in another way.
next-gen implementation
Since Visceral Games was closed after an ambitious Star Wars action game was discontinued, the remake was not created by its fathers. EA Motive (Star Wars: Squadrons) is responsible for the development.
The use of the Frostbite engine promises contemporary graphics, which EA advertises in the feature set. The platforms provide a further indication of the level of technical implementation. The remake is being made for the PC as well as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S | X. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are left out. As a result, the lowest common denominator in hardware is shifted to more powerful areas that lead to more beautiful worlds.
How much the game is based on the original is unclear. Story, characters, mechanics “and more” should be “improved”. The “struggle for survival” is spoken of explicitly – the survival orientation is therefore retained. This point is important: EA made the horror game with Dead Space 2 and 3 gradually more action-heavy in the hope of higher sales, but with the dilution it produced increasingly weaker games. There is no release date for the remake yet. Since only a short teaser has been shown so far, the game will probably be released towards the end of 2022.