Motive Studio’s Dead Space remake is reportedly getting some new gameplay and details before then. Fortunately, the developer has already begun discussing a few new features. In a new post titled “Inside Dead Space,” senior producer Philippe Ducharme and creative director Roman Campos-Oriola outline the process of remaking the original.
The duo spoke about injecting the lore of the sequels and comic books into the remake. It also added a “whole layer” of narrative side-quests for secondary characters like Nicole. Roman further confirmed that every asset, from the animations, textures, and effects to enemy behavior, has been rebuilt in Frostbite. But along with no loading screens, the entire game is experienced as “one sequential shot,” as per Philippe.
“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.”
As for the zero-G movement, it now provides more 360-degree freedom. “How you move around in zero-G is also something we felt we could improve in terms of experience and immersion,” says Roman. “So there’s much more 360-degree freedom; now when you play Dead Space you feel like you’re in space. This also allows us to revisit some of the old content and create new ways to navigate, new paths, and new environments with new challenges.”
The new dismemberment system discussed last year in August is also coming along nicely. “The ‘peeling’ and dismemberment system we have now is cool, and it adds quite a bit to our gameplay; it feels more dynamic, more strategic,” says project technical director David Robillard.
A Necromorph’s skin and flesh are ripped off upon shooting them, exposing the bones. “And then you can cut the bones, and it cuts the limb, and so on,” notes Roman. “It looks amazing – but it also gives direct feedback to the player about the amount of damage they’re doing.” A lot is also being done with volumetric effects like fog and “how that plays with everything: with our shadowing, with our lighting, and also with our physics. We would not have been able to push that at the same level before.”
At the end of the day, the team wants to stay true to the experience while also “giving you a lot more. The goal was to make you feel like you’re experiencing Dead Space again for the first time if you were already a fan of the game. But we also have the chance to give people who never played it the opportunity to have the definitive Dead Space experience, with a game that plays, that looks, that sounds like a modern game,” says Roman.
Dead Space remake is out on January 27th, 2023, for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.
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