The first Dead Space became an instant cult classic survival horror game, and a sequel was inevitable. EA owned developer Visceral Games certainly enjoyed creating the title, and would love to make more Dead Space titles – they’ve already got plenty of plans for the series – but as far as EA is concerned, it all hinges on the success of Dead Space 2.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Visceral Games’ executive producer Steve Papoutsis said: “We’ve mapped out where we’d like to go with it. Not at a super high level of detail. But, for instance, we’ve just released our novel, Martyr. We’ve talked about the inception of the Unitology religion.”
“We’ve thought about it all. But ultimately, just like with Dead Space 2, we have to have the support from the players in order to do it. Hopefully the game comes out, people like it, it has critical support, and a lot of people buy it. And then we’ll get an opportunity to do another one,” continued Papoutsis.
“Nobody’s going to just let you go and do another game just because. You have to have the people that are interested in it. That was what was great about Dead Space 2. There was such an outpouring of support that it was easy for us to get [EA] behind it and give us the opportunity to make it,” Papoutsis explained.
“Games are complex and expensive. It really helps when you’ve got a lot of people who are excited and supportive of what you’re doing. We can do great things when that happens. But when there isn’t an outpouring of support it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do that. We’re working really hard to make sure [Dead Space 2 is] better so we get a chance to do Dead Space 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 20,” said Papoutsis.
So, as long as gamers keep lapping up Dead Space titles, Visceral Games is committed to pumping them out. Papoutsis thinks that a string of sequels is pretty much guaranteed based on current fan feedback: “The fact that so many people care about what we’re making – we’ve all been making games for years. It doesn’t happen often where you get this level of support. I worked on a lot of different games. This is probably the most support I’ve ever seen for a franchise I’ve been on. So it’s pretty cool.”
Papoutsis also touched on the merits and pitfalls of open-world development, suggesting that future plans for the Dead Space series will probably remain firmly in the linear story-telling and level design form.
“When we think about Dead Space we think of a very story driven experience. Generally speaking an open world doesn’t lend itself to that. What we’re good at is that crafted progression you’re seeing currently when we demonstrate Dead Space 2 and what you’ve seen in Dead Space.”
Dead Space 2 will be making its way to PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 towards the end of January 2011.
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