Dead Space 3 - What we want from Visceral's Dead Space sequel
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Dead Space 3: Dread Harder
Rumblings are about that we may only be a few weeks away from the announcement of a new Dead Space, and that the game's release might be less than a year away. This is fantastic news - its been too long since we've blown the arms off a flailing, screaming monster.
As usual, these rumors got us thinking about all of the things we want from the next game in one of this generation's best franchises...
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It should go outdoors more often
The last two Dead Space games focused mostly on incredibly creepy interiors. The first game had us fighting back an alien swarm on the USG Ishimura, and the sequel brought things to a much larger location in The Sprawl space colony. While we agree that there should be a fair amount of skulking around dark interiors, we believe it’s time we explored the outside a bit more.
Rumors have Dead Space sporting a snowy, icy location, and we sincerely hope that’s true. Guiding Clarke as he explores a colony located on a frozen planet would be wonderful, and it gives Visceral Games even more excuses to throw The Thing references into its survival horror game. As if they needed more.
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We should continue to experience Isaac Clarke's mental breakdown
Poor Isaac. The engineer took to the Ishimura to save his girlfriend, and... yeah. It didn't go well. Since the events of the first game, Clarke's sanity has been slipping further and further away, and that slip should continue.
Clark is one of gaming's best unreliable narrators. His loose sanity makes the already frightening moments of Dead Space all the more scary. While we feel bad to see the guy lose all sense of reality, it's something different, and we hope it only gets worse for the poor sap.
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Let us destroy the environments
Dead Space is all about strategic dismemberment, and what is a destructible environment if not strategic dismemberment of… the environment? Taking down necromorphs by collapsing rooms on them would totally make sense (as long as, y'know, the game didn’t take place in a space station), and be a nice workaround to needing to shoot everything’s legs off. It would even mesh well with the series' mechanics - holding an enemy in place with a Stasis, only to shoot a chunk of wall into them, would be awesome.
Not to mention how scary it would be to have enemies take advantage of the destructible objects, too. Hiding behind a doorway only to have a necromorph rip through it would be horrifying, and knowing that literally no hiding spot is safe would make the already tense situations all the more disturbing.
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Bring the frights
Both Dead Space games had tense, frightening sections, and we’d love to see this taken even further in the sequel. Go ahead, Visceral – we can take it. Have more things bursting out of walls, and give us more disgusting monsters.
It’s also time to start using what we know about the Dead Space universe against us. This is the third entry in the horror series, and it’s time for it to get a little big meta. Start having creatures that blatantly disobey the rules of the franchise, and monsters that make us doubt everything we know about Dead Space.
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It should include more upgradable suits
Generally, game characters remain in their standard costumes from the beginning until the end of the game. There might be one or two wardrobe changes, but oftentimes they're strictly cosmetic. In the Dead Space series, different armors actually make a difference, and that's something that should be expanded in the sequel.
Maybe it's time we get to upgrade specific parts of the armor? Maybe we want to get a new, more powerful chest piece, but we want to keep our old helmet? Being able to swap out parts of our armor might make us look like a mishmash of styles, but it would definitely be cool, and help us customize Clarke as we see fit.
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Even more zero-gravity stuff
The original Dead Space had interesting, albeit one-note zero-g sequences. With the sequel, Visceral Games took the zero-gravity segments to another level, letting Isaac float around at his leisure, which made for awesome puzzle solving and even cooler combat.
With Dead Space 3, we want to see this expanded even further. Let's have some neat no-gravity boss battles. Let's have even more low-grav puzzles. Let's play an entire level based around - not inside - a space station. Very, very few games have ever managed to pull off zero-g successfully, so run with it.
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Include some sort of co-op mode
Fighting in human versus necromorph battles in Dead Space 2’s multiplayer was a nice novelty, but it was never going to take off – it couldn’t have. That said, we don’t think Dead Space 3 should abandon multiplayer altogether. Instead, it should give players a co-op side campaign with a few repeatable missions that take place before the game starts. Drop us in the suits of nameless, faceless soldiers experiencing the disturbing aliens for the first time – and let us blow them away.
We’re thinking it could essentially be like the co-op in Uncharted, except, obviously, with more horrible aliens. Competitive multiplayer in the Dead Space formula technically works, but it feels more forced than a 2-3 hour prequel campaign would.
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There should be a Wii U version
There's a good chance that Dead Space 3 will be coming out after Nintendo's next console, and if that's the case, we think EA should make sure the game releases on the tablet/console hybrid.
The game's streamlined, in-game UI would look great on the Wii U tablet's screen, and being able to swipe through weapons and items on a touchscreen would give us an even more visceral connection to the game world. Plus, they could totally do some cool stuff with it, like having the occasional necromorph pop up on the screen in the middle of doing something. Cheap scare? Yeah, but it would be awesome.
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What other horrors should Isaac Clarke be put through?
Zero gravity fighting, psychopathy, insanity... we have a long list of wants from Dead Space 3. What about you? Are there any things you want to see from the next Dead Space that we didn't list? If so, toss them in the comments below - we'd love to hear your opinion.
And if you want to see more futuristic wish lists, check out what we want from The Elder Scrolls: Online and what we want from Resident Evil 6 .
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metalgatesolid - May 12, 2012 3:17 p.m.
Id love to think that all of this is in Isaac's head. Dead Space Extraction refferenced this with the first level so to think that we have been taking out cilivians/security that Isaac's warpped mind has turned into aliens would be a great retropsective angle -
familiarrealms - May 11, 2012 4:42 a.m.
Nothing scarier than necromorphs with regenrating limbs. -
gilgamesh310 - May 11, 2012 3:18 a.m.
I really don't get the point in these what we want lists. GR just end up constantly humiliating themselves when the content inevitably turns out different to 'what they want'. The funniest had to be the what we want from God of War 4, when what GoW Ascension actually contained was released a day after they made the list. -
jiodjflak - May 9, 2012 4:31 a.m.
Those zero-g parts were pretty cool, but I thought they were a bit clumsy at times. I wouldn't want to have to fight with the controls in the middle of a boss fight. I don't think zero-g sequences would make too much sense when the game takes place on a planet anyway. -
bass88 - May 9, 2012 2:36 a.m.
I really wish they would explore the concept and origins of the Marker a bit more. Dead Space has one of the best hard sci-fi setups in years and Visceral don't seem that interested in it. Seriously, what made the Marker and why? It's a blueprint for evolution so whatever made it is responsible for us. Did it make us first and then unleash a second Marker to create the ultimate weapon? Or did we accidently stumble upon it and bring it on ourselves? Are the creators of the Marker benevolent or corrupted by their own power? Are we another attempt at creating a perfect specimen that failed so they unleashed the Marker to destroy us? Are they planning an invasion and the Marker is designed to wipe us out? Or are so beneath them that we are mere lab mice? That's a load of goodness to explore but the games are more interested in "Bang, bang! Pew, pew!" than following up these questions (ok, Dead Space: Extraction made a bit more effort). I'm not bashing the games - they are great fun. I just think if they dropped a lot of the action in favour of exploration (i.e. along the lines on Metroid Prime) we could end up the one of the greatest, harrowing sci-fi horror to grace the medium. -
NanoElite666 - May 8, 2012 10:55 p.m.
Take it to Earth. Unleash a necromorph outbreak and make an absolute mess out of our home planet. And then we have to go and dismember the living shit out of several billion people. Also, give us another person or two getting turned into necromorphs while they're no more than six inches from our faces. That scene right at the beginning of Dead Space 2 was wonderfully done. -
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forestfire55 - May 8, 2012 6:19 p.m.
Random encounters sound nice, after a while youget an idea where the necros are, more mystery too, maby a couple missions where you (and isac) dont exactly know whats going on or what to do... -
Z-man427 - May 8, 2012 5:01 p.m.
I'm all for the scares, but (I don't know how feasible this would be) on replays or retreads after deaths, the scares are kind of predictable. If it were possible to have the necromorphs and all that to jump out at different places on multiple playthroughs, that would add a lot to it. If you're replaying the game and you're braced for a necromorph or a tenticle to come out and it doesn't you let your guard down a little bit. Just after that would be when it hits you. Or it happens before you start to prepare for it. I don't mean totally random. I just mean that instead of the scares happening at a certain point, they could happen anywhere within a larger predetermined area. Does that sound good or completely stupid? -
ThundaGawd - May 8, 2012 5:25 p.m.
It sounds awesome to me O.o. The "Lost in Nightmares" DLC for Resident Evil 5 had the enemies spawn in randomized areas, much like what you're explaining. It wasn't completely random, it just had a LOT of areas it could happen in, and every playthrough had the enemies spawn in a different pattern, so you could never really prepare yourself until maybe the 3rd-ish playthrough, it also managed to make the fairly action-oriented RE5 actually scary the first couple of times. So if they could improve on that and integrate it into Dead Space 3, it would be absolutely awesome :D -
ZhugeLiang - May 8, 2012 4:52 p.m.
Could they turn the music down in Dead Space 3, maybe? The only thing I remember from playing Dead Space 1 and 2 was going deaf everytime an enemy appeared -
shneepsh - May 8, 2012 4:23 p.m.
Really great ideas, I hope most of them end up being in the game. I wonder if Ellie is going to return from the second game. I really hope she does, because I really liked her character and I felt like Isaac's storyline with Nicole had good closure and shouldn't come back. If Isaac ends up being as crazy as people are saying he'll be, then having a friendly, familiar face who slowly starts to become evil or something would be interesting, because we wouldn't know if it's her changing or just Isaac projecting his craziness onto her. And it'll raise the stakes not to have a new disposable cast every game, but someone you've invested so much time into keeping alive. -
Braken67 - May 8, 2012 3:49 p.m.
I think it would be awesome if he had a double personality or something like that( I'm thinking two-face from arkham city in the initial scene where he ends up saying "screw justice", something like that +or-). Imagine Issac so insane and crazy that he takes a javeline with his hands and stabs a necromorph until it's dead, killng necromorphs and realizing that they were people, leaving the gun aside and try to rip a necro's limbs off with this hands and more stuff you wouldn't dare do haha. co-op is a no go and I don't think multiplayer would be good in these types of games and make less necromorphs appear to build up tension and let the mind do the scaring part. have different necromorphs appear from the start, necromorphs that you dont know how to kill or maybe one that only needs specific limbs to be dismembered ( kind of like regenerators from Resident Evil 4). let me be able to customize issac's suit as I see fit and to go with my play style and have less stupid looking suits. I think it would be awesome if I could choose color and size and parts of the suit. paint some flames in maybe? xD. have an open world and have a balance between being inside with creepyness and tight corridors and an open field more focused on action. let me take advantage and destroy the environment. have necromorphs sneak or do wierd stuff. I think this would make a perfect Dead Space game. -
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slimjim441 - May 8, 2012 3:37 p.m.
*SPOILER* The ending of Dead Space 2 revealing countless more Markers was (most likely) a horrible move on Visceral's part. I can't see the story going farther than the Halo standard now, with the whole 'there were more haloes that we didn't want to use all at once because we couldn't have made more games.' The whole twist could be redeemed though. It wasn't all bad; it reminded me of the deception theme in Aliens a lot (never trust the big corporations), so I guess we'll have to see where it goes. I know the series isn't entirely story-dependant, but I think a poor direction choice could drastically affect the quality of the game... which kinda makes it story-dependant. At least, that's what I want from DS3. And LOTS of necromorph dismemberment. -
BladedFalcon - May 8, 2012 3:33 p.m.
Asking for more frights and horror, and then asking for co-op is quite the Oxymoron. Also, I disagree with the idea that shoving more monsters bursting off walls would actually make the game scarier, it would actually make it less so by making such moments more commonplace. Want to make the game scary? have less insane powerful weapons and monsters, and have more resource management and psychological horror. The main reason why Dead Space hasn't really done anything more than getting me tense, it's because I never really feel vulnerable, not with a sawblade that can chop off the limbs of anything that comes my way in seconds. And the franchise's never been too subtle with their attempts at horror, so that makes it less scary. In short, make it less like resident evil, and more like eternal darkness, or Fatal Frame. -
GR HollanderCooper - May 8, 2012 3:39 p.m.
I want a separate co-op story, not the story with co-op. I essentially want a Left 4 Dead style mode to compliment the singleplayer. -
BladedFalcon - May 8, 2012 4:12 p.m.
That sounds more fair enough. Still wouldn't play it, but can't deny it'd fit better than DS2's multiplayer. -
asspills - May 9, 2012 4:55 p.m.
A story campaign for co op would be ideal, sort of like Splinter Cells co op has been. But I'd be totally fine with just a loosely story justified L4D Survival Run or even a Base Defense mode. I'd like to think that atleast SOME of the other people fighting Necromorphs did alright against them. Hey! Maybe a couple even fought their way out!
Clovin64 - May 13, 2012 1:55 p.m.