Dead Space Remake Devs Release First Behind The Scenes Blog Post
Motive Studio, the developers behind the upcoming Dead Space (2023) remake, recently released their first blog post regarding the behind-the-scenes development of Dead Space: Inside Dead Space #1: Remaking a Classic. Senior Producer Philippe Ducharme, Creative Director Roman Campos-Oriola, and Project Technical Director David Robillard all threw in their two cents and discussed what they considered the key features of recreating a classic.
Part one of the blog concerns staying true to the original, with Philippe Ducharme starting out by saying, “first, we honour the legacy.” The team then goes on to reveal their meetings and discussions with “diehard fans” and other members of the Dead Space community; getting their thoughts and allowing them to guide early development decisions. “We have our opinions, but that doesn’t mean we’re right,” says Philippe. “There were a number of polarising topics we wanted to get a gut-check on, so we gathered feedback from these groups to make informed decisions.”
The next section of the blog discusses expansion and improvements. The team confirms that the story will have all the same recognisable beats featured in the original, however, what they have also managed to do this time around is add in more lore. There has been a rather large collection of Dead Space-related media released since the first game arrived back in 2008, including comics, books, movies, and plenty more games, and Motive has re-injected some of that lore back into this remake, to help better connect it to the world of Dead Space. “We wanted to make it fit better in the overall story and lore of the Dead Space universe that evolved after the first one,” Roman says. “As an example, Isaac has a voice here, just like in Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3. And some characters who were a bit more secondary, who only appeared in audio logs, like Dr. Cross — we gave them some actual screen time. And we wanted to give a bit more background and agency to some of the characters from the cast, like Nicole. So we’re creating a whole layer of narrative side-quests that will allow you to see, for example, what happened to Nicole during the outbreak.”
The team also dip into technical and gameplay aspects that have been improved in the remake including more freedom in the zero gravity sections, the implementation of superior lighting technology, and improved dismemberment visuals.
Closing up the post in part three, EA and Motive continue to hammer home that the remake will remain faithful to the original. “It was an amazing game,” Philippe says. “And I’m still excited to play it now, with our version. That’s something I know is going to resonate with players today. And I can’t wait for the gaming community to experience that for themselves.”
There was no indication as to when the next blog post would appear, but Dead Space is due to release on the 27th of January 2023, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
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