EA and Visceral Games are busy developing the latest entry of the Dead Space saga. During PAX East, the first footage of the title was shown to attendees and, frankly, it looks amazing. With more emphasis on action this time around, Dead Space 2 will be a much more action-oriented title, but it'll instill fear and terror in all those who play it. We talked with Steve Papoutsis (Executive Producer), Ian Melham (Art Director), and Rich Briggs (Producer) after their PAX panel to discuss the new features of Dead Space 2, the multiplayer, and more.
Visceral Games has talked about the Dead Space 2 multiplayer a little bit, but you haven’t discussed many of the details behind it. Do you think you can share with us some details on the multiplayer now?
Steve Papoutsis, Executive Producer: We aren’t really talking much about the Dead Space 2 multiplayer mode. What we definitely will say is that you’ll be able to strategically dismember your friends, and that we have a full dedicated group of people working on it. That’s all we can say right now, but we are going to talk about it more a little later in the year.
Will there be any online co-op for the single-player campaign?
Steve Papoutsis, Executive Producer: Can’t really say anything about that right now.
The decompressions moments of the game appear to be very intense. What other ways are you going to be able to keep the ‘zero g’ aspects of the game feeling really fresh and unique throughout Dead Space 2?
Steve Papoutsis, Executive Producer: We are looking at evolving ‘zero g’ from Dead Space in Dead Space 2, and we are doing that through a bunch of different things we are attempting to test right now. One of the things we are playing around with right now with is the ability to move freely in ‘zero g’. So rather than having it be point-to-point jumping, we are experimenting with having the player to maneuver completely around without those restrictions. As you can see, the new suit has the jets, so we are playing around with that element. We are not locked in on anything at this moment, but we are hoping that, in the neat future, we can unveil some stuff and see what people think about it.
Are there going to be a lot more ‘zero g’ moments in the game this time around? Will we be using the jets a lot in the game, and more flying segments?
Steve Papoutsis, Executive Producer: There is going to be a good number of them. I think we like the balance we had in the original game with the mix of space exploration and the ‘zero g’ elements. So, that mix that we had, I think we are going to look to kind of retain, but the things that you do in those situations are going to be pretty different.
Impaling enemies and destructible environments are new to Dead Space 2. Will these new gameplay elements play as big of a role in Dead Space 2 as the dismemberment did in Dead Space?
Steve Papoutsis, Executive Producer: Absolutely. We are really looking forward to making the environment more of a character, more of something you use strategically, and impalement is something we put a lot of effort into and we really want to make it feel satisfying and Visceral. Ian can really talk a little bit more about the environment stuff as it pertains to the mechanics, so Ian you want to chime in here on any of the environment interaction stuff?
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Ian Milham, Art Director: We are just really eager to plus that. I think it was areas from the first game that we could really blowout and do something cool, and especially when you have a setting as interesting and have as many potential options as a space station. Yeah, we are looking forward to really doing some cool stuff with it.
In regards to the strategic gameplay elements for the impaling, how will players be able to use that in a strategic sense?
Steve Papoutsis, Executive Producer: Well, one of the things we were playing around with right now is that you can actually pincushion enemies – in other words, fill them up with the impalement spikes. If they are moving around and they get next to another enemy, you can use the alternate fire to actually fry the enemy and if they are in an area of effect, they can actually fry an enemy that is adjacent to them. So, that’s one of the strategic elements that we are using.
Also, when you actually dismember enemies, you can actually now use their limbs as devices to impale enemies. There is going to be a lot of juggling – so to speak – between the actual javelin gun and the blades that the Slashers have. We are hoping that adds another whole layer of strategy for the player.
With the success of Dead Space 1, Visceral has set a pretty high bar to reach with Dead Space 2. How do you plan to surpass what you delivered in the first game and what new game developments will help you achieve that?
Steve Papoutsis, Executive Producer: A lot of the things we want to do is just evolve Dead Space 2. That isn’t like running away from the things that work. We had a lot of cool things in the first game, and we want to retain those in the second one and I think things that are going to add or enhance the experience you have already kind of touched on – the evolution of strategic dismemberment, the impalement, new take on ‘zero g’, the environments that are more interactive and reactive. I think all of those things are going to contribute and I think we have a really interesting story that, hopefully, people are really into and just some of the epic moments found within Dead Space 2 are just going to standout we hope.
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There is a lot more emphasis on action this time around. How will you be able to invoke the same sense of fear and terror as the first game did?
Rich Briggs, Producer: Like we talked about earlier in the panel, yes, there is going to be more action, but you have to think about it like a rollercoaster ride. There are going to be periods where we really want you to feel nothing but terrified or horrified. There’s no action anywhere near the scenes like that. You can also have some scenes where you are actually in high action but you are still terrified. The two are not mutually exclusive; we can amp up the action a little bit without forsaking the horror. So much of what we do comes down to horror through the environments, the audio, or the lighting. We aren’t going to walk away from any of that, and that has nothing to do with the action, so it will definitely be scary, we are definitely holding true to the fact that we are a horror game and just because Isaac is a little more capable and has a few more epic moments does not detract from that in any way.
So it won’t be Resident Evil 5 all over again?
Rich Briggs, Producer: Not at all. Not at all. We are not walking away from what makes, in our opinion, the franchise a great one.
Dead Space 2 is currently slated for release in late 2010. We should be seeing and hearing a lot more on the title during E3 this June.
