When game publisher Electronic Arts made the controversial decision to shutter Visceral Games late last year, many fans were upset partially because it meant Visceral’s in-development Star Wars game would be heavily reworked, but also because it meant that there will likely never be another entry in the Dead Space series. That latter realization is an especially bitter pill to swallow when you hear about how Visceral wanted to approach a potential Dead Space 4.
In a recent interview with Eurogamer, former Visceral creative director Ben Wanat, who now serves as a creative director at Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics, talked at length about how the studio would have handled a fourth Dead Space game. Specifically, the fourth game would have expanded on a concept that was teased in the ‘Lost Flotilla’ chapter of Dead Space 3, tasking the player with travelling to and exploring a variety of different ships in a more open, non-linear gameplay format:
“The flotilla section in Dead Space 3 hinted at what non-linear gameplay could be, and I would have loved to go a lot deeper into that. Imagine an entire roster of ship types, each with unique purposes, floor plans, and gameplay. Our original prototypes for the Dead Space 3 flotilla had some pretty wild setups that I wish we had been able to use.”
Even more interestingly, Dead Space 4 likely wouldn’t have starred Isaac Clarke, the playable protagonist of the first three games. Visceral never reached a point where a new protagonist was finalized, but Wanat said that he would have loved to see Ellie, one of the fan-favorite side-characters from Dead Space 3, as the new main character.
The full interview is definitely worth a read, and if you’re interested in other sci-fi gaming news, be sure to read about CD Projekt Red’s new Cyberpunk 2077 Cyberware blog post, or the new intelligent delivery options for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.