Last week, EA confirmed that the rumoured Dead Space remake from EA Motive was real. The company gave us a little teaser trailer for the remake that can send shivers down the spine of the hardest of hardcore horror fans. It’s breathtaking, and I for one am incredibly excited by it. The news that this remake is real adds credence to a lot of other rumours we’ve heard, but I think it’s just important to recognize that EA realises that it did a bad thing with Dead Space, and this is the company making up for that.
The trailer doesn’t give away much, but that’s fine. I’d rather this was kept a secret for as long as possible because I want to be scared witless when the game finally launches. As I mentioned, EA must realise that it’s got a winner on its hands here if it just keeps the unskilled hands of executives out of it. I can’t imagine how excited the developers at EA Motive must have been when they were handed this. The franchise was originally pioneered by one of the greatest developers in the industry, Visceral Games, and this is the first sign that its legacy has outlived both it and the actions EA took to try to kill it.
Visceral Games was closed by EA, and the team split across internal studios. Dead Space died of microtransaction overkill in Dead Space 3, and was also a victim of other issues of the time such as online passes. Now though, we’re getting a remake from a studio that has a proven track record of making good games. While you might only know EA Motive from its work on Need for Speed Heat, even that game had its moments. There’s certainly no denying that it was a beautiful title.
Hopefully, this game doesn’t try to kill Dead Space more. It needs to be a faithful remake with enough new stuff from EA Motive to make it feel like a new adventure, much like the Resident Evil remakes. I think there’s a big market for this, now EA just needs to leave the developers to get on with their job.
