This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

DeadSpace-Feature

EA has announced that Visceral Games, the developer of games like Battlefield: Hardline and Dead Space is shutting downwards, effective immediately. The Star Wars title the studio had worked on is as well being close downward. While EA isn't literally canceling the project altogether, it's going to fundamentally overhaul the game.

EA's Patrick Söderlund wrote:

Our Visceral studio has been developing an activity-chance title set in the Star Wars universe. In its electric current form, it was shaping up to exist a story-based, linear adventure game. Throughout the development process, nosotros have been testing the game concept with players, listening to the feedback almost what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace. Information technology has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and savor for a long time to come, nosotros needed to pivot the design. Nosotros will maintain the stunning visuals, actuality in the Star Wars universe, and focus on bringing a Star Wars story to life. Chiefly, we are shifting the game to be a broader feel that allows for more variety and player agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining fundamental elements of the game to give players a Star Wars risk of greater depth and breadth to explore.

We can't actually speculate on the state of the Star Wars game Visceral was working on, or whether this move is the right affair for the championship. Only I recently spent some time replaying all the Expressionless Infinite games, dorsum-to-dorsum-to-back. Playing them that fashion actually gave me what I call up is a amend window into why the studio made some of the decisions information technology did.

Deconstructing Dead Infinite

The original Expressionless Space has generally lousy PC controls, and "feels" very much like a 30fps game (unless you unlock the frame rate, which hilariously also accelerates saved game loads). But I was struck by how carefully it shapes the player'due south introduction to the world. Your various abilities are introduced one at a time, and always in a way that tasks you with using them to solve a puzzle. You but come across enemies in conjunction with puzzles in one case you've had an opportunity to stretch your legs first.

DeadSpace

The game is light on pure leap scares, but that doesn't mean it isn't scary. Sometimes being able to see what's coming is worse.

Near Necromorph types are also introduced in solo encounters. Sometimes these encounters actually evidence you what the Necromorph in question is capable of doing or how information technology moves throughout the world without y'all firing a shot. Other times, in-game characters warn you lot about Necromorphs they've seen. The game's plot twists and survival horror mechanics aren't always perfect–the UI definitely needed some refinement–merely fifty-fifty on the PC, the game shines through.

Dead Space 2 takes everything great well-nigh Dead Infinite and turns it up to xi. The original game's formula is tweaked and polished, with a better UI and a much smoother 30fps frame charge per unit. I'm genuinely not sure how all three games–which run at a constant, locked 30fps past default–manage to feel and then different, simply they do. Dead Space "feels" like 30fps, DS2 feels more than like 40-45, and DS3 feels more like 50+. In all three cases, the actual unlocked frame is superior to the locked frame rate, only the locked rate withal improves in all cases. (I used the locked frame rate while playing on a laptop to reduce organisation racket.)

dedsp2multiscrn09

Dead Space two introduced a great bargain of lore into Dead Space, tightened the gameplay loops, introduced the protagonist as a speaking character as opposed to a silent protagonist, and added some new Necromorphs–retrieve zombies, just made of the radically reshaped bones and tissue of the dead every bit opposed to a shambling ever-humanoid corpse. The PC port was better, even if the new lore didn't always mesh with what the original Dead Space had left people thinking, even so.

Dead Space 3 was the to the lowest degree popular game in the series, just playing it straight after Dead Space 2 gave me a much better sense of what Visceral was trying to attain. Unlike the get-go 2 games, which accept a narrow and specific slice of time and lore (events on 1 ship, events on one space station), and don't offer any real caption for why Necromorphs and the Markers that create them exist, Dead Space 3 tackles both questions, while simultaneously shaking upwardly the gameplay by going from survival-horror to something more like activeness-horror. This fabricated some sense, thematically, since Isaac Clarke had already survived ii previous Necromorph infestations. But it made less sense mechanically, and it injure the game with players who had enjoyed the first and second title–specially given that the second game is a fabled example of how to balance moments of slow exploration with quick-paced frantic play.

DeadSpace3

Dead Infinite iii introduced its own gear up of new monsters and co-op play, only wasn't as popular as DS2.

It didn't aid that the plot arc that Visceral developed had some meaning holes. Expressionless Space 3 wasn't a bad game, but it was longer, more than exposition-driven, and differently paced from its predecessors, and information technology suffered somewhat compared with gamer expectations. Its microtransactions were also unpopular. But the game was better, I think, than information technology got credit for. Information technology too had some co-op missions to add fresh dimensions to gameplay, though these were optional.

However, all three games were pretty dang good, and playing through them back-to-back gave me a window on why Visceral made some of the choices it did. Hopefully the closing of the studio doesn't mean we'll never revisit the DS universe, though right now there doesn't seem to be much take chances of it. And if you like survival-horror games with an unusual and fresh take on sci-fi lore–even knowing the games aren't perfect–I'd highly recommend all three.

Now read: The 20 All-time Free PC Games