Homage to and improvement on a beloved classic: We talk about Dead Space Remake with EA Motive – Dead Space Remake

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Visuals and performance aside, what do you think of the 2008 original and improving it?

Campos-Oriola： First, like I said, we want to stay true to the original. That means it needs to play and look like Dead Space, but not quite like the original. It needs to play and look like you remember the original, that glorious memory, which is why it’s a little tricky. That’s why we’re talking to people in the community, or why we’re streaming to really test it with a wider audience.

An example is how we change the sound of the gun and then we do a live broadcast on the audio,[社區]Might say, “This works really well, but plasma cutter, not sure what sound you’re doing”. So we go, “Oh, really wait a minute,” and we change it, we republish it, and see if it’s better.

Those elements are really fun and beautify the memory, but in terms of gameplay we look like, well, Dead Space is a survival horror movie, but in the survival horror genre it’s more of a shooter game. It’s a shooter, you have to be a little smarter, you have to play with multiple elements, but it has shooter roots. So we’re talking about what can we improve? Maybe add a quick turn to dead space? Or not like that much. This is something we shouldn’t be doing because it’s changing the DNA of the game. The whole game is about preventing monsters from getting close to you, well, if it’s easy to turn around and put 10 meters between you and the monster, and start over, well, not that it’s going to be a bad experience, but it won’t be dead space Experience, at least the one you remember.

We are very careful about these kinds of things. That’s why, for example, we’re like Dead Space, it’s very focused on immersion, it’s one of the first games with a whole no HUD, everything is narrative, obviously immersion is Dead Space a major pillar. So, how can we push this element further? Dead Space’s immersion is great, but it’s also not at all good at it, because of the load, because of going back to the tram, etc. We were like, “Okay, maybe there’s some room for improvement there,” and if you think about the Dead Space setting, Ishimura, it’s a character in and of itself. It’s really iconic, with specific designs and stuff like that. If we’re going to improve this character, give it a life… Now it’s fully interconnected from end to end without any interruptions and loading, and now we’re improving immersion in that sense as well.

Depending on the pillar or feature, we take a different approach to figuring out what we want to enhance or what you want to recreate.

How did you design Dead Space’s audio system to make it so scary?

Campos-Oriola： Obviously, audio is very important, and in Dead Space, it’s done well. The improvements we’ve made to the audio system are manifold, but there are two main elements that stand out. First, this is how sound physically works in an engine. We tried to make an analogy between the way a sound bounces and the reverberation of a sound, and how they work physically.

A good example is chapter 2, in the hallway where the guy hits his head against the wall*. If you remember from the original book when you entered that hallway, you would start hearing the man’s voice, but you would hear him on the other side of the wall. And for us, now in the remake, because we have a way for the sound to have real physics, well, you hear it at the end of the hallway. The way sound bounces in hallway rooms is now more realistic. When you’re in a space and people spawn behind you, because they’re coming from walls, vents, etc., it really reinforces the atmosphere and the fear.

*It can be seen in the game below from 8:15

Another element has to do with Isaac, like the way Isaac is handled in the original is really immersive. How can we do more of this? This is where the quality of life system comes in. The idea is that if we try to really analogize how Isaac reacts, the way he breathes, the way he heartbeats, it’s no longer just an enemy spawn, so trigger a heartbeat or whatever, but there’s an actual curve, and we track it, Depending on how fast you run, how long you run, how many events are triggered, etc., it affects actual breathing and heartbeat and things like that. Of course, we did a lot of modern remakes of all the sounds, squeezing, because we needed new ways to make it sound better. But the two main innovations that really revolve around how Isaac behaves and how his voice actually moves.

How did you redesign and rebuild Necromorph to fit a more reactive damage game system?

Yazijian: It has two components: visuals and gameplay. Talking about the visual aspect of it, it was very important for us to keep the Necromancer’s iconic design. We revisited all the designs, but always made sure that as a player, you could easily recognize the character. However, we redesigned it from the ground up. We go in, we say how much we’re going to dismember, and that’s where the stripping system comes in, and then once we figure it out, we intuitively think about how we’re going to do that. Then we just do it from scratch. Literally. The bones, the whole muscle fibers, all the tissues, all the fat, the ligaments, all that nasty stuff, it’s all done, so when you dismember them, you get a really satisfying feeling that you’re actually putting These creatures tear, piece by piece, it’s not just a chunk flying away, you’re like a dangling fragment.

That’s it, just make sure you actually see those things, you see the reactions, you see your impact on these creatures.

Campos-Oriola： From a gameplay standpoint…it’s not only about enhancing the gore and visual feedback, but also creating some interesting weapon synergies. Now, when you cut through a limb, you can remove the muscle, the skin, all those things before you can get to the bone and be able to cut the limb, you can have weapons that are really good at stripping away enemies, like a flamethrower or a pulse rifle. That’s why it’s interesting to us, because it’s the backbone of fortifying dead space, and at the same time we’re a little smart about how we combine weapons.

How does ditching the PS4 and Xbox One allow you to make the remake better than including the previous-gen system?

Yazijian: We have a bigger visualization toolkit that we can carry around. There were so many things we wanted to do in the past, and now we can finally. We can have dynamic lighting, we can have volumetric lighting, we can have stereoscopic VFX to make it really feel immersive, because one of the pillars of gaming is immersion, so that way we can have more atmosphere. It looks really creepy when you’re playing, and when you go in, there’s a ton of steam, vents, fog, all those effects, and you can finally do it. You don’t have to fake it, it’s not 2D, it’s actual volume.

Campos-Oriola： It’s also the interactivity that surrounds it.This is[PS5和Xbox系列]And one of the things the PC allows us to do, it’s not just to have that vibe, but that vibe is interactive. So with volume lights, with fire, most lights are dynamic. So now we’re giving the player some control over the level’s lighting, but the intensity catalog is also something it can control.Sometimes revisiting the hallway, you might think, “I remember that place. Why is it fucking dark now? And then the lights start flickering…have dynamic elements in the lights or fog – like the way we have 3D volumetric fog , you can actually hide the enemies, you can see them or the way they break the fog – those are the elements that we can do because we[在PS5和Xbox系列上]。

What did you most let fans see in Dead Space Remastered?

Campos-Oriola： There are many things. Regarding the changes we made to zero-G, in a sense, in the original, you were walking on walls and then jumping from one wall to the other, and then from dead space 2, you were able to fly around Go, it’s more immersive, more like the way you think about zero gravity. Here’s what we brought back, but in Dead Space 1. It allows the player to revisit some of the rooms and areas in Dead Space 1, but with a different lens, and it’s a neat tool for us to create new areas because we have ships that are connected to each other, so we have to think about how the player will be Going from one area to another and how the story unfolds as we unlock different areas. Allowing players to fly around Stone Village is a lot of fun because it adds some new elements that can surprise returning players, but it also makes you think about Stone Village differently.

Another element is that Dead Space is about dismemberment and stripping, so I can’t wait to see players have fun and see people get a little creative with it.

Are you worried about releasing soon after The Callisto Protocol?

Campos-Oriola： Concern? No. I’m excited to play it, absolutely. Like I said at the beginning, what’s interesting to me is that there’s a lot of survival horror, and in the mainstream, you get more horror stories. So am I worried? Not so much. Am I hopeful about this because it means there’s a real market for horror and survival horror? Yes, of course, I can’t wait to play it too.

Yazijian: We are very excited. We can’t wait. We’re fans of the genre, so thumbs up for all these space horror games.

last question. Is there a future for a Dead Space 2 remake or Dead Space 3 remake?

Campos-Oriola: So if I answer you (the PR manager) will shoot me in the face (outbursts of laughter). But hey, like I said, we’re huge Dead Space fans.

Many thanks to EA Motive, Roman Campos-Oriola and Mike Yazijian for talking with us. Be sure to check out Dead Space Remake for yourself when it debuts on January 27, 2023 on PC, PS5 and Xbox series consoles.