Highlights

  • The story producer for Dead Space 3 talked about why the game didn't live up to expectations, noting the team tried to appeal to a wider audience with co-op elements and different gameplay genres.
  • Changes and additions during development resulted in the game losing its direction, with co-op and gun mechanics not working as intended and a shift towards a more linear adventure style like Uncharted.
  • It's unlikely that there will be a Dead Space 3 remake soon, as it is not well-regarded by fans.

Dead Space 3’s story producer Chuck Beaver has recently revealed that he was unsatisfied with the game and would redo it almost from scratch if possible. The first Dead Space game is among the best survival horror games of all time, but its third entry is often considered a letdown. Now, Beaver explained more about why Dead Space 3 didn't live up to expectations.

The original Dead Space was released in 2008. The title was praised by critics, and while it did not become an immediate financial success, it managed to sell over a million copies eventually. However, the third game was not all that successful. While Dead Space 3 has several qualities, such as deeper lore than previous entries, it’s still largely considered the worst game of the franchise by many fans.

Dead Space official cover artwork focus edit
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Now, Chuck Beaver, who worked as the story producer for all the original three Dead Space games, as well as some spin-offs, revealed some information about what went wrong with Dead Space 3 during an interview with CaptainBribo. According to Beaver, the game’s problems stem from the fact that there were a limited number of people looking to play a single-player horror game at the time, and multiplayer was seen as more profitable by the publisher. To address this issue, the team wanted to bring more co-op elements and expand into other gameplay genres as well. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. The team did not find a way to gain a new audience and lost the old one at the same time, which made the franchise dormant until the Dead Space remake was released in 2023. Because of this, Chuck Beaver affirmed that "I Would Just Start from Complete Scratch and I would make this […] about the end of Dead Space 2," completely revamping the gameplay and storyline.

"I Would Just Start from Complete Scratch and I would make this […] about the end of Dead Space 2 "

Beaver believes that Dead Space 3 essentially lost its direction because of everything that was changed and added during development, which ended up creating even more problems. Not only did co-op not work as intended, but gun mechanics were changed, too, and so was the overall design. In the end, Beaver felt as if the team was not allowed to make an actual horror game, and ended up developing something much more like Uncharted, a linear adventure with puzzles and scripted set pieces.

In any case, it’s highly unlikely that gamers will see a Dead Space 3 remake anytime soon. Not only would a remake of the third game probably need to wait until the second one was remade, but the third title is not so fondly remembered by most fans. In this case, it seems more logical for EA to focus on a possible Dead Space 4 rather than remaking the whole trilogy.