Highlights

  • EA Motive is making progress on a new Iron Man game, with hints at an impressive landmark reached, but details remain scarce.
  • The Iron Man game could and should draw inspiration from EA Motive's Dead Space remake in terms of combat mechanics and tone.
  • Sound design, which is pivotal in Dead Space's success, could play a vital role in making Iron Man's combat feel authentic and visceral.

According to reports of EA Motive transitioning into work on the newest Battlefield endeavors, it’s assumed that progress on its Iron Man game is going smoothly. This Iron Man title, which is still officially untitled, has apparently hit at least one impressive landmark but has yet to unveil an actual name or any other details about it since its initial announcement. Iron Man’s shimmering backlit armor silhouette was revealed, to be fair, and appears markedly similar to Tony Stark’s Model 51 ‘Prime’ suit; otherwise, EA Motive has successfully remained tight-lipped.

It’s possible that EA Motive is gearing up for a reveal of appropriately epic proportions, perhaps at next month’s Summer Game Fest, rather than choosing to drop a ton of information randomly. Either way, until more is learned, it’s hard not to presume that much of what EA Motive’s Iron Man game could be inspired by its Dead Space remake. Its tone isn’t likely to be anything comparable to Dead Space’s hallucinogenic psychological horror trip, and yet there’s quite a lot that Iron Man’s suits of armor-based combat could adapt from what the studio was able to achieve with Dead Space.

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Iron Man’s Combat Needs to Discern What Kind of Fighter He is

If Motive draws from its Dead Space remake’s combat at all, its Iron Man game may primarily be a shooter with chunky repulsor blasts, diverse alternate suit weapons, and weighty melee attacks. Dead Space is certainly a shooter action game, but it lacks the same bravado and expertise with firearms that a Gears of War or Resident Evil has.

Though it may be a fine line at times, how Isaac Clarke’s engineering skills are translated into his weapons of choice and how he responds to horrific scenarios isn’t from a place of overconfidence and knowing he can beat necromorphs senseless without a second thought. Resident Evil’s Leon S. Kennedy always has a one-liner loaded in the chamber as evidence that no threat ever seems too great for him to overcome, for instance.

The Resident Evil 2 remake finally depicted an inexperienced Leon who did experience fear in these situations, but the Resident Evil 4 remake brought him back to the classically suave Leon everyone’s more familiar with. Isaac has far more than necromorphs and mentally unstable characters to deal with, however, as he himself suffers from bouts of psychological trauma.

Tony could be dealing with alcoholism or any of the troubled issues he’s had in the source material and how that affects his gameplay would be exciting to see.

Dead Space’s Combat Excels Because of Remarkable Sound Design

Dead Space 2 gave Isaac voice lines so he could express his disgust and horror with a ton of expletives, but his combat never became more militaristic or stylish. Instead, he’s always resorted to wild haymakers with any of the weapons he wields still gripped in that hand, along with Dead Space’s cathartic stomps that often elicit shouts from Isaac when exerted repeatedly.

Like Isaac’s shouts, a big reason why this combat is so satisfying and crunchy is because of its tremendous sound design. Each stomp sounds like it’ll reasonably churn bones and flesh to mulch under Isaac’s boot, each plasma cutter discharge sounds like a white-hot blast of energy that could cut through butter, and EA Motive’s ALIVE system for the Dead Space remake has elevated sound design astronomically.

When it comes to Iron Man, many of these same principles could fall into place. Like Isaac, Tony is a man walking around and flying in a suit of armor—typically ones that require a mechanism to help remove the armor’s components from his body.

Instead of making Iron Man an ordinary superhero pugilist, it would be neat to shed light on the fact that Tony isn’t necessarily able to dole out mixed martial arts as well as Iron Fist or Black Panther would. Melee combat should absolutely be a part of this Iron Man game’s combat, but having him throw haymakers and other wild, heavy attacks would be more authentic and visceral. Then, like the plasma cutter, Iron Man’s repulsor gauntlets are ripe for translation since they could behave almost identically to Isaac’s most iconic and basic weapon.