With the remake becoming available earlier this year, the Dead Space franchise is back in top form and re-positioned as one of the best survival horror series in gaming. These games were already celebrated for their atmosphere and tense moment to moment gameplay, something only heightened with modern gaming technology in the Dead Space remake. Fans are obviously eager to see the others be remade, as well as an eventual Dead Space 4.
While a fourth Dead Space installment would certainly be welcome, especially after so many years, changing things up and not following Isaac Clarke as the main character may be a wise change of pace. To better understand why this would work wonders for Dead Space, taking a look at fellow horror franchise Resident Evil's juggling of multiple characters should serve as a blueprint for how to expand a universe.
Resident Evil's Multiple Characters and Branching Storylines
Since its humble beginnings in 1996's original Resident Evil game, the franchise has since branched out with numerous sequels, live action films and even comic books. In the realm of video games, the franchise has taken special care to expand its principal set of characters in almost every mainline installment. Resident Evil 2 introduced Leon Kennedy, Resident Evil 3 featured Jill Valentine and the most recent entries Resident Evil 7 and Village starred everyman Ethan Winters.
This is so important because it helps flesh out the world and make the events within it feel more grand in scope. The first three games alone all take place relatively close to each other, yet follow three completely different heroes and set of events. In a worldwide viral outbreak, full of monsters and other creatures that go bump in the night, it would be odd if players only ever witnessed what happened to one character. To be able to see the destruction of Raccoon City, as well as the more small scale events in Resident Evil 7 helps bring the world to life.
Exploring New Characters in Dead Space
On that line of thinking, Resident Evil takes place on one planet, whereas Dead Space takes place in the endless depths of outer space. The possibilities are limitless for new planets and solar systems to explore, something which the franchise has already proven by this by venturing to the frozen plant Tau Volantis in Dead Space 3, a drastic change of pace from the dark, gloomy hallways of the prior two installments.
The series thus far has solely followed Isaac Clarke in his many battles against the Necromorph threat. While this is not a slight against Clarke as a character or the quality of the original Dead Space trilogy, it's time to shift focus to new protagonists in future games. Isaac can of course make appearances, but it would be worthwhile to expand the cast of characters to create new story possibilities going forward. It's a big universe, and with the Necromorph species having existed for so long, it seems limiting to only see how it affects one man.
This can include venturing earlier into the franchise history and developing a prequel game that dives into the discovery of the Necromorphs. Maybe technology is less advanced, which would result in the characters being in greater danger than before to properly fight off the aliens. Another alternative would be to take a page from Resident Evil's book and create a game that takes place simultaneously with a pre-existing installment. While Isaac was fighting for survival aboard the Ishimura, perhaps there was another survivor somewhere in the giant space vessel also trying to escape.There are seemingly limitless opportunities for where to take Dead Space next, and considering the vastness of space, these possibilities could be infinite.