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DeadSpace-Feature

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

EA'south Patrick Söderlund wrote:

Our Visceral studio has been developing an action-adventure title fix in the Star Wars universe. In its electric current class, it was shaping upwardly to be a story-based, linear hazard game. Throughout the evolution process, we have been testing the game concept with players, listening to the feedback about what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace. It has become clear that to evangelize an experience that players volition want to come dorsum to and relish for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design. We will maintain the stunning visuals, actuality in the Star Wars universe, and focus on bringing a Star Wars story to life. Importantly, we are shifting the game to be a broader experience that allows for more than diversity and histrion agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining central elements of the game to requite players a Star Wars run a risk of greater depth and breadth to explore.

We can't really speculate on the state of the Star Wars game Visceral was working on, or whether this move is the right thing for the title. But I recently spent some time replaying all the Dead Space games, back-to-dorsum-to-back. Playing them that fashion really gave me what I retrieve is a better window into why the studio fabricated some of the decisions it did.

Deconstructing Dead Infinite

The original Dead Infinite has generally lousy PC controls, and "feels" very much similar a 30fps game (unless you lot unlock the frame rate, which hilariously also accelerates saved game loads). Simply I was struck past how carefully it shapes the player's introduction to the world. Your diverse abilities are introduced one at a time, and ever in a style that tasks yous with using them to solve a puzzle. You lot just meet enemies in conjunction with puzzles one time yous've had an opportunity to stretch your legs beginning.

DeadSpace

The game is calorie-free on pure jump scares, but that doesn't hateful it isn't scary. Sometimes existence able to come across what's coming is worse.

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

Dead Space two takes everything bang-up near Expressionless Space and turns it up to eleven. The original game's formula is tweaked and polished, with a meliorate UI and a much smoother 30fps frame rate. I'g genuinely not sure how all three games–which run at a abiding, locked 30fps by default–manage to experience then different, only 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 charge per unit, merely the locked rate nonetheless improves in all cases. (I used the locked frame rate while playing on a laptop to reduce organisation noise.)

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Dead Space two introduced a not bad bargain of lore into Dead Space, tightened the gameplay loops, introduced the protagonist equally a speaking character as opposed to a silent protagonist, and added some new Necromorphs–call back zombies, just made of the radically reshaped basic and tissue of the dead as 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 Infinite had left people thinking, however.

Dead Space 3 was the least pop game in the series, simply playing it directly after Dead Space 2 gave me a much better sense of what Visceral was trying to attain. Unlike the offset 2 games, which take a narrow and specific slice of time and lore (events on one ship, events on one space station), and don't offer any real explanation for why Necromorphs and the Markers that create them be, Dead Space 3 tackles both questions, while simultaneously shaking up the gameplay by going from survival-horror to something more like action-horror. This fabricated some sense, thematically, since Isaac Clarke had already survived two previous Necromorph infestations. Just information technology fabricated less sense mechanically, and information technology hurt the game with players who had enjoyed the first and 2nd title–peculiarly given that the second game is a fabulous example of how to remainder moments of irksome exploration with quick-paced frantic play.

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Dead Space 3 introduced its own set of new monsters and co-op play, simply wasn't as popular equally DS2.

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

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

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