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Dead Space will have Doom Eternal-esque dismemberment

Otto Kratky
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After the Dead Space remake was revealed at this year’s EA Play Live event, today’s livestream finally gave us a look at the game, albeit an extremely early one. The stream, hosted by developer Motive Studios, which has previously worked on Star Wars: Squadrons and Star Wars Battlefront 2, detailed what players can expect from the upcoming remaster of the original Dead Space title.

The stream presented a decent first look at one of the environments in Dead Space, showing a major upgrade from the game originally released in 2008. Dead Space is using EA’s Frostbite engine, which has been used across multiple EA franchises, including Battlefield. Specifically, the remaster has advanced lighting techniques and other effects, like smoke and fog.

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Developers at Motive also want Dead Space to take further advantage of current-gen consoles. During the stream, they stated their desire for the game to not have any loading screens whatsoever to allow players to become fully immersed in its setting, the Shimura. While the game will be changing thanks to the advantages of next-gen tech, intrinsically it will still be the same Dead Space that was released in 2008. The remaster will have the same story foundation, but will build on some characters a bit more. That includes its main character, Isaac, who will continue to be voiced by Gunnar Wright. In Dead Space‘s original release, Isaac wasn’t voiced, with the character talking for the first time in Dead Space 2. However, Isaac will be fully voiced in the Dead Space remake.

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Isaac has something to say. #DeadSpace pic.twitter.com/csOKT6ZCYV

— Dead Space (@deadspace) August 31, 2021

Viewers also got a first look at how dismemberment, one of the staples of the Dead Space franchise, will work in this remaster. While players can still take monsters apart, developers want dismemberment to be as visceral as possible, and as such have developed a process called “peeling.” Anyone who played Doom Eternal should immediately recognize this feature where every shot takes a chunk off of the creature’s body, with skin and flesh also peeling off. Dismemberment is also going to require a bit more precision, with players needing to shoot the same spot multiple times to sever an enemy’s limb.

The developers at Motive also stressed that Dead Space would not have microtransactions. Microtransactions were present in Dead Space 3 and were a major point of contention for players when the game initially launched.

While today’s stream revealed multiple early details for the upcoming Dead Space remaster, the game still doesn’t have an official release date. Currently, Dead Space has a release window of fall 2022.

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Otto Kratky
Otto Kratky
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Otto Kratky is a freelance writer with many homes. You can find his work at Digital Trends, GameSpot, and Gamepur. If he's…
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