Chuck Beaver, the story producer of the Dead Space series, has shared how he would rewrite the third game’s story in order to “make a horror game from the beginning”.
In an interview with CaptainBribo, Beaver expressed his regret with the way that Dead Space 3 ended up when the series had started out with much stronger horror roots.
If he had the chance, he would change a lot of the third game and introduce a “shadow Isaac” who would struggle with his mental state after the events of the second game (via PCGamesN).
“Now in this [Dead Space] remake territory I would redo Dead Space 3 almost completely,” he said, qualifying that he would keep the foundations of the lore and the lore that emerges across the course of the game.
“I would have Ellie there but in a different relationship [with Isaac] and redo the entire main story,” he continued. He would do away with the relationships between Ellie, Isaac and Robert, and focus on the psychology of Isaac.
Carver and Robert, as well as other supporting characters, would encourage or discourage Isaac as he navigated a “split” mental state, inspired by the conflict between The Lord Of The Rings characters Gollum and Sméagol.
Dead Space 3 used asymmetry to alter what each player in its co-op mode would see on their screen, leaning into what Beaver would like to see in a reimagined rewrite of the third game.
However, the shift into action away from survival horror was questioned by both critics and fans, and developer Visceral Games was shut down four years after its launch.
“The plan [with Dead Space 3] was that we’d expand into other gameplay genres,” concluded Beaver. “All those bits together not only didn’t generate a new audience, they lost the old audience. We weren’t allowed to make a horror game from the beginning.”
Earlier this year, the remake of the first game was released to an extremely positive reception, and an “indecipherable” in-game message was theorised to be a potential announcement of further remakes.