I’m quite a big fan of the survival-horror genre. So when I heard the ‘news’ that Dead Space 3 was coming I was pretty excited, but also slightly weary. I loved the first game in the series, it was actually scary and when I was playing it I got a sense of the chills that no other game had given me for a good while. With Dead Space 2 that changed, while enemies such as the Twitcher created scares, the game just did not have the same sense of atmosphere as its predecessor. The game was great, don’t get me wrong, but it tried to tick too many boxes, constantly creating ‘blockbuster’ moments instead of concentrating on what should be at the heart of a Dead Space game – horror. So here is our list of things that should be done for EA’s latest outing with Isaac.

No co-op:

Survival horror games work because it is a solo experience. Playing on your own the developers can carefully pace how you play the game, when eerie shadows should dart across the screen and when enemies should pounce out of the shadows. By making the game co-op you lose this as the game now needs to be designed with two in mind. Creating these scares for two players is a lot harder as they can be in different places or be doing completely different things at any one time.  Oh and lets not lie, playing a pants-wetting game alone is way scarier than with a friend.

Ditch Multiplayer:

Now I know that this is a big selling point for loads of games nowadays, but come on, do you really need a multiplayer section in a game like Dead Space? Instead of wasting your time trying to create a sub-standard game mode that few will play, work on making the best single player experience ever. Dead Space 2′s multiplayer proved that games are not always better with the function but we fear that EA’s marketing boys will demand it be tacked onto the game.

No regenerating enemies (*Dead Space 2 spoiler*) :

One thing that really annoyed me about the ending of Dead Space 2 was that bloody regenerating enemy at the end of the game. If hunters were not bad enough, this one took the piss. You are already low on ammo, so they throw at you something that cannot die. It is like a cheap way of saying to the player: “Get out of this area now!” I wouldn’t mind so much, but this was used in the orignal game too and really marred the ending of the second game when it became more of a hindrance than fun.

Scrap black version of enemies:

This is another cheap trick that Dead Space unfortunately used in both games and something that many developers do. To make the game harder and to decrease the amount of work on enemies they change the colour. So in Dead Space black versions dictate a steroid pumped enemy. Just create more enemies to finish the game with, do not just change the color palette, that’s lazy.

Make items random:

Conserving ammo was always meant to be an issue in these kinds of games. In Dead Space you will find that you will pick up ammunition based upon what guns you carry. If you focus on just the Plasma Cannon you can complete the game without using any other weapons and you’ll find most ammo pick ups reflect this.  What I would like is a game that gives me random items (or ones not associated to my inventory) that forces me to make decisions. If I have 50 ripper blades, do I sell them and focus on my heavily upgraded gun, or buy the ripper as my new toy?

Survival-horror, not action:

I understand that Dead Space was never strictly a survival-horror game. The game was full of gun fire and dismembered limbs. What the original did was focus on the scarier elements first and the action later. In the sequel it felt like it was the other way round, with loads of scenes dedicated to building the story, while looking cool.  When I buy Dead Space 3 I want to be scared to go round the corner, worrying about only having 2 rounds in my plasma cutter and crapping myself at the sound of a wailing monster in the other room, not blasting through an explosion with my rocket boots on multiple occasions.

Less is more…:

There were too many scenes in Dead Space 2 that tried to replicate blockbuster films. While these are fun, they were far too frequent in the game. Think about the amount of cutscenes/uncontrollable moments in the sequel compared to the first game. There are a lot more because of how the story is built and trying to make a ‘cooler’ experience. This is all fine, but taking control of the game away from the player breaks up the tense atmosphere built up over the rest of the chapter. I’m not saying to scrap cutscenes completely, just keep them to a minimum.

More upgrades:

I loved the upgrade system in the Dead Space series. From the offset you are forced to think tactically about how you will upgrade your arsenal and what guns to focus on. This is only emphasised by the fact that each gun has a unique type of fire and that enemies need to be dismembered differently. What I’m suggesting is different special abilities for each gun. While each one does have one right near the end of its node chain I’d like to see more. Maybe you could choose different alternate fires that would work depending on your play style?

Mess with our heads (*spoilers*):

Now when I say this, I mean reallllllly mess with our heads, not just have a random screaming section with your ex’s dead body like in Dead Space 2. No what I want is something that will really baffle and confuse me. I remember an old PC game I had in the 90s (I think it was Alone in the Dark) used to come up with a screen that resembled something like DOS. Of course I thought the game had crashed, but this was actually part of it. Things like this throw you off-kilter and help to give you that fear of the unknown. If Isaac does have a split personality  like the rumours say, then EA are on the right track.

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