Dead Space Ain’t Dead
We’re prone to our fair share of rumor mongering here on the Herb – ahem, I mean journalism – but today I’m doing my part to squash one like a writhing necromorph gnawing on your rig…for now, anyway.
The rumor in contention being one nasty bit of bad business involving the premature cancellation of Dead Space 4. An anonymous source claiming to be close to the project tugged on VideoGamer.com’s ear a few days back, purporting the horror sequel was already in pre-production at Visceral with their Montreal branch assigned to prototyping the game as well as bouncing narrative ideas HQ’s way.
However, the source alleges the corporate axe came down after the recently released Dead Space 3 failed to meet sales expectations [As of this writing, exact figures have not been released by EA]. Dead Space 4 was cancelled and EA’s company-wide restructuring forced Visceral Montreal’s doors closed. Indirectly, the cancellation would mean the entire franchise is put on hold.
That’s all pretty goddamn plausible. A while back, EA honcho Frank Gibeau did spout some business jargon about Dead Space needing to push around five million units to stay afloat as a franchise. Plus, the closure of Visceral’s Montreal studio left quite a few unhappy campers jobless, so it’s not unlikely we’d hear a few jilted tipsters tossing company secrets around to any news junket that likes its shit stirred.
Something suspect is happening behind the scenes, for sure, but I’ll leave you with the official, more hopeful, byline sent Kotaku’s way: According to a spokesperson, the company is proud of Dead Space 3 and the series “remains an important IP for EA,” going the extra mile to call the rumor “patently false.”
Though EA’s corporate meddling has defaced Dead Space into a more widely palatable, money-making machine (microtransactions are evil; but this is fucking vile), Visceral’s trilogy still owns the distinction of being the most prevalent and critically successful survival horror series this generation. It’d be a gaming crime if Visceral couldn’t compete for that mantel in the next-gen.