Talk about a double whammy for Dead Space fans, as the original creators of the beloved franchise have revealed that they pitched the idea for Dead Space 4 this year, only for publisher Electronic Arts (EA) to shoot them down, killing the series all over again.
Revealed via an interview with Dan Allen Gaming, three leading creatives of the now-defunct original Dead Space developer Visceral Games, Glen Schofield, Christopher Stone, and Bret Robbins talked about how EA turned down their request for the fourth entry in the series as they were “not interested”.
“We tried, actually, the three of us, Dead Space 4. We’re talking this year.” Schofield recalled, “They just said, ‘We’re not interested right now. We appreciate it blah blah blah, and you know we know who to talk to.’ So we didn’t take it any further. And we respected their opinion. They know their numbers and what they have to ship.”
To Stone, this rejection seemed to stem from the current ailing state of the video game industry, with companies subsequently avoiding what they deem as high-risk projects such as Dead Space 4 unless they can be assured of sufficient returns.
“The industry is in a weird place right now,” Stone said. “People are really hesitant to take chances on things. So you got to take it with a grain of salt. Who knows, maybe one day. I think we’d all love to do it.”
To be fair, the publisher didn’t outrightly reject the possibility of the franchise’s return sometime in the future, but as they say, once bitten twice shy, and fans have already been disappointed in the past to have much hope for what the future might bring.
Back in 2013, after the disappointing sales of Dead Space 3, online rumours circulated that Visceral Montreal had cancelled Dead Space 4, which was alleged to be in its pre-production stage at the time. Although EA responded to the allegations that the information was “flat-out not true”, fans’ hopes back then were permanently dashed after the shutdown of Visceral Games in 2017.
While the subsequent revival of the franchise re-ignited hopes with last year’s Dead Space remake, much like Issac Clarke crushing the mangled remains of Necromorphs under his boot, EA’s recent comments seem like the final nail in the coffin, killing off the franchise once and for all.
While we mourn the loss of the Dead Space franchise, we can at least look towards the comfort of “spiritual successors” to fill the hole left in its wake, such as next year’s Chronos: The New Dawn, which looks set to invoke that same feeling of dread and despair fans are looking for. Let’s hope it fairs better than The Callisto Protocol, of course.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Yong Le
