Dead Space 4 is almost certainly never happening. Even before the closure of Dead Space dev Visceral Games, a fourth game in the series seemed unlikely. It never felt like publisher EA was that comfortable with the horror series, and their attempts to move Dead Space in a more mainstream direction mostly backfired. Nevertheless some within Visceral held out hope that Dead Space 4 might happen.
One of those people was Dead Space creative director Ben Wanat, who revealed some of his ideas for Dead Space 4 in a recent interview with Eurogamer. It seems Wanat wanted to make a more open game, with a greater focus on survival.
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“The [Dead Space 4 concept] was you were trying to survive day to day amongst infested ships, searching for a glimmer of life, scavenging supplies to keep your own little ship going, trying to find survivors. The flotilla section in Dead Space 3 hinted at what non-linear gameplay could be, and I would have loved to go a lot deeper into that.
I figured you’d start in a section of space, maybe following a trail of ship carcasses to an orbital station you think might have the parts and fuel needed to get your ship Shock-capable. You’d start to form a picture of what happened in that region while fighting through scores of Necromorphs from ship to ship.”
Sounds like a promising concept! Wanat was hoping to create a diverse array of ships, each with their own unique interior. There were also plans to tweak/rebalance the weapon crafting from Dead Space 3. But what about the Necromorphs? What kind of new monstrosities was Visceral planning to throw at us? Wanat had an idea for a zero-g baddie that sounds pretty terrifying…
“The problem with all of the ground-based enemies was that they couldn’t follow you through zero-g and that made them much less threatening. But make a zero-g enemy that can snake through zero-g corridors, propel itself in open space, and grapple with the player to tear off his mask and eat his face? Then I think you’d have yourself a good old time.”
Unfortunately, Dead Space 4 never really made it past the concept stage. Still, Wanat believes another Dead Space could work if EA keeps the budget down. Given that faint glimmer of hope, Wanat is keeping his planned Dead Space 4 ending under his hat, but it doesn’t sound too promising for humanity.
“Would players find a way out of the Necromorph apocalypse? I’d say yes, but they might be sorry they did. Sometimes you’re better off with the devil you know…”
