Dead Space : Blog

JC, Story Designer: Heroes of Dead Space Extraction #2

admin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:00:00 GMT

In my previous post, I introduced Gabe Weller and Warren Eckhardt, two of the four characters who make up Dead Space Extraction's rag-tag cast of survivors.

Now it's time to meet the rest of the foursome: Lexine Murdoch and Nathan McNeill. If these two look familiar, it's because they grace the cover of our recently-revealed box art! But Lex and McNeill share something else in common: unlike Weller and Eckhardt, who hail from the Planet Cracker Ishimura, these two start the game stationed on the remote mining colony of Aegis VII.

Lex is a 20-year old surveyor, who moved to Aegis VII with her father, an extraction engineer. Lex is like most of the men and women on the planet: just an ordinary worker, trying to eke out a living (and maintain a relationship) in the colony's mini-metropolis. But Lex is also unique, in a way she doesn't realize. When Aegis VII starts to slip into chaos and madness, she is rescued by a group of survivors, united together to find a shuttle off the planet. And as the story progresses, it slowly becomes clear that keeping Lex alive is the key to everyone's survival.

Contrary to a lot of internet speculation, Lex is not one of the playable characters in Dead Space Extraction. That honor belongs to the final hero of the game's foursome, Nathan McNeill. Like his old friend Weller, McNeill is a veteran of the Resource Wars. After leaving the service, he joined P-Sec's investigative unit, and became a detective assigned to Aegis VII in its earliest days as an outpost. Because Extraction's first few chapters take place on the colony, McNeill starts the game feeling like he has everything under control; he knows how to get around, where weapons are stored, etc. But once he arrives on the Ishimura, everything changes. Not only is McNeill out of his element, but he has to improvise and rely on instinct to survive the Necromorph invasion!

A good portion of Extraction's story unfolds through McNeill's eyes. Which means he has the most to learn about the secrets and motives of his ad-hoc comrades. But some Dead Space fans may wonder - what does it mean that the whole story isn't told from his perspective? I'll cover that topic in a later post!

Dead Space Extraction at San Diego Comic Con!

admin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Dead Space Extraction had a big presence at this year’s San Diego Comic Con with an early press showcase, new comic book, a panel, figurines on sale and more. We’ve put together a recap for fans who were unable to attend, so take a look below to witness all of the Dead Space Comic Con goodness.

The show started for Extraction at the EA Studio Showcase, an early press teaser event that was held down the street from the convention center. Executive producer Steve Papoutsis was interviewed by members of the press and demoed a never before seen section of the game, taking place on an unseen portion of the Ishimura’s Hydroponics Deck.

After the event was finished it was time to head to the convention hall for Preview Night. Moments before the hall opened we recorded a short clip of the amazing array of merchandise for sale at the EA Booth, including the Isaac Clark Unitology Suit figurine by Neca. We also handed out exclusive t-shirts and thousands of copies of the Dead Space Extraction Comic, written by Antony Johnston (writer of the Dead Space and Dead Space Extraction scripts, as well as the original comic series) and illustrated by Ben Templesmith (artist behind the original comic series). Ben and Antony were even at the booth periodically throughout the event signing copies of the comic for fans! During one such signing, Ben left this drawing behind on our signing table.

Tracy Espeleta, who worked on the original Dead Space as a Character and Localization Producer showed up dressed as Lexine, one of Extraction’s heroes and even brought a Plasma Cutter with her! Tracy was at the booth taking photos with fans and answering their questions about Dead Space, mainly “No, you can’t have the Plasma Cutter,” throughout the show.

On Friday, Dead Space hosted a panel, focusing mainly on developing horror and tension across media and the connection of Dead Space Extraction to the larger Dead Space story arc. Panelists included Dead Space Senior Producer Chuck Beaver, Art Director Ian Milham, Extraction Executive Producer Steve Papoutsis, Comic Artist Ben Templesmith and writer Antony Johnston.

There are several live blogs of the event, available on our own twitter archives at www.twitter.com/isaacclarke and elsewhere. Topics ranged from the development of game mechanics for the Wii to Dead Space’s use of a “Shakespeare Approved” plot structure. We enjoyed a fantastic Q&A (also available on Twitter) from serious fans and curious skeptics alike, including Isaac Clarke himself!

Thanks to everyone who played Dead Space Extraction in our booth, took a photo with Lexine, bought something (figurings, comics, gelaskins, artbooks, etc), picked up a shirt or a comic, snapped a photo with the Isaac costume across the street at the EA Game Lounge, got something signed, attended a panel or followed us on Twitter or Facebook throughout the show, we had a great time spending the week with all of you!

JC, Story Designer: Heroes of Dead Space Extraction #1

admin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:00:00 GMT

In terms of gameplay, Dead Space Extraction is authentic Dead Space, through and through. That means it’ll have all the heart-pounding thrills and bloody carnage the series is famous for.

But in terms of story-telling, Extraction is a very different beast. How so? Well, for starters, Extraction focuses on the adventure of four survivors, as opposed to a single hero. These survivors are strangers, united by chance. But their destinies and motives are intertwined in ways that will pit them against not only the Necromorphs, but themselves...

So who are these four survivors? Let me introduce you to two of them, both of whom hail from the Ishimura: Gabe Weller and Warren Eckhardt. Weller is a security sergeant on the Ishimura, and a veteran of the Resource Wars. He has sharp military instincts, but since there isn’t much action on a corporate Planet Cracker, hasn’t seen much excitement in a while. Weller is sent to the mining colony Aegis VII to retrieve the bodies of those who killed themselves during a mass suicide, a week before the Ishimura arrived in orbit. So let’s see – military background, itching for battle, dead bodies... Yes, Weller is the “action” guy of our rag-tag group of survivors.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Warren Eckhardt. He is a CEC (Concordance Extraction Corporation) executive, and a high-ranking one at that – Eckhardt is trusted with some of the company’s biggest secrets. He hates space travel, but was sent to the Ishimura to oversee some business onboard the ship and Aegis VII. The crew isn’t happy with CEC putting them under the microscope, but Eckhardt has his orders. Not only that, but he has a mission. There’s someone – or something – he’s looking for. Eckhardt doesn’t know who or what it is, but he hopes he will recognize some kind of sign during his travels.

In my next post, I’ll give you the inside scoop on the remaining two heroes, both of whom are from Aegis VII. But until then, I want to share with you a little know fact about Dead Space Extraction: it actually has multiple player characters, only half of whom are part of this foursome! Each playable character has a signature weapon (as well as additional ones to find and equip), and playing from these different perspectives sheds new light on some of the game’s events.

Remember: not everything is as it seems...

Lead Designer, Wright Bagwell: Controlling Dead Space Extraction

admin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:00:00 GMT

It took years for developers and gamers to settle on a standard control scheme for shooters on console platforms, because it’s difficult to get everyone to agree on how two analog sticks and a dozen or so buttons should map to your character’s abilities intuitively.

Some of you probably remember playing shooters with a computer keyboard, then one day having to master the art of playing with a mouse and needing to circle-strafe your opponents to win. It didn’t come naturally to me at first, but I eventually got the hang of it.   Once I did, I became a shooter junkie. And once gamers got the hang of shooter controls on console controllers, shooters really took off, which in turn had the effect of solidifying a basic standard shooter control scheme. The standardization of control schemes is a big reason that shooters are so popular; anyone who has familiarity with them can pick up a new game and instantly become immersed, because they don’t have to think hard about the controls. Comfort with the controls means players can get straight to business, and that’s key if you want people to have fun.

What does this have to do with Dead Space: Extraction?

It’s a great thing when someone can pick up your game and instantly feel like they can focus on what’s important, and that’s exactly what we wanted when we started thinking about making Dead Space: Extraction. It’s been a real joy designing the game, because in fact just about anyone can pick up the controls and have fun.   Nearly everyone I’ve showed the game to can get in the game and start having fun immediately. The biggest reason for this is that the Wii’s controls make some things so simple and intuitive that no one needs time to figure them out.   Aiming is one of the most difficult things to do with skill on traditional controllers, but it’s completely natural for just about anyone on the Wii Remote.

We want people to get into the story and setting, and to feel immersed right from the start. We also want people to get some instant gratification in their very first gunfight. Since dismemberment was a key part of Dead Space, we knew we had to focus on it in Extraction. And since dismemberment is all about making deliberate, well-aimed shots, we knew that lightgun-style controls would make that simple and intuitive for new players to pick up, yet still require a lot of skill to execute really well.   In addition to our dismemberment gunplay mechanics, we also have Stasis and Telekinesis from Dead Space, which also require precise aiming skill to execute well.   Firing your stasis device at something that’s moving in the world slows it down just short of a complete stop. Telekinesis lets you point to and grab objects in the world, which is how you’ll get health, ammo, weapons, upgrades, and a few other handy things that are lying around. Make no mistake: your ability to handle a gun will be challenged!

Simple to learn, difficult to master: this is what every game designer wants their game to be. And I think we’re there with Dead Space: Extraction, thanks in part to the Wii’s unique controls.

Executive Producer, Steve Papoutsis on Visceral Games

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:00:00 GMT

May 4th 2009 will be remembered as the day Visceral Games was born. The Redwood Shores studio at EAHQ will now be known as Visceral Games. This is especially exciting for the teams at Visceral but also has major significance for Dead Space Extraction. Extraction will be the first official Visceral Games release. Our team is stoked on being the first game ever released under our new studio name. Our goals with Extraction remain the same deliver a fun and compelling Dead Space game on the Nintendo Wii.

Visceral Games will focus on creating original IP that…well has a Visceral feel. This could be anything from dismembering the *** out of Necromorphs with a Plasma Cutter to hacking apart enemies with a traditional bladed weapon. Bottom line Visceral Games will stand for quality, innovation, and immersion. We look forward to a bright future making great games for everyone.

(Click the image of the cake to view a short video from the Visceral announcement party!)

Lead Designer, Wright Bagwell and Art Director, Thomas Holt: Designing the Glow Worm

admin — Fri, 01 May 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Hello! This is Wright Bagwell, Lead Designer, and Thomas Holt, Art Director of Dead Space: Extraction. We're excited to have this opportunity to talk to all of you, so let's dive right into a cool new feature of Extraction: the Glow Worm.

Early in development, we knew we wanted an interactive light device of some sort. It creates atmosphere, it's visually interesting, and is a great terror-creation device. We initially thought that we'd replicate Dead Space's flashlight for Extraction, since it seemed like it would be fun and intuitive to point your Wii Remote at the screen to aim the flashlight. Our first prototypes showed that while it was an interesting mechanic, it wasn't as interesting as it was in third person. We thought hard about how to improve the mechanic, and I think the team came up with something far more interesting: the Glow Worm.

Caption:

Wright: We typically capture brainstorming whiteboard sketches on camera and then save them for later reference. Here's a shot of my whiteboard after discussing the Glow Worm idea with Thomas.

Thomas: If Wright drew this, it would look like a child's drawing stuck to a refrigerator.

The Glow Worm is an emergency lighting device that most CEC miners, engineers and security personnel carry with them on the job, attached to their tools. It works like the glow sticks that most of us are familiar with today. CEC technicians made an improvement over current glow stick technology, however: The Glow Worm can be easily recharged an infinite number of times by simply shaking the capsule. Because they're waterproof, shockproof, lightweight, can easily withstand high pressure differentials, and can be recharged an infinite number of times, they're the ultimate emergency accessory for harsh outer space conditions. When activated, the Glow Worm emits a soft green glow around the player, but for a limited amount of time and with a limited intensity. This comes in handy in the case of a power failure, or being deep underground in a mining operation for long periods of time.

More importantly, it makes for cool combat gameplay. In the event that the player finds himself in extreme darkness, the Glow Worm creates a small sphere of light around him that ensures he can see any... occupational hazards that in are in close proximity. In our gameplay prototypes, we found that hearing enemies in the room with you that you can't see until they're up close is quite spooky and makes for some incredibly tense, fun combat. Since the Glow Worm attaches to your tools and weapons, it's charged by shaking the Wii Remote. This means that it's not possible to effectively shoot and charge the Glow Worm at the same time. Smart players will Keep it charged with an occasional shake during lulls in combat and not wait until it loses all of its charge, leaving them helpless and in almost total darkness. Some players get an itchy trigger finger when using the Glow Worm and spray bullets into the darkness to try their luck at killing anything hostile. But in a game where ammo is limited, that's not a wise strategy. Smart players keep a full clip handy and wait for enemies to advance, then react swiftly. Smart players also always focus on using strategic dismemberment to take down enemies quickly and efficiently, since panicking and spraying bullets randomly at Necromorph's bodies is not very effective and a waste of precious ammunition. Things get even more interesting when the player's using the Glow Worm against fast, flying enemies.

We think that the Glow Worm is going to add depth, challenge, atmosphere and terror in an original and intuitive way. We've spent countless hours blasting away enemies in our Glow Worm test levels, and it never gets old. In fact, it's getting even more addictive every day. Nothing beats making a game that you can't resist playing all day.

-Wright Bagwell and Thomas Holt

Story Designer, JC: Introducing the Story of Extraction

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Hello! My name is JC, and I'm the story designer on Dead Space: Extraction. I'm psyched to kick off the first of our developer blogs, where our team will give you an inside look into the making of this great game. We'll be updating often, and hopefully you'll hit up the forums and comments to let us know what you think!

If you haven't heard, Extraction is the official "first chapter" in the Dead Space universe. A prequel - easy, right? Actually, if history has taught us one thing, it's that prequels can be extraordinarily difficult. You need to have a compelling story for franchise fans, but not alienate new players. And with Dead Space, this challenge is threefold, because there's already so much material to draw from. Not only is there the award-winning game, there's also the graphic novel and animated feature to work with. So where to begin?

Dead Space: Extraction kicks off moments before the mysterious Red Marker is extracted from the far-flung colony of Aegis VII. Fans will know what happens next, and I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I say it's bloody and disturbing. This is a key moment in the graphic novel, and it's where Extraction first intersects the franchise. A good analogy would be that if the graphic novel runs east-west, then Extraction runs north-south - and the Marker's extraction is the point where they intersect.

From there, our heroes spend a few chapters escaping the colony. Their salvation is the planet-cracker Ishimura, which they reach via shuttle. Once on-board, our heroes have an adventure that runs parallel to the events seen in the animated feature. You'll see some familiar faces, and uncover the truth behind some of the secrets hinted at in the movie.

I can't reveal what happens next. (OK, I'll reveal a little: body parts fly everywhere...) But I can tell you that the final scenes of Extraction intersect a critical moment in the original Dead Space game. Hmmm... What moment could this be?

Finally, Extraction is coming to you from the same great team that brought you the first game. The designers and artists, and even the writer and some voice-actors, are involved on this project! The platform may be different, but be assured: Extraction is authentic Dead Space, through and through.

I've briefly hinted at Extraction's heroes, and I'll cover each one in detail in later blog posts. Thanks for reading!

Meet the Authors!

admin — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:00:00 GMT

As you can see from the video above, most of the team is in England right now, working hard on Dead Space Extraction. While they're trapped in Moo-cap sessions, we thought we'd introduce the core authors that will be giving you the scoop on Dead Space Extraction over the following months!

Steve Papoutsis

My name is Steve Papoutsis and I’m the Executive Producer working on Dead Space Extraction. It’s hard to put into words how excited and privileged I feel to be bringing fans of Dead Space the next game in what we hope will be a long running franchise. On Dead Space I worked as the Senior Producer in charge of our Horror moments as well as other elements in the game and plan to use that experience to make sure Extraction delivers on the atmosphere and scares that Dead Space fans have come to expect in a Dead Space game.

One other major passion in my life has been Music. I started playing in bands back when I was 13 years old and kept at it until I was 26. During that time I managed to start up a band called No Use For a Name which I played Bass in for many years. In addition to playing music I also worked as a Recording Engineer / Producer for a long time before finally moving into Video Games.

Wright Bagwell

I am the Lead Designer on Dead Space Extraction. It's my responsibility to make sure that the game is fun, visceral, and tense. I spend most of my days writing detailed descriptions of how our game mechanics should work, playing the game and detailing improvements that need to be made, and then visiting with everyone on the team to communicate those improvements.

Some of my favorite games of all time are: Battlefield 1942, Rock Band, Half Life, Ikariam, PlanetFall, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Outcast, Katamari Damacy, Total Annihilation, Portal, and Call of Duty 4. In my spare time, I am a hard core off-road motorcycle racer, I love traveling in sketchy third world locales, and I love unusual music.

Thomas Holt

I’m responsible for all Art Direction and Art Leadership on Extraction. I’ve been with the Dead Space Franchise since extremely early on and its unique mix of horror, action, and science fiction is a great blend of my personal interest as well. I’m an avid gamer, reader, and cinephile. I consider myself a visual story teller and I love a good story regardless of medium.

Dave Yee

I’m the acting Sr. Development Director on the team which is a fancy way of saying I’m ultimately responsible for making sure the game is put in a box and ships to stores. I am the Ying to the Executive Producer’s Yang. While the EP is responsible for driving quality and selling the game, I am responsible for keeping things real. I drive the development team to stay on track with the schedule and I advise on where we need to scope the game to be sure we hit our dates. Aside from being the Sr. DD, I am also pulling double duty on Extraction as the Technical Director. As the TD, I make sure the infrastructure is in place to make the game by dealing with IT and our networking partners. I also audit the technical design plan and investigate how we can push the hardware.

What do I do outside of working on Extraction? There’s an outside? :-) I try to sleep when I can.

JC

My name is John Calhoun and I’m the Story Designer for Dead Space: Extraction. I’m the newest member of the team, but absolutely loved playing Dead Space and am thrilled to join the franchise. I’ve been a game designer for 10 years, having worked on the Godfather and Lord of the Rings games during my time at EA. For Extraction, my goal is to deliver an exciting story that will keep players glued to their seats, guessing what will happen next – and scare them when they least expect it! I also direct Extraction’s vocal talent; our international cast is one of the best I’ve worked with. Extraction will definitely carry the torch of excellent audio that Dead Space is famous for! In my free time I rock the bass guitar, sniff out the best $10 cuisine in San Francisco, and bring the blue sparks in Mario Kart Wii.

Executive Producer, Steve Papoutsis: Greetings and Welcome to Dead Space Extraction

admin — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:00:00 GMT

My name is Steve Papoutsis and as Glen stated in his last blog I’m the Executive Producer working on Dead Space Extraction. It’s hard to put into words how excited and privileged I feel to be bringing fans of Dead Space the next game in what we hope will be a long running franchise. On Dead Space I worked as the Senior Producer in charge of our Horror moments and plan to use that experience to make sure Extraction delivers on the atmosphere and scares that Dead Space fans have come to expect in a Dead Space game.

Since I plan to be posting often I thought I’d take a moment to let everyone know a bit about me. I’ve been an avid Video Game fan dating all the way back to Pong, I remember the first night my Dad brought the system home and how I played and played it with anyone who could spare the time for a game. Since Pong I’ve owned or played games on every system released in the US and even some of the more obscure systems that never made it out to America. I’ve been designing games for a very long time as well, I’m sure most people remember playing with their Army men or Action figures with friends and getting into arguments around how their guy should have beaten your friends guy, well I made up some simple game rules around this with dice in order to resolve these sorts of arguments, I know pretty geeky but still I was passionate about game design going all the way back to a very young age.

As Glen mentioned he and I have been working together for over a decade, in fact we have worked on over 10+ games together that experience has been awesome. It brings me a lot of satisfaction and joy to work on games that provide entertainment to gamers, there is nothing as cool as knowing people are having a good time playing a game that you worked hard to make.

One of the many reasons I’m so pumped up about working on the Dead Space franchise is because I’ve been a horror fan for a very long time. As an example I had issue 1 of Fangoria the first magazine focused on Horror movies. I also did some small super low budget VHS and Super 8 Horror movie attempts with friends back in the day, my favorite attempt was called Pig Man where I directed (heh if you can call it that) and stared as the lead protagonist…. =) No one will have ever seen or heard of that little gem, but again I bring this up as a way to point out how much I like the Horror Movie / Game genre.

One other major passion in my life has been Music. I started playing in bands back when I was 13 years old and kept at it until I was 26. During that time I managed to start up a band called No Use For a Name which I played Bass in for many years. In addition to playing music I also worked as a Recording Engineer / Producer for a long time before finally moving into Video Games.

Well enough about me that was probably pretty boring and now you’re saying what about Extraction! Dead Space Extraction is a prequel to Dead Space. We are calling our game a Guided First Person Experience as we are aiming to create our own genre through innovating on classic gameplay concepts. Extraction will feature the core mechanics from the original Dead Space, specifically Strategic Dismemberment, Stasis, Telekinesis, and Zero-G. That’s not all though we are telling the story of the events that lead into Dead Space featuring an all new cast of characters plus fans of Downfall and the comic series might just recognize a few names and places. Our game will feature all new locations both on Aegis VII as well as the Ishimura. The game will also feature all new enemies and bosses and my favorite new feature Co-op. Players will be able to play through the entire Story with a friend, which was very important to our team. We want to make sure it’s easy for friends to play the game together so we have made sure players can jump in and out of the game with a simple press of a button. There are tons of other new things in store for Extraction and we will be telling everyone more about the game in future Blog posts.

Our team will be blogging regularly here starting very soon. You will get to hear from a variety of very talented folks working on the game. I also wanted to say we will be reading your posts as well, I wanted to say thank you to one of the posters already who had some words of encouragement for the game, visible_baton, thanks for the kind words and the team and I plan to work hard to make Extraction the best game possible.

I look forward to reading your comments and hope you enjoy the Blog posts the team will be making. Thanks for being passionate about and interested in Dead Space Extraction, I can’t wait until you get a chance to try the game.

Dead Space Wins Best Action Game and Best Sound Design at AIAS!

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Dead Space was honored at the twelfth Annual Interactive Achievement Awards last night at the DICE conference. Dead Space was nominated for Best Art Direction and took home the prize for Best Sound Design and Best Action Game of the year. In an impressive field of competitors we are extremely grateful for this honor. Thanks to the entire team and fans of Dead Space everywhere.

Check out the complete list of winners on N4G and watch the awards show, hosted by Jay Mohr at IGN.

Glen Schofield: Dead Space Extraction!

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Hello Everyone,

It gives me great pleasure in announcing that we will be bringing the Dead Space franchise to the Wii with Dead Space: Extraction.. This is not a port - it's actually a prequel to Dead Space and takes place the days before Isaac even arrives on the scene. Extraction features a new story, characters, mechanics and is created specifically for the Wii.

I'd like to introduce Steve Papoutsis who is Executive Producing Extraction. As the new GM of Redwood Shores Studio my job means I need to oversee all the games in development and pass the Dead Space torch on to a person I have worked with for over a decade. Steve was a Senior Producer on Dead Space and one of my most trusted people to carry on the Dead Space vision. This is not a decision I take lightly either, but Steve is an easy choice. He is one of the hardest working guys I know, a huge gamer and is an expert in everything Dead Space.
Steve did so much on Dead Space and was so integral to its success. He also has a core team of Dead Space people working with him, so this is the Dead Space team designing this game.

Steve is also an action/horror fan and a Wii fanatic. He is excited to put both of his passions together with Extraction.

The bottom line is Steve is the perfect person to bring the Dead Space franchise to the Wii. He and I still talk everyday like I do with the EP's of all of our products so if and when he has any questions it's easy for us to compare notes and brainstorm.

So please welcome Steve as the new EP of Dead Space: Extraction. The game already looks fantastic and he and his team are and have been kicking ass quietly on this product for months. I'm sure you will be hearing from Steve and his great team very soon. I couldn't be happier with them and the game and it's freakin' great to be bringing a new game like this to the Wii.

-Glen

Aegis VII

admin — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Chuck Beaver: The Epi-blog

admin — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Well, we did it. We managed to not only ship a game, but a good one, if you listen to the reviews.

We've had the shipping part down for awhile now. We were aiming for the Good. Good is ridiculously hard to hit.

When you finish a game after 3 years of work, it's a very surreal moment. You've gone from blue sky ideas and ideological battles to roller coasters of approvals and budget cuts and dailies reviews to finally finaling and working 100-hour weeks (if you're our audio team feverishly crafting their masterpiece), and then suddenly, it's over. Code is forcibly taken from your hands and turned over to manufacturing. Shocked and awed, you must now wait 6 long, cold, delirium tremens weeks for word of your offspring's fate in the real world. Numb and unshaven, possibly somewhat smelly, and certainly a bad imitation of your own personality, you shiver alone at your desk, pressing F5 over and over on the Metacritic site, waiting for the first review to post.

The worst thing is having your lungs punctured by a 70-something review (which all the team has experienced before). The opposite is seeing a 91 for the first review. It's like the first time you actually had sex. You could hardly believe it was happening, and yes, it was as good as promised. Am I allowed to talk about sex on my work blog? Cause I am. And I'm relating it to getting a 91 for the first review of our game.

We kept hitting refresh, and it kept staying 91, and we checked meaning of the symbol "9" in our heads to make sure it was still 9, and so forth, and then we finally decided it was indeed the grail we had been questing for, and there was a great rejoicing and then some shock and awe. The fact we eventually settled to an 89 only means you had sex again and it was pretty much just as good as the first time. Reviews aren't everything (sales are), but they are validation writ large, even though we would have been proud of our work regardless.

EA had put a lot of faith and risk in us. We were the first game to come out as part of EA's "new IP" strategic direction, and so much was riding on us. During the 3 years of production, we always kept product first, focusing on making a game we would want to play, but the weight of the need for a hit was ever present.

In the end, it turned out the magic formula for hitting Good is passion, passion and passion. Time and Talent are the other requirements (which we had), but passion seems to be the kicker. People poured their hearts into their craft because they were allowed to own their pieces and take them to the sky. Passion also happens to be shorthand for a lot of other things we got right, such as no a$$holes on the team, having a good design, an excessively deep bench of talent and experience down to almost the last person, excellent leadership attitude from our EP (Glen), a schedule with polish time included (we even pulled in by two weeks? What planet are we on?) and of course the resulting highest morale evar. In hindsight, you are left to wonder why these obvious elements are not included in every team everywhere, but the fact of the matter is each element is rare, and rarer still when clustered together at once.

The magic of the project seems to have gone meta, permeating not only the product, but the people, and now EA itself, as the idea of "new IP" is now firmly kicked-off as a valid new strategic direction for EA.

The team is just now returning from some well-deserved time off, and onto various studio projects such as <I can't say>. But all is well with the Dead Space team, and we're looking forward to working together again in the future, should the fates deign.

Thanks to the whole community on here who have fervently supported us before, during and after launch! We appreciate your enthusiasm, and are happy to have made you fidget, squeal, yelp, jump, Ooo and aw, and otherwise disturb your neighbors in 5.1 glory.

We now have only to humbly warm our hands over the fire of success brought by your support, thankful for the moment, and excited to take a peek at the sky for what lies ahead.

Altman be Praised.

Chuck Beaver

Chuck Beaver: The Epi-blog

admin — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Well, we did it. We managed to not only ship a game, but a good one, if you listen to the reviews.

We've had the shipping part down for awhile now. We were aiming for the Good. Good is ridiculously hard to hit.

We now have only to humbly warm our hands over the fire of success brought by your support, thankful for the moment, and excited to take a peek at the sky for what lies ahead.

Altman be Praised.

Chuck Beaver

Before You Carve a Turkey, Practice on a Necromorph!

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:00:00 GMT

The Dead Space Dismemberment Demo will be available for download on XBL and PSN on November 25. Playstation 3 owners in Europe can download it on November 27. This demo showcases our critically -acclaimed combat, giving you the chance to experience strategic dismemberment first hand!

Use four different weapons (plasma cutter, pulse rifle, ripper and contact beam) to tear apart the horrifying necromorphs that haunt the USG Ishimura. Use stasis to slow your enemies to a crawl or employ telekinesis to manipulate and throw objects (including the recently dismembered dead).

If you find yourself overwhelmed remember to:

- Cut off their limbs!

- Use Telekenesis to launch exploding barrels at your enemies

- Xbox: Left Trigger (aim mode) + X

- PS3: L1 (aim mode) + square

- Use Stasis

- Xbox 360: Left Trigger (aim mode) + X

- PS3: L1 (aim mode) + square

- Quick Heal (as long as you have medpacks in the inventory)

- Xbox 360: X (not in aim mode)

- PS3: Square (not in aim mode)

- Check your Inventory

- Xbox 360: Y

- PS3: Triangle

- Run!

- Xbox: Left bumper while moving

- PS3: L2 while moving

If you are an Xbox 360 user, you can download the Dismemberment Demo right now, just CLICK HERE and click "Download to Xbox 360" to add the demo to your console's download queue. If you are on PS3, be sure to check out the Dismemberment Demo the next time you boot up your system. We hope you enjoy this taste of Dead Space, let us know what you thought below!

- B