Dead Space 3

The central cast of Dead Space 3; from left to right, Isaac Clarke, Jennifer Santos, Austin Buckell, Ellie Langford, Robert Norton, and John Carver.

Dead Space 3 is set in the 26th century. In the backstory, a resource-starved humanity experimented with an alien artefact called the Black Marker, but it triggered dementia and mental illness and ultimately transformed corpses into monsters called Necromorophs. During this initial outbreak, a religion dubbed the Church of Unitology was born, worshipping the Markers as a divine force that will lead humanity to a unified state dubbed "Convergence". Later experiments with copies dubbed the Red Markers led to the same result, prompting the Earth Government (EarthGov) to hide the Red Markers away. The Marker incidents are revived when one is discovered on the planet Aegis VII by the mining ship USG Ishimura. In the present, humanity is under attack from the Markers, and while EarthGov tries to contain the crisis and exploit the Markers for their energy, Unitology works to further the Markers' work.[16][17]

The main protagonist is Isaac Clarke, an engineer who survived the Ishimura incident, resultant torture by EarthGov for the Marker blueprints in his mind, a subsequent outbreak on the Titan-based Sprawl space station, and mental illness triggered by the Markers.[16] The secondary protagonist is John Carver, an EarthGov soldier who survived a Necromorph outbreak that killed his family, with whom he had a troubled relationship.[18] The other central characters are Ellie Langford, Isaac's love interest; Robert Norton, an associate who forms an antagonistic relationship with Isaac due to his closeness with Ellie; and Jason Danik, leader of a militant Unitologist group called the Circle.[19][20][21] Secondary characters who help Isaac are Marker researchers Jennifer Santos and Austin Buckell.[21]

The opening sequence, set two centuries in the past, shows a human team retrieving an artefact called the Codex; the team's commander kills his remaining subordinate, erases data on the Codex, and then commits suicide. In the present, in hiding on the lunar colony, Isaac is forcibly extracted by Carver and Norton to help find Ellie, escaping a Necromorph outbreak triggered by Danik and the Circle. Ellie is traced to Tau Volantis, assumed to be the Marker home world orbited by a single moon. Isaac goes there along with Carver, the distrustful Norton, Santos and Buckell. Rescuing Ellie, they investigate the orbiting derelict ship Terra Nova, discovering evidence of human research on the Necrmorphs, and the recurring phrase "Turn it off". They end up crash-landing on Tau Volantis, with Isaac and Carver separated from the rest. Isaac finds Buckell shortly before he dies from his wounds and hypothermia. After reuniting, the survivors set off in search of a key called "Rosetta", pursued by Danik and the Circle who followed them to Tau Volantis. Norton betrays the group, hoping to escape with Ellie, but Danik betrays him in turn and Isaac is forced to kill him in a fight. Santos later dies during another Necromorph attack.

"Rosetta" is revealed to be a preserved alien native of Tau Volantis, which was another victim of the Necromorph infection. A vision reveals the Markers influence evolution and perpetuate the Necromorphs. As a last resort before being overwhelmed, the aliens created a Machine which sent the planet's moon−in reality the final form of the Necromorph lifecycle−into hibernation by freezing the entire planet; the message to "Turn it off" came from the Markers so the Moon can awaken and summon more of its kind to begin consuming humanity and birth another Moon. "Rosetta" was used by the old human team to create the Codex, a DNA key to control the machine, with their deaths being to prevent the Necromorph infection from spreading. Danik captures and threatens Ellie, forcing Isaac to give up the Codex. Danik deactivates the Machine, reviving the Moon and triggering Convergence, the absorption of all organic matter on Tau Volantis to fuel the Moon. Danik dies in the resulting destruction, and after sending Ellie away, Isaac and Carver reach and reactivate the Machine, which kills the Moon and apparently them. With the Marker signal gone, a saddened Ellie returns to Earth.

In Awakened, the still-living Isaac and Carver move to escape Tau Volantis, facing surviving Necromorphs along the way, and suffering from hallucinations and visions. Through one of these, Isaac learns the other Moons were woken and are searching for Earth. Using a Circle shuttle to reach the Terra Nova to find a lightspeed drive and warn Earth, the two are forced to confront a group of Circle survivors who mutilate themselves in emulation of the Necromorphs. The Moons interfere with Isaac's mind in a seeming attempt to discover Earth's location, causing friction with Carver, but ultimately tell him they always knew where Earth was and were stalling the two. After killing the cultists Isaac and Carver escape to Earth, only to find it under attack from the Moons. A Moon approaches their ship, leaving their fates unclear.

Papoutsis stated the team wanted to make a game superior in quality to Dead Space 2.[29] The game was first developed for PlayStation 3 and 360, then ported to Microsoft Windows, resulting in limited graphical options for the latter platform. Executive producer Steve Papoutsis defended this decision, saying the team wanted the game experience to be similar across all platforms.[30] When asked whether a Wii U version was being considered, Papoutsis said the platform was wrong for the Dead Space series at that point.[31] For the 360 version, the team implemented Kinect functionality into the co-op. While the team had worked with other motion control-based systems in the series, they had never worked with Kinect before. They only used voice-based commands, as they felt gestures would disrupt the gameplay feel players had come to expect.[32] The game engine, carried over from earlier entries, had to be adjusted for the larger environments.[1] A new technical addition was real-time depth of field adjustment, and more realistic reflections and light behavior.[33] The team did their best to preserve the diegetic UI design, although they had to break this rule and create a more conventional full-screen UI display for the crafting bench; an early version which showed Isaac working over the desk with displays around him was deemed unusable.[5]

Multiplayer had been repeatedly raised as a possible inclusion by Electronic Arts to broaden the series appeal; it was dropped from the first due to both design and budgetary reasons, while Dead Space 2 included it as a separate competitive mode.[24] Co-op had also apparently been a request from series fans.[1] For Dead Space 3, the team agreed to include cooperative multiplayer from the outset and "do it properly". The original proposal was to have a "Shadow Isaac" that would appear like another character, playing into early story concepts surrounding Isaac's mental state, but the team were prompted by Electronic Arts to make a more traditional co-op mode without the dementia elements.[24] Story Producer Chuck Beaver said after the game's release that the switch from single-player to including co-op happened in the middle of the game's production.[34] The tuning and balance of gameplay and enemies needed to be adjusted to account for the co-op element, and some sections were made co-op exclusive with unique story elements.[31][35]

The story decisions influenced the game design.[32] The new setting of Tau Volantis allowed the team to experiment by obscuring visibility with sudden blizzards, combining that with the sound design to create a different type of tension than previous entries.[7] When creating the game's environments, they were made more open, breaking away from the enclosed settings of earlier games and forcing players to adopt different tactics when dealing with enemies.[1] The vertical environmental design also meant rappelling could be incorporated.[32] One zero-G section, the Flotilla, was designed with "some pretty wild setups" that had to be toned down or cut for the final version.[28] The Flotilla also allowed the team to incorporate more traditional closed environments used in the first two Dead Space games.[36] From December 2011, the team focused a lot of tuning of controls and the weapon upgrade system, with the team increasing Isaac's movement speed from Dead Space 2 to match the new human enemies.[37] The Credits currency was removed entirely to focus players onto the crafting system.[14]

Elements of the game's scenario drew inspiration from the work of Erich von Däniken (left), and the creations of H. P. Lovecraft (right).

When Wanat became director, he wanted to place more focus on story than the earlier games. As the team suspected it would be the final entry in the series, it was also decided to conclude the overall narrative.[22] Wanat described himself as having "shoehorned in" a lot of story to close out the series.[24] At the same time, the cliffhanger ending of Awakened left the series open for a continuation should it happen.[28] From the beginning, the team had written backstory for the Dead Space universe, and following Dead Space 2 there was a greater focus on creating a cohesive narrative involving these elements. Feedback from players wanting explanations of the Markers prompted a focus on their origins and the creation of the Necromorphs.[19] Speaking about the pacing, Wanat said he wanted to give the player breathing space and pace out the horror elements.[38] Beaver had been involved with the series from the beginning.[18] The story and script was a collaborative effort between Beaver, Wanat, and in-house writer Jay Turner.[39] Another writer on the project during 2011 was novellist Cherie Priest, who appreciated the experience but was uninterested in working with Electronic Arts again.[40]

The early narrative would have delved into Isaac's mental state, with the co-op player being a hallucinatory clone of Isaac appearing as their own character and hallucinations playing a part in gameplay and player interaction, with the finale being adjusted around the Shadow Isaac character in both single-player and co-op. Electronic Arts wanted the team to steer away from psychosis and dementia as central themes, so Shadow Isaac was scrapped.[24] The shift to incorporating co-op required story rewrites, and presented problems during story presentation with Carver vanishing from scenes in the story when he did not appear with Isaac.[24][34] While the final narrative kept elements of psychological horror, the focus shifted to the characters surviving the environment of Tau Volantis.[7] The narrative, which reveals the Necromorphs' involvement in human evolution, referenced the work of Erich von Däniken.[41] The Necromorph moon was a direct reference to the Great Old Ones created by H. P. Lovecraft, whose work had been an influence on the series since its inception.[42]

As with the rest of the series, Isaac was portrayed as a reluctant participant in events.[43] The character of Carver emerged after Shadow Isaac was scrapped, with the request being for a soldier-type character then common in mainstream gaming.[24] Carver was constructed "as his own man" with personal issues rendering him vulnerable to the Markers.[18] His behavior and role were intended to contrast against Isaac's experience with the Markers, in addition to the co-op storylines allowing players to get to know Carver as a character.[35] During early design concepts, Wanat wanted him to be "a monster inside and out", creating a sketch of him with ugly facial scarring; the scarring was retained in a tone-down form.[18] The hallucination elements relating to Carver's role in the co-op cameplay were retained in a limited form in the final game, but time and budget constraints limited their incorporation.[24] The militant Unitoligist faction emerged from the team wanting to include a human enemy faction for Isaac to fight alongside the Necromorphs.[33]

The game's art director was Alex Muscat, who had been senior environmental artist on Dead Space 2.[44] Previous lead series artist Ian Milham left the team after pre-production was completed.[22] Speaking about the art design, Muscat said there were several key elements retained for the game, including its science fiction setting, feelings of fear and loneliness, and the presence of disturbing elements. Without changing too much of the overall world design, Muscat instead added more color to environments while lowering the light contrast. There were also color changes to reinforce situations, giving more variety to environments.[44] The concept art was created by Patrick O’Keefe, who designed Tau Volantis to make anyone exploring it seem insignificant and small.[45] Tau Volantis drew inspiration from multiple sources, with one cited inspiration being the John Carpenter movie The Thing.[14] The environmental design for the Tau Volantis human ruins was intended to appear less high tech, with devices and character outfits taking direct inspiration from pre-digital machinery and safety gear.[44][46] The team referenced vintage photographs of expeditions to Antarctica, and contemporary scientific outposts in Alaska to give these environments a familiar feeling.[47] The ice formations were given a serrated appearance as if they might cut the player, making the environment threatening and playing into recurring visual motifs within the series.[48] The alien city was created as an explicit homage to the spaceship from Alien, using circles as a recurring visual and design motif.[41]

Isaac's design was kept consistent with the series, as his suit design and choice of weaponry had become iconic.[44] His suit design was reworked to fit in with the cold environment, with a fur-collared version being chosen because the team liked it more than the other options.[49] The humanoid Necromorphs were redesigned to appear more horrifying, and some had specific inspirations; the Feeders were recycled from one of the original game's early concepts using reanimated mummies, and the Infectors being homages the monsters of Alien and The Thing.[50] The team performed research into frozen mummies from lost polar expeditions to get the enemy design right.[38] The alien Necromorph designs for Tau Volantis, which was originally an ocean planet and used a non-human species, drew inspiration from illustrations of aquatic life by Ernst Haeckel. Their design was thus permitted to be less realistic and potentially more horror-themed. It also acted as a homage to early concept designs of the original Dead Space.[51] The Moons incorporated features from squids and jellyfish.[42]

The Dead Space series was known and noted for its audio design, and Calhoun wanted to expand upon the use of audio design to create tension and scares in players.[36] The audio elements were recorded in-house, with the team using voice and audio samples in a variety of ways to create disturbing sounds within the environment. An example given was shaking dry teabags to create a dry, crunchy sound for one of the enemy types. Many of the new Necromorph sounds were provided by the development team.[52] Gunner Wright returned to provide voice and motion capture for Isaac, describing the part in Dead Space 3 as fun to perform.[53] Carver was voiced and motion captured by Ricardo Antonio Chavira.[18] Sonita Henry returned as Ellie, while new characters Robert Norton and Jason Danik were played respectively by Robert Gant and Simon Templeman.[54]

Jason Graves, composer for much of the Dead Space franchise, returned to work on Dead Space 3, co-creating the score with newcomer James Hannigan.[55][56] Mirroring the shift towards action in the gameplay, the music also shifted to be more action-oriented, though Graves wanted to keep themes and motifs from earlier entries.[55] Hannigan's pieces focused on narrative movement, with him consciously staying away from Graves's established style.[56][57] The zero-G environments, while generally realistic, used small music cues to emphasise action elements.[58] Graves and Hannigan mostly worked on different areas of the music or focused on specific chapters, though there were sections where both of their compositions featured.[56][57]

On review aggregate website Metacritic, the 360 and Windows version scored 78 points out of 100 based on 68 and 16 reviews respectively, while the PS3 version scored 76 based on 37 reviews.[80][81][82] During the 2013 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards, Dead Space 3 was nominated for awards in the "Animation, Interactive", "Direction in a Game Cinema", "Sound Effects" and "Use of Sound, Franchise" categories.[92] Dead Space 3 received generally positive reviews from critics upon release. Many praised its gameplay, crafting system and graphics. A common criticism or point of concern was the turn towards action over survival horror, which many felt weakened the experience.[93] Fan reaction was also mixed on the change to an action-heavy experience both before and after release.[22][38][79]

Tim Turi of Game Informer and Arthur Gies of Polygon were both notably positive about the game, saying the incorporation of action benefited the series without diluting its horror and aesthetic, and praising the co-op as an unobtrusive addition.[8][85] Shaun McInnis of GameSpot, while noting its story as convoluted, praised its atmospheric presentation and gameplay additions.[2] Nathan Ditum of PC Gamer praised its tone and co-op elements, though noted pacing issues due to its size and disjointed nature of its chapters; ultimately he felt the game was a natural evolution of the series and still carried key elements of the Dead Space series.[90] Joystiq's Ludwig Kietzmann called Dead Space 3 "an exciting, shocking and mammoth adventure", praising its integration of action elements and co-op, alongside lauding its space sections as some of the best parts of the game.[87] Computer and Video Games's Matthew Pellett praised the mechanics and some early co-op sections and enemy designs for their use of horror, but cited several elements including changes to ammunition and a lack of variety as detrimental, ultimately feeling the game "[wasn't] Dead Space anymore".[10]

Edge Magazine lauded its immersion and outer space section, but felt the campaign was too long and additionally said the storyline of saving humanity let down the narrative.[83] Electronic Gaming Monthly's Ray Carsillo praised the presentation and storyline, but faulted the mechanics as generic and noted a lack of horror compared to earlier games, and additionally cited the microtransactions as an unwelcome addition.[9] IGN's Casey Lynch spoke negatively about its story and mission structure, but found the gameplay in both single-player and co-op enjoyable enough to overlook any problems.[86] Dan Whitehead, writing for Eurogamer, summed the game up as having many contradicting parts ranging from polished and well designed to clumsy or unoriginal, calling it a game for newcomers rather than series fans.[84] Ryan Stevens of GameTrailers enjoyed the co-op gameplay and particularly cited the outer space sections as a highlight, but disliked the story and characters, and again criticised the microtransactions.[3] Joel Gregory of PlayStation Official Magazine UK, while enjoying the gameplay overall, noted a loss of elements that had made previous Dead Space games stand out alongside recycling elements to the point of losing their scariness.[88] Edwin Evans-Thirlwell, writing for Official Xbox Magazine UK, praised the crafting and co-op integration, while negatively noting the story and repetative elements.[89] VideoGamer.com was less enthusiastic than other reviewers, saying that neither the action nor horror elements were done well enough for the game to be enjoyable, ultimately lacking originality.[91]

Reception of Awakened with journalists was mixed.[94][95] Lynch was fairly positive, citing it as the best part of Dead Space 3 due to its focus on Isaac's mental state but faulting its status as DLC rather than being part of the main game.[96] Carsillo likewise praised the psychological elements, but faulted the plot and lack of new environments.[97] Evans-Thirlwell enjoyed it as an extension of the game experience, but negatively noted its recycling of game assets.[98] McInnis enjoyed the new cult enemies, but generally faulted it for a lack of new elements in environments or combat.[99] Richard Mitchell, writing for Joystiq, enjoyed the expansions to the lore but noted its lack of new gameplay elements made it a hard sell.[100] Whitehead summed the DLC up as "Short and insulting", saying its only redeeming element was the sound gameplay carried over from the main game, with it otherwise being unenjoyable given its price.[101] Its plot holes surrounding the protagonists' fates and short length were generally faulted.[96][97][99][101]

In the United States, Dead Space 3 was the top-selling game in February 2013 according to the NPD Group.[102] It sold 605,000 copies in North America during its debut month.[103] In the United Kingdom during its first week, Dead Space 3 reached the top of sales charts, but sales were down over 20% compared to those of Dead Space 2.[104] Both Dead Space 3 and Crysis 3, which released in the same month, failed to meet the sales expectations of Electronic Arts, though no sales figure for either was released.[105]

• Dead Space 3 North American instruction booklet. Electronic Arts. February 5, 2013.
• "In A Blizzard, No-One Can Hear You Scream". Play. No. 224. Imagine Publishing. December 2012.
• Robinson, Martin (February 5, 2013). Art of Dead Space. Titan Books.