Scare Me Once, Shame On You: Dead Space 2 Announced

Good news, everyone!

Dead Space is getting itself a sequel! That’s right, gaming’s worst kept secret has just been officially announced by the folks over at EA, who will be teaming up with the newly formed Visceral Games ( formerly EA Redwood Shores, the ghouls behind the first Dead Space and the as-yet-to-be-released Dante’s Inferno). It’s not like they needed to tell us or anything, as anyone who lived through the months of viral marketing, animated features, webcomics and the actual release of the first game could tell you.

The developers and marketing staff at EA were definitely trying to craft a sustainable new IP with the first Dead Space, and gamers who survived the first title can tell you that the universe of Isaac Clark and the U.S.G. Ishiamura is definitely worth another horrifying visit. Strategic dismemberment was gorily addictive, the visuals were off the scale, zero-g combat was a welcome change and the mutated Necromorphs were suitably chill-worthy.  There’s been hubbub surrounding a possible sequel for a while now, but the real news concerns how the story will continue.

Players of the first title might remember that everyone’s favorite inter-galactic engineer ended up suffering a somewhat ambiguous fate in the cockpit of his idling rescue shuttle, a perfect end to the game’s incredibly thrilling horror story. Fans have been tossing ideas back and forth as to whether Isaac will actually survive to make a return in Dead Space 2 or if a new character will take center stage. Well, that question has officially been answered and it appears Isaac will once again wield his trusty Plasma Cutter and dismember some reanimated corpses for the upcoming sequel.

I for one am happy to see Isaac coming back, as I felt his character had a lot of depth and back story that wasn’t revealed in-game that could definitely make for some good storytelling the next time around. The press release states that this time Isaac “will be calling the shots”, so hopefully this will mean a departure from the sort of grunt work he was forced to carry out at the whims of his fellow surviving ship-mates. The development team seems really excited to revisit the science fiction world of Dead Space, telling of new weapons, scores of new enemy types and plenty of harrowing experiences to be had by all.

Throw in the often rumored addition of multi-player (again, just a load of hot air at this point) and the inevitable tweaks to gameplay that come with any sequel and you can count on hearing a lot coming out of this latest follow up to one of this console generation’s greatest survival horror titles to date. Check back here to get the latest on Dead Space 2 as it becomes available.