A few days ago EA and Visceral Games debuted the first teaser trailer for Dead Space 2, their big sequel to 2008′s action-horror title. The sequel picks up three years later with Isaac Clarke in a hospital on the Sprawl, a massive space station. Unfortunately for him and the rest of the station’s population, the necromorph infection and the madness caused by the alien (?) marker is about to arrive. The developers are promising a better pacing to the action and horror elements, with more ebb and flow and less constant intensity. Also expect a greater variety of environments since the story will take place in what is essentially a city in space, rather than a mining vessel.
For what it’s worth, it’s been confirmed that none of the voices in that clip are Isaac’s, although he won’t be a silent character this time around.
The Dead Space franchise is probably my favorite new IP of the current gaming generation. I love the action-horror combo, and the rich universe behind the games’ stories. I’m also a complete sucker for horror stories involving creatures and futuristic manmade structures (see: Alien and its sequels, Eden Log), even though so few are good. But with just the first game, the creators introduced so many interesting elements to the world, between the government and corporate factions, the Church of Unitology and no shortage of individuals with their own agendas. It feels fully fleshed out and complex, without clearcut good and bad guys, just a lot of people’s differing interests and beliefs colliding during an alien infection. And it’s all pretty well told, unlike the Resident Evil games. I’m also a sucker for world-building in games, hence my love for this franchise and the BioShock series, two that let the player piece together the story and universe through lots of little details obtained through text logs, audio logs, various NPCs, etc. I love that stuff, it really gets me right in there with the character and his situation. It also helps that EA is looking at the franchise as a multimedia property, with comics, other games, movies and soon books backing up the universe. The animated movie kind of sucked, but the rest of their efforts have been solid thus far.
So anyway, Dead Space 2 is pretty much one of my most-anticipated games coming within the next year, at least with what’s currently known.
Dead Space 2 is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2011 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC systems.
