Dead Space Remake: How Motive is going above and beyond
Dead Space Remake
One of the easiest companies to bandwagon hate is EA, but what is important to note is that Motive is going above and beyond on the Dead Space Remake. Motive is a Montreal studio that are founded on the ethos that it’s possible to innovate on AAA titles and still be wildly successful.
Dead Space doesn’t appear to be a simple cash in on the popularity of space at the moment. Motive is also not paying the bills, which means that EA is fully supporting how much extra work and extra cost is going into Dead Space. EA cares about games, just ask Josef Fares about the EA originals program where EA makes zero profit. So far Motive has released over four hours of dev diaries explaining their process with designing the game which we have condensed to five minutes. If you have the time, check all of the videos out and if you only have five minutes we have you covered with five of the ways that Motive is going above and beyond to make Dead Space even better than you remember.
Here are just five of the ways that Motive is enhancing Dead Space to provide more immersion, which will be a common denominator as it’s the true key to survival horror.
Audio
The two biggest elements to increase immersion in survival horror is lighting and audio. This time around the audio is going to produce more tension by using audio occlusion, which basically means how many things are blocking the audio source. Motive detailed how in the previous game if you opened a door, you would hear a necromorph like it was right next to you because technically it was but there was a lot of walls and corridors in between. The technology of 2008 couldn’t compute that that audio shouldn’t go directly to you.
In the upcoming remake, with the power of new audio technology, it will now sound like that necromorph is very far away when you open the door. However, as you start to head down the corridor you can start to hear what direction it’s coming from and how much closer you’re getting to you potential demise, which will easily increase the amount of terror with each step you take.
A.L.I.V.E System
Nothing breaks immersion more than surviving a necromorph attack, or barely getting to an airlock to be greeted with a line of dialogue that doesn't match the tone of the situation. Motive is introducing a new system called ALIVE that will drastically change the tone voice overs. Adrenaline, Limbic System, intelligent Dialogue, Vitals and Exertion are the elements that will effect how Isaac responds situationally using one of three recorded voice overs. This means that Motive recorded each line three times. The ALIVE system not only improves upon dialogue but also heartbeat and breathing have been greatly improved that will have you on the edge of your seat just like Issac would be.
Character Design
Not only has Isaac and his suit been redesigned from the ground up, don’t worry it still looks instantly recognizable, but the necromorphs have also been fully rebuilt. The necromorph now have four phases from the standard, unharmed version all the way to limbs hanging off and internal organs exposed. This may sound extreme, especially when you consider, that internal muscles, organs and bones are also fully designed individually but the immersion will be unmatched when specific parts are exposed. This will also provide more variety when dealing with necromorphs because the damage you inflict will change from enemy to enemy making a more memorable experience, perhaps even scarring.
Visual Effects
Dead Space is known for having a very industrial and muted color pallete and Motive wanted to stay true to that but find small areas that could enhance the game while keeping the essence of what made the original special.
Motive now has plenty of technology at their disposal that can affect how the visuals look including applying zero gravity effects which will change the behaviour of something like an explosion or how an explosion would properly behave in a pitch black area. Even elements like fog and smoke will interact with the environment as they would in real life with it bouncing off a necromorph instead of just clipping through it. These aren’t things that you immediately think of, but they would subconsciously provide a better experience.
Lighting
Lighting is one of the biggest factors in determining how terrifying a game is. Motive is fully aware of how great the lighting in Dead Space was. Rather than just cut and paste the lights from the original, they are redesigning the fixtures to add depth and realism to the existing places where there were lights. As well as adding in additional fixtures that are using specific bulbs and how they would react in the real world from incandescent, halogen and florescent. It doesn’t end there, they are also including what kelvin the temperature of the light is, which will determine what color the light will be.
Modern technology like parallax effects, volumetric lighting will result in greater immersion due to the realism. Each type of light will flicker differently based on the bulb it uses and Dead Space will feature real time lighting that will allow each specific light to operate differently. According to the developers this will improve the ambience and the level of horror.
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These are just five of the ways that Motive is going above and beyond what is expected. The development team shares insight on the design process every few months, and with many months before it’s release we are likely to learn much more before January. This is a refreshing amount of transparency that shows how much care is being applied to Dead Space.
Based on what we have seen it seems very plausible that Motive will also add is some new plot elements and mechanics similar to how Capcom have treated their Resident Evil Remakes Motive and EA understand that if they want this IP to be viable for a new entry, they need to show people that they care as much about the series as we do.