Why Did Dead Space 3 Fail?
Why Did Dead Space 3 Fail?
(Retrospective Review)
Being such a huge fanatic of the first two entires in the Dead Space series, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the third entry. More of a good thing is always good. Although when leading up to the release of Dead Space 3, there was a little cause for concern, not only on how quickly it was developed after the second game was released but also that it was being developed with co-op in mind.
Dead Space 2 released on January 25, 2011 and it did what you want in a sequel. It didn’t shake up the formula too much and it just made most things great about the first game a little better. Dead Space 3 was released just two short years later on February 5, 2013. This would have meant that the first time I played Dead Space 3 was on February 5, 2013, on the day of release.
Sadly, this was also the last day that I played it because I remember losing interest in this game very fast. It wasn’t the Dead Space I was expecting but being almost a decade removed from that experience, and with the recent announcement from EA about the revival of Dead Space, I was curious to see if Dead Space 3 is as bad as I remember it being.
There could be many reasons for not liking the third entry in the series including internal and external forces. Who knows what was happening in my life at that time or maybe with the first two games being as excellent as they were, the expectations were too high and could have led to a disappointment that wasn’t deserved. I wanted to revisit this game and see if maybe I was too hard on it in 2013.
Lets find out.
Flavour of the Week
If the first fifteen minutes are anything to go by then, nope I was right and this game is not good. I can find a litany of things wrong with the game in just the first few minutes including the overwhelming recap, the poor voice acting or mainly how it doesn’t feel like Dead Space at all. It feels like Gears of War mixed with Uncharted style set pieces.
As a matter of fact the first set piece that happens when a space ship you are aboard starts falling off the side of a snowy mountain feels identical to opening train scene from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which was released 4 years earlier.
It’s clear that EA saw the success franchises like Uncharted and Gears were having and weren’t pleased with niche level of success that Dead Space and Dead Space 2 saw. It’s uncanny just how much Visceral tried to turn this franchise into a Gears of War clone. They might as well have called it Gears of Space, from the cover system to the machine guns even to all new enemies giant enemies that wouldn't look out of place during a locust invasion.
If this game is set hundreds of years in the future, then why does the opening character need to take off his space helmet in the middle of a horrendous blizzard to talk with someone else on the radio. Or how about that since the wind is so strong the character does that slow walk that was popular in many games around the 2010’s but if I am down sight, I can go full speed. Probably the worst offender of all in the first fifteen minutes is when I go to pull the trigger for the first time expecting the plasma cutter, instead I am greeted with an submachine gun, which could not be farther from one of the core Dead Space tenets.
A glaring issue with trying to be a cover shooter in the era of cover shooters is that there are already people doing this better including Gears of War which by the time Dead Space 3 released had already released three of the best cover shooters of all time. This is also the case with Uncharted which had already released three titles by 2011.
In Dead Space, their idea of a cover shooter is to get behind cover just by using the crouch button behind waist high walls. There is no lock to cover system or slide along cover like there was in those other two great series. They did have something called “Smart Cover” where your character would bend a bit when close to a wall but it didn’t work the way you would want it to.
Isaac also can now roll to evade attacks which eliminates a lot of the tension. It seems clear that Visceral wasn’t fully committed to their vision to move away from tank controls because they still didn’t want to allow the character to jump, which completely goes against their desire to give the character more freedom. It seems that Visceral wanted the horror to come from the elements and setting instead of keeping with a form of tank controls which essentially ratchets up the tension.
The tank formula that has been working since survival horror games became mainstream. Poor controls and cameras likely weren’t part of the design philosophy when they made games like Resident Evil but developers quickly took note that limiting the players controls adding onto another layer of anxiety that would then stack on top of the excellent game design. Its easy to see that in hindsight sometimes things are best left unchanged.
Dead Space 3 didn’t just have one small problem, it was across the board. The story for example didn’t feel rich and atmospheric, instead it was loaded with cliche action set pieces that felt something like a Van Damme or Segal movie that goes straight to video or in the modern era, straight to stream. Complete with a tough as nails sidekick who goes by the name of Carver. He hates everything and won’t let anyone close ti him. Carver is looking for revenge from the man who killed his family, yup just like every late 80’s action movie and Isaac Clarke is looking for his ex girlfriend who went missing.
On the surface, Dead Space 3 very much follows the same story formula as the first two entries in the series with red markers, black markers, some civilization wanting to harness its powers, and Isaac right in the middle trying to solve the whole problem for everyone.
Even smaller story problems are glaring early on as well with continuity problems. During an early cut scene, Isaac gets shot in the stomach multiple times and it appears he is hanging on for life. Cutscene ends and Dead Space 3 would like you to continue on to the next checkpoint like it never happened.
An excellent survival horror game creates tension and fear by drip feeding ammo and health. In the first 30 minutes of the game, my inventory levels were maxed out with health kits and ammo. Not exactly the type of thing that instil fear when necromorphs surprise you because you have more than enough health and ammo to be concerned.
One huge area that Dead Space 3 doubled down on is the inclusion of quick time events or QTE’s. Also included would be QTE adjacent moments in the game where its not necessarily a button prompt but it is sliding down the side of an ice mountain dodging huge chunks or blasting through space in your suit while trying to avoid explosion debris.
Dead Space 3 is very much a game of its era, with cover shooting mechanics, tough and emotional protagonists and action set pieces. This game was designed to not withstand the test of time. When you try to go with the flavour of the week, it will get lost to the sands of time.
Passionless
It could be a little sacrilegious to say this but maybe EA wasn’t wrong when they closed down Visceral Games. Looking at their portfolio even dating back to 1998 when the studio was known as EA Redwood Shores, outside of the Dead Space series, they failed to deliver consistent, high quality games. Honestly, outside of Dead Space and Dead Space 2, there are a lot of bad games on the list. Thats 2/40 games that are good, which is unacceptable. You could even make the argument that if Visceral was not part of EA that they wouldn’t have survived as long as they did without EA.
When operating as Visceral games their higher profile titles outside of the first two Dead Space games included Army of Two: The Devils Cartel which has a 55% average, Dante’s Inferno which is around a 70, Battlefield Hardline around 70%, that is brought up when talking about the worst entries in the long running series, and of course Dead Space 3, which somehow managed a 79%. Although more importantly it was the game that all but ended a fantastic series.
Dead Space 3 feels like it is being made by a studio that doesn’t want to make the series anymore. It lacks original ideas and more importantly it feels like it lacks passion. Creator of Dead Space, Glen Schofield, left in 2009 during the development of Dead Space 2 to form Sledgehammer Games, which was eventually acquired by Activision. It was very likely that Schofield had started enough with Dead Space 2 that the team at Visceral was able to continue and execute the vision.
By the time Dead Space 3 began development, Schofield likely many others that had been with Visceral since the beginning of Dead Space had moved on to new projects and new studios.
Here’s the thing, Dead Space 3 is very much a Dead Space game with dismemberment, necromorphs, and plenty of puzzles to solve involving stasis and kinesis. The problem is that those features alone isn’t what makes a good horror game because it’s much more about atmosphere and tone, where Dead Space 3 went awry.
If this was the first entry in the Dead Space series, it likely wouldn’t have been maligned by fans and caused the series to go into deep cryogenic freeze. It wouldn’t have been a series that would have continued but it would have been a forgettable experience of its era instead of constantly being dredged up as one of the worst sequels in a franchise.
The problem is we live in a universe where Dead Space and Dead Space 2 do exist and the entry of Dead Space 3 feels akin to Resident Evil going off the rails with RE5 and RE6 before needing to reboot the series despite commercial success because the sustainability wasn’t there.
We have now seen EA realize what Capcom realized after the release of RE6. If you are looking forward to the reboot of Dead Space then Dead Space 3 is not worth playing but instead you should return to Dead Space 1 to see what started it all.
Leading up to the Dead Space Remake, there are a lot of questions flying around and here are some of the answers
Do I need to play Dead Space 3?
No, there is nothing of value in the game including the combat or the story.
Should I play Dead Space 3?
Absolutely, not.
Does Dead Space 3 hold up?
There are certain games that don’t chase fads that usually withstand the test of time. Sure, you have games like Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong or Street Fighter that come to mind but even horror games like Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Dead Space hold up considerably well. These games were much less about having cutting edge visuals or set pieces but more about suspenseful story and terrifying atmosphere.
Does it need to be played in co-op?
no