Many players, that went to Dead Space 2 and experienced the enhanced lore information linked to the Unitology religion that the action is centered around, were left wondering whether the developers took inspiration from real world belief systems that end their name in the “ology” suffix, with the closest candidate being Scientology.
Wright Bagwell, who is the creative director who worked on
Dead Space 2, has said, “We never really approach that discussion with the intention of poking fun at a particular religion, or sort of making a social statement about something that’s going on right now.”
He added, “For us, Unitology’s purpose in the story represents people’s illogical thinking about things they don’t understand. It was never really intended to be a jab at any particular religion. I know people have said, ‘Oh yeah, it’s a jab at Scientology.’ It was never really intended. I think people get that a lot because the name is very similar.”
The creative director says that the initial idea came after the team got acquainted with a book from futurologist Carl Sagan, which detailed the origins of superstitions.
Dead Space 2 was more interested in the detail of the religion and in their future designs than the first title in the series, which focused more on just getting free of a condemned ship.
Presumably Dead Space 3, when it is released, could offer even more information on Unitology and take it further away from any real world belief system.
Electronic Arts has already said that Dead Space 2 has managed to move twice as many copies to retailers than its predecessor, pretty much guaranteeing that the third-person shooter will get another chance to scare gamers.
We have a full review of
Dead Space 2 on Softpedia and the game got a very good score mainly on the strength of its combat system.
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