Visceral Admits Initial Fan Reaction to Dead Space 3 Was Worrying

The development team at Visceral Games admits that the reaction that fans had after the third game in the series was announced surprised them and forced them to change the way they were approaching their development and communications process.

The initial Dead Space 3 reveal included a section of the new ice planet with low walls and a lot of crouching, where main character Isaac Clarke fought a number of human enemies.

Yara Khoury, an associate producer working on Dead Space 3, tells Eurogamer that, “We wanted to show all the new things we had so people could see how we'd tried to bring the franchise further and refresh it.”

He adds, “We had a lot of feedback that people were scared. Change is always scary - no pun intended - and people were wondering if the game wasn't scary any more - whether we had removed the horror element.”

Despite the rather negative reaction from fans of the series, the team at Visceral Games and publisher Electronic Arts chose to include the same section of the game in the demo for Dead Space 3 that had been made widely available during the previous week.

The demo also introduces the new character Carver, which will be used for the cooperative side of the game, and allows players to take a look at the new system designed for weapons creation.

The new game takes players to Tau Volantis in order to once again fight Necromorphs that have been created by a Marker.

The strategic dismemberment mechanic is back but the player now also has the ability to take cover and roll to avoid attacks.

Human enemies will also introduce new tactical puzzles and more reasons to activate coop play.

Dead Space 3 will be launched on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 on February 5 in North America and three days later in Europe.