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What are the chances EA revives Dead Space?

Roguey

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It already has.

Dead Space 2 was one of the costliest video games to make. I'm not talking top 1%, I'm talking in striking distance of top 10.

It doesn't look that out of the ordinary for what was AAA at the time. Skyrim cost $90-100 million to develop, LA Noire was $50 million (ten less than Dead Space 2).

This surprises me a lot. Where did they put all that money? It didn't feel particularly technically impressive, or sprawling in scope, or anything like that.

Cinematics and multiplayer I'd guess. :M
 
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I asked Multidirectional what he thought were good examples of horror. Is that an alt of yours, or do you just pretend to speak for him?

Also, I clearly said "horror" not "survival horror". Again, work on your reading comprehension.

He pretty much said what I would've said. I associate "survival horror" with much more limited resources, slower pace that revolves around exploration and solving progression puzzles. Except I would've named Silent Hill instead RE. But I think both examples work. In Dead Space I get pretty much showered with resources even on highest difficulties, which means "survival" tag is out of the question. Gameplay is fast paced, blasting through levels in a linear fashion. The "horror" aspect of it is too cheesy for me to be scary. Don't get me wrong though, I enjoy that cheesy stuff too, it's just never actually scary. Dead Space, like Doom 3, is a shooter with a horror theme and it's a fun one, just cannot call it "survival horror".
The best example of "horror" game from more recent releases is probably Darkwood. And the "survival" aspect is definitely there too.
 

DalekFlay

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If you can't see major structural differences between Dead Space and Resident Evil that void the former as a full blown survival horror game, I don't know what to tell you. Yes, Dead Space has spooky visuals and scary noises and there's a minor layer of resource conservation, but you're largely just going through areas and shooting everything that moves. The fun of the game doesn't primarily come from making tough choices about how to spend your resources and unlocking your environment while solving progression riddles; it comes from action combat, weapon upgrades, and occasional puzzles. Dead Space is as much of a survival horror game as Resident Evil 4, which is to say "not really".

I don't think certain elements of it being easier or even much easier change its genre. It's still obviously "that kind of game." I don't remember it well enough to debate the finer points, but if RE4 is a survival horror game then so is Dead Space.
 
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If you can't see major structural differences between Dead Space and Resident Evil that void the former as a full blown survival horror game, I don't know what to tell you. Yes, Dead Space has spooky visuals and scary noises and there's a minor layer of resource conservation, but you're largely just going through areas and shooting everything that moves. The fun of the game doesn't primarily come from making tough choices about how to spend your resources and unlocking your environment while solving progression riddles; it comes from action combat, weapon upgrades, and occasional puzzles. Dead Space is as much of a survival horror game as Resident Evil 4, which is to say "not really".

I don't think certain elements of it being easier or even much easier change its genre. It's still obviously "that kind of game." I don't remember it well enough to debate the finer points, but if RE4 is a survival horror game then so is Dead Space.

RoSoDude: "Dead Space is not survival horror and neither is RE4"

You: "Yeah, but if you consider RE4 survival horror then so is Dead Space"

:philosoraptor:

I like you man. I think you're smart and have good taste in games, but this seems like you failed your reading comprehension skill check.
 

Roguey

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RE4 and DS are illusion-of-survival horror action games where the items that appear from dead bodies and containers are bottlenecked depending on how many of them you have in your inventory so you never truly run out. From my understanding, RE5 and 6 and DS3 removed more and more of the illusion.
 

RoSoDude

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RE4 and DS are illusion-of-survival horror action games where the items that appear from dead bodies and containers are bottlenecked depending on how many of them you have in your inventory so you never truly run out. From my understanding, RE5 and 6 and DS3 removed more and more of the illusion.
These systems are tuned to put you into difficult and tense situations during an encounter (which may vary from player to player depending on their choices) that you can endure and then quickly climb out of. Your resources should be on a roller coaster ride between "my inventory space is full" and "I barely survived that encounter by the skin of my teeth". It's "artificial", sure, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

One of my peak experiences playing any game was the second Regenerator fight in Dead Space. It was very telegraphed and obvious that there would be a fight while we were test firing the shuttle engines, but the Regenerator was not who I was hoping to see pop out of a vent. I struggled with some other enemies and managed to incapacitate the Regenerator with my last bit of ammo, and I was completely out of health items. It was then that it dawned on me -- I had just knocked Regenerator out right in the blast zone of the shuttle engines, which I could use to finally kill it! I rushed back to the console and turned on the ignition, watching the Regenerator burn to a crisp as Isaac clutched his wounds. That was the moment when Dead Space really made me feel like I was the protagonist in a horror movie, just barely surviving by my wits. The combination of the encounter setpieces and resource roller coaster are what enable these moments, and each player may have their own tense moment that stuck out to them based on how their playthrough went.

...that is of course, if you don't realize that the dynamic loot system favors ammo for guns you're currently carrying, so you may as well just run Plasma Cutter-only to avoid managing multiple ammo types in your limited inventory and simply spend all of your power nodes on just one weapon. If I could, I'd mod it so the proportion of the loot table that can be filled with ammo has a 25% chance associated with the gun in each slot, where an empty slot will give ammo for a gun you could have found a schematic for by that point in the game. That way Plasma Cutter junkies can still cheese their power node build, but they have to lug around and sell a bunch of other ammo types in order to have a good amount of plasma energy to work with.
 
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I never used more than 3 weapons in Dead Space precisely because it seemed like too many ammo types to juggle. My favorite loadout was Plasma Gun, Line Gun and Force Gun for crowd control.
 

JDR13

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He pretty much said what I would've said. I associate "survival horror" with much more limited resources, slower pace that revolves around exploration and solving progression puzzles. Except I would've named Silent Hill instead RE. But I think both examples work. In Dead Space I get pretty much showered with resources even on highest difficulties, which means "survival" tag is out of the question. Gameplay is fast paced, blasting through levels in a linear fashion. The "horror" aspect of it is too cheesy for me to be scary. Don't get me wrong though, I enjoy that cheesy stuff too, it's just never actually scary. Dead Space, like Doom 3, is a shooter with a horror theme and it's a fun one, just cannot call it "survival horror".
The best example of "horror" game from more recent releases is probably Darkwood. And the "survival" aspect is definitely there too.

You said there isn't much survival "or" horror. I'm questioning the latter not the former. I find it really odd that you would think Dead Space is cheesy but not Resident Evil or Silent Hill. To me, those games are far cheesier especially Resident Evil.

To each his own though. I don't find stuff based on the supernatural to be scary in the least. I find sci-fi horror to be far superior in creating a disturbing atmosphere. I also need a first or third person view, so games like Darkwood do nothing for me. An overhead or isometric camera just doesn't work for me when it comes to horror.

I still like RE though. In fact, I've been a huge fan going all the way back to the PS1 days. However, I don't find it scary or even slightly disturbing at all.
 

JDR13

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RE4 and DS are illusion-of-survival horror action games where the items that appear from dead bodies and containers are bottlenecked depending on how many of them you have in your inventory so you never truly run out. From my understanding, RE5 and 6 and DS3 removed more and more of the illusion.

It's funny that so many people view RE4 as where the series shifted. I assume that comes from the change in camera angle more than anything else.

In reality, the series had already started shifting with RE2 which was much more action oriented than the first game.
 

Morpheus Kitami

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EA only chases trends, so if other horror games of a similar nature are selling well, EA will throw their hat in...eventually. Stranger things have happened.
 

DalekFlay

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I like you man. I think you're smart and have good taste in games, but this seems like you failed your reading comprehension skill check.

Yeah I think I focused on his generic Resident Evil in the first sentence and missed the RE4 nod at the end. Oops. Either way though, I think the point is solid... "the survival mechanisms aren't challenging enough therefore it isn't survival horror" is a silly argument. Difficulty does not define genre. For example, our beloved Deus Ex is not a hard game at all. Dump all your points into pistols and go around headshotting everyone and loading a quicksave when you miss, then post "this game is not an immersive sim because you don't really have to do anything else." Does that mean anything really, when it comes to how we define the game? RE4 has limited resources (even if you think there's too many), limited saving at specific spots, purposely less "action game" controls and a horror atmosphere. The genre that puts it in is pretty clear, even if it's an easy one of those.

Though honestly if the greater argument is that genre is a pointless construct at this point in gaming, I am very sympathetic to that argument. However if we're gonna call things "survival horror" games, then Dead Space and RE4 are in that category.
 

Wunderbar

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LOL@ takin Popamole Evill instead of Alone in the Dark as an exemple of survival horror.
OG Alone in the Dark is a glorified adventure with instakill gotcha moments, it's just barely a step away from Dragon's Lair.
Capcom took the formula and made an actual game out of it.
 
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Machocruz

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Yeah I think I focused on his generic Resident Evil in the first sentence and missed the RE4 nod at the end. Oops. Either way though, I think the point is solid... "the survival mechanisms aren't challenging enough therefore it isn't survival horror" is a silly argument. Difficulty does not define genre. For example, our beloved Deus Ex is not a hard game at all. Dump all your points into pistols and go around headshotting everyone and loading a quicksave when you miss, then post "this game is not an immersive sim because you don't really have to do anything else." Does that mean anything really, when it comes to how we define the game? RE4 has limited resources (even if you think there's too many), limited saving at specific spots, purposely less "action game" controls and a horror atmosphere. The genre that puts it in is pretty clear, even if it's an easy one of those.

Though honestly if the greater argument is that genre is a pointless construct at this point in gaming, I am very sympathetic to that argument. However if we're gonna call things "survival horror" games, then Dead Space and RE4 are in that category.


Difficulty is not where the argument lay. The so-called survival mechanisms are not implemented in a way that are in accord with the brand of "survival" established by the foundational game, nor are substantial enough to break the action game mold that some people put the game into.

And there are too many resources, so that you never have to worry about conserving for the future, avoiding enemies, or do anything besides killing everything, which the game is designed for you to do and is the antithesis of the "genre" defining game and how many people identify survival horror. And there are a number of full-stop action games where resources are finite.

There are only limited save slots. You can save as many times as you want. In the foundational game and following games in the same mold, saving is tied to a limited resource, which is tied to the limited inventory aspect
purposely less "action game" controls
But purposely more action game activity. And less action game controls than what? Not previous RE games or similar games from other developers.
and a horror atmosphere. The genre that puts it in is pretty clear, even if it's an easy one of those.
Yes, a horror themed action game. Looking at followups and influenced games also reveal this to be so. No one bats an eye when RE5 is labeled a shooter, when the difference is one of scale, not operation. It's a logical succession of the previous game. The logical succession of RE1 is...REmake, and maybe REmake2. RE influence gets you Silent Hill, RE4 influence gets you Gears of War.

Anyway, we all know the differences between each of the games and which one to go to for what we want, so arguing over labels is merely academic. Survival horror was a flimsy designation to begin with, and I never considered it a legit genre, more like a sub-category at best. The original RE was a horror themed adventure game. It was Maniac Mansion with weapons as part of your items suite. And Resident Evil doesn't even have a meaning anymore, it's whatever horror flavored product Capcom decides to ship with the title.

And genre is pointless, but not inherently. It's pointless because even if a genre were empirically defined, written down on meteorite by the hand of God, you'd still have people bucking against it because their pet game doesn't qualify, or some other selfish reason. We see this with RPG, where the fundamentals were codified years before the people who believe "you play a role in every game, so every game is RPG" were born. They have to believe this because they believe some genres are more prestigious than others, and who doesn't want their favoritest game to be seen as prestigious? Answer: Secure adults, but I digress.

Also the arbitrary splintering of genres into new genres because a particular game or series becomes popular and spawns imitators, unnecessarily clutters things. Survival Horror is one, but that's even better than Souls-like and Metroidvania, which are just a style of Action RPG and Action-Adventure, respectively. Imagine if we did that for every somewhat unique game that had imitators. Half-Likes, MarioSonics, StarCraft & Conquers, etc. Only legit exception is (traditional) Roguelikes, which are basically RPGs, but it's like a warning of permadeath, RNG screwing you over, and ensuing butthurt.

Basically the problem with genre is emotion-driven dummies having a say in the matter, like everything else.
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
I can't wait for AAA to crash and burn
It already has.
so that games like dead space 1/2 become viable projects.
Dead Space 2 was one of the costliest video games to make. I'm not talking top 1%, I'm talking in striking distance of top 10.
Jaedar
Roguey
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dead-space-2-dev-says-game-cost-60m-to-make-and-so/1100-6454150/
It had a $120m budget split evenly between marketing and development, few games have had higher budgets(in either department)
 

Jaedar

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Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
I can't wait for AAA to crash and burn
It already has.
so that games like dead space 1/2 become viable projects.
Dead Space 2 was one of the costliest video games to make. I'm not talking top 1%, I'm talking in striking distance of top 10.
Jaedar
Roguey
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dead-space-2-dev-says-game-cost-60m-to-make-and-so/1100-6454150/
It had a $120m budget split evenly between marketing and development, few games have had higher budgets(in either department)
Wow. 60m in marketing seems insane. But even taking the marketing out it seem sto be one of the most expensive according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop.

I really don't get where all that money went. I guess EA just bought management consultants for a lot of it or something.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
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It had a $120m budget split evenly between marketing and development, few games have had higher budgets(in either department)

It's normal for a marketing budget to be just as much/more than the cost of development. They just rarely give exact figures for it.
 

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