Electronic Arts and Motive Studios held a livestream earlier today giving us a bit of an update on the highly anticipated remake of Dead Space.
Today’s event gave us a look at some early footage while focusing on the audio driving the experience and also the new ALIVE system players will become familiar with. ALIVE stands for Adrenaline, Limbic System Response, Intelligent Dialog, Vitals, and Exertions. Based on how Issac is feeling in the game, his reactions and how dialogue plays out depend on Issac’s current state.
“When you watch a horror movie or play a scary game, the limbic system can trigger a release of adrenaline into the body, causing a physical response such as increased heart rate,” designer Terry Calico said. “In our game, adrenaline is derived from various values driven by external factors that have a direct influence on Isaac’s heart rate BPM. External factors that act as adrenaline are the combat difficulty value, scripted events and jump scare, Isaac’s fatigue level, Isaac’s oxygen level, and Isaac’s health. We want Isaac to reflect how anyone would physically react in the scenario he’s placed in.”
There are three variations on how Issac will say his dialogue in-game: Normal, Exerted, or Injured. In the video above we see how Issac reacts to each situation. The developers have mapped out a ton of variations by the looks of it and it’s a rather big improvement over the original Dead Space by the looks of it.
Furthermore, the developers are looking at targeting an early 2023 release window. “We want to make sure that we are in a place where the game we’re going to deliver is going to be building upon the expectations of fans,” said the team at EA Motive. “So right now, we’ll say early next year. We have a date in mind and we want to make sure that everything converges for this.”
