Game Review: Dead Space 3

What does it mean when a game has an identity crisis? I can think of a few franchises out there that for one reason or another, have shifted away from their typical form to try and evolve into something new.  There’s nothing wrong with a developer wanting to experiment with an existing property and find new ways to redefine it, otherwise you risk boring your audience by presenting them the same thing over and over. There’s a fine line to trying something new and maintaining a status quo however, as to shift too far into new ideas can actually lead to alienating the original audience who grew attached to your game in the first place.  If you end up doing that, you’re stuck with a game that appeals to neither new or old players because it holds little to engage them.  If you haven’t guessed from the title of the review already, this is exactly what happened to the Dead Space franchise with Dead Space 3.

Developed by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts, Dead Space 3 was released on February 5^th 2013 across Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.  Development on the game started soon after the release of Dead Space 2 in 2011. Despite sales figures matching the initial entry’s numbers, EA was not impressed with the sales of Dead Space 2 and this had a long-term impact on the production of the 3^rd entry. Despite wanting to refocus the entry to provide more of a survival-horror experience akin to the original game, EA were adamant about incorporating even more action-shooter elements into the game along with multiplayer components and microtransactions.  Despite reluctance from the team as Visceral, the developer adhered to the demands of the publisher and Dead Space 3 was designed to incorporate a co-operative feature and an egregious microtransaction system was forced onto the games crafting system. Upon release the game averaged its lowest critical score in the franchise with a 78-aggregate score on Metacritic.  On the sales front, it’s hard to even find an accurate total figure to this day as it was noted the game failed to meet EA’s sales expectations and they refused to ever reveal the figures publicly.

The story of Dead Space 3 follows Isaac Clarke once again.  After escaping the Necromorph outbreak on the Spawl space station he has been hiding from EarthGov on a Moon-based colony called New Horizons.  Despite an effort to maintain his isolation, Isaac soon finds himself discovered not only by EarthGov but by the radical Unitologist front which has now garnered a military force under their leader Jacob Danik.  With Danik and his militia out to kill Isaac due to his heretical opposition to their religion, Isaac escapes the colony with the help of EarthGov soldiers John Carver and Robert Norton.  Isaac soon learns that his ex-girlfriend Ellie Langford has been investigating a planet called Tau Volantis, which is believed to be the Marker homeworld but Robert soon lost contact with her after she set off on her mission.  While reluctant to help EarthGov, Isaac suits back up once again in the hopes he can save Ellie and put an end to the Necromorph nightmare once and for all.

Even though I have no qualms about saying how crap this narrative is, I’m not going to act like the writing team didn’t at least try here though. I can at least appreciate the effort to build the wider world around this game’s individual story.  I think the expansion of the Unitologist religious group to an actual militia felt quite in line with the way they were presented over the course of the series and Jacob Danik is presented superbly as a charismatic lunatic as so many religious fanatics often come off as. The effort to build up the origins of the Markers and the Necromorphs also held solid intrigue for me, it was presented in a compelling sense as you unravel a mystery frozen deep into the foundation of this nightmarish planet.  While the world building was solid on a lot of levels, I cannot say much nice about the core storyline that runs thought this game.  Character motivations are so bloody shallow in this game, from the supporting cast even to Isaac at times.  It just feels like none of these people have any actual definition to their presence in the story besides the script’s inclusion of them within it. No one comes off as likable or relatable in the story and they all fall into annoyingly predictable tropes that weakens any sense of investment the story is trying to create. It feels like these characters exist solely to progress the game from point a to point b and there’s little room to define them outside of their standard requirements.  On the whole it’s just a very predictable and ultimately forgettable plot which was not something either of the prior two games had an issue with.

On the gameplay end, Dead Space 3 at least feels recognizable with the way it plays.  Utilizing the same engine as Dead Space 2, Visceral clearly honed in on the fun and smooth controls while working to incorporate a major new mechanic.  As Isaac or Carver, dependent on if you’re playing the game co-operatively or not, you’ll be shooting, slicing, kicking and throwing your enemies to their bloody demise with a plethora of tools and weapons.  A lot of the key components are still here like stasis and kinesis and they’re still as fun as ever to use when you can freeze enemies and fire their sharp limbs right back at them.  Where the game feels notably different though is in its weapon system.  Gone away is the standard inventory of weapons to collect and upgrade like in the prior games, in Dead Space 3 weapons are crafted and maintained through workbenches.  Apparently, this was an idea Visceral wanted to incorporate into the first game with Isaac’s experience as an engineer but never was able to until this entry.  I think the weapon customization system is clearly Dead Space 3’s biggest strength.  The system is so expansive with so many intrinsic ways you can customize your weapons to serve your playstyle and it rewards experimentation constantly.  I’d be giving it way more points too if it wasn’t for its forced association to microtransactions with how you can buy more in-game resources for real world money. I know you aren’t forced to buy stuff as you can earn the materials gradually as you progress through the game, but I’m not going to dismiss a completely immoral inclusion because of that.

The games layout and mission design works much akin to Dead Space 2 as you’ll be progressing through a selection of different locations in each of the games 19 chapters.  Some chapters will feature larger explorable areas which invite you to explore and take your time gathering resources and doing additional side objectives.  There’s a clear effort here to offer players a bit more optionality rather than forcing them down one linear path all the way through the game like Dead Space 2.  The inclusion of optional side missions was a nice element that allows the game to put you in small-pocket sized stories separate to the overall plot.  These missions while nothing grand in the scheme of things, do give greater definition to the world in itself which I feel was a nice touch.  I found myself enjoying these side plots way more than the moaning and bickering of the cast in the main plot too.  I do find the variety of set pieces interjected throughout the main chapters fun, though it does lead to one of my main issues with the game and that’s its continuous devotion to action over horror.

I noted this with my Dead Space 2 review that the game clearly felt more action-orientated as opposed to the survival horror blueprint the first game so masterfully presented.  Dead Space 3 showed EA learned all the wrong lesson by forcing Visceral to push the action elements even more.  I’m not opposed to action in survival horror games, but it has to be a secondary element and not the primary one.  Dead Space 3’s continuous action-focus makes the Necromorph threat feel redundant because of how geared up you are.  There’s no effort to accommodate the horror elements in sync with the action and as a result this feels like you’re playing a sci-fi action game with a horror-flavoured tint to it.  That to me isn’t what Dead Space should be, that wasn’t ever what Dead Space 1 was presented as.  It was a game that knew you should always feel on the backfoot and fighting to survive by the skin of your teeth each and every time.  That’s the core idea that sold me on this series and it annoys me to no end that Dead Space 3 lost sight of that and we have this hollow experience as a result.

For a 2013 game the presentation side of things is moderately appealing. The choice to base the game in an ice planet allowed for wider range of environments to appreciate as apposed to rusty, desolate space stations. I think the use of colour and scale in the cinematic scope does give the game an appreciated atmosphere too, though graphically it doesn’t look or feel any different to Dead Space 2. Even the soundtrack left an unremarkable impression on me too, I couldn’t really note any memorable tracks from Jason Graves and James Hannigan’s soundtrack.

Dead Space 3 killed this franchise for good or worse.  Honestly though, I don’t think I would have liked to have seen what this series would have devolved into if it was allowed to continue going, especially if this game is anything to go by.  I was drawn into the Dead Space series because it wasn’t afraid to focus on its own ideas and invite players to experience it.  Dead Space 3 isn’t a game that is confident in its own ideas, it’s a game that has been over-manufactured and solely developed to appease a publisher who clearly has no place mandating its direction.  I can’t think of how many franchises have died under the misguided hand of EA, it’s too many to count and it breaks my heart Dead Space is just another name in the long list of casualties that shows no signs of stopping.