One of the Best Horror Series Ever Lived and Died on PS3 & Xbox 360

One of the best horror franchises lived its entire life on the Xbox 360 and PS3. The horror genre is filled with incredible games, including franchises that have been around for multiple decades now. Resident Evil and Silent Hill are arguably the prime examples of this, but we also have Outlast, Amnesia, and thankfully, Alan Wake, despite its sequel almost being vanquished from existence. However, as is the case with many genres, there are some games that never got to live the lives they deserved. Fans have been stuck waiting for new entries, only to be denied by publishers who don’t see the value.

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The series in question here is Dead Space, an EA franchise that took inspiration from Resident Evil but took things to space. It was extremely grizzly with over-the-top gore, a gritty aesthetic, and monsters that would make your skin crawl. The first game was highly praised for its fresh new take on the horror genre and seemed like it would lead to a classic franchise that would live on for many years to come… unfortunately, that’s not really what happened. The Dead Space trilogy began and ended on the seventh generation of consoles, but that wasn’t really intended to be the definitive end of the series.

Dead Space’s Legacy Largely Rests on the Xbox 360 and PS3

It’s interesting to look back at Dead Space and see how quickly we actually got games in that relatively short-lived franchise. Dead Space was released in October 2008, Dead Space 2 was released in December 2010, and Dead Space 3 dropped in February 2013. All three games had a roughly 2-year development cycle, which is pretty impressive when you think of how great all of those games were. Although Dead Space 3 was a little wonky, it was still a fun action-horror game with a thrilling co-op campaign.

Something like that is virtually unheard of on current-gen hardware, but Visceral Games was on a hot streak back then. Even when you compare it to Resident Evil, there were four years between Resident Evil 4 and 5 and three years between Resident Evil 5 and 6. It was an impressive pace to keep up with and deliver solid games.

What’s unfortunate, though, is that there were plans that would’ve seen Dead Space carry over into the Xbox One and PS4 generation. Dead Space 3 director Ben Wanat had plans for Dead Space 4 and Dead Space 5, which would’ve seen Ellie taking over as protagonist at least for one of these games.

However, reports emerged before Dead Space 3‘s release that EA wanted to move away survival horror genre and even contemplated cancelling the threequel. Instead, executives reportedly wanted to pivot Dead Space into other genres, including the first-person shooter genre. There were even rumblings of a flight game and an Uncharted-esque action/adventure game in the Dead Space universe. Sadly, Visceral Games was pulled in to make Battlefield Hardline and Dead Space 3 didn’t move the needle commercially, prompting EA to shelve Dead Space for about a decade.

**The Dead Space Remake Almost Resurrected the Franchise**

In 2023, EA released a remake of Dead Space developed by Motive Studio. The remake included cut content from the original game and was closer to Visceral’s original vision for the game before compromises had to be made for time and hardware restrictions. Dead Space‘s remake even gave Isaac a voice in the first game, something that wasn’t present until the second game originally. The Dead Space remake was met with near-unanimous praise upon release, even garnering higher scores than the original on Metacritic for some platforms.

Following its release, Motive reportedly explored ideas for a Dead Space 2 remake. The first remake even teased the potential for a future with the series with a new alternate ending, original to this remake. Unfortunately, this concept for a sequel remake was reportedly killed fairly quickly after the Dead Space remake didn’t sell as well as EA had hoped.

This wasn’t the only attempt to continue the franchise, either. Glen Schofield, the creator of the franchise, reportedly pitched Dead Space 4 to EA in 2024. Schofield had less involvement in Dead Space 2 and didn’t work on Dead Space 3 at all, as he left Visceral Games in the summer of 2009 to co-found Sledgehammer Games. This would’ve been a proper return to the series with the people who created Dead Space back at the helm. The company wasn’t interested, though, as Schofield claimed that EA has its own goals in mind for what kinds of games it wants to make and what the sales targets need to be.

It’s tragic as the series is clearly well-liked and fans want more of it. However, EA has lofty sales expectations and the cost to make these things may not be justified commercially. Given EA already took a crack at reviving Dead Space with the remake, it’s hard to imagine it coming back ever again. Maybe we’ll get lucky and see another remake or a new sequel, but it seems unlikely at this point.

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