There are few horror games that have elicited as much dread in me as Dead Space. Visceral Games knew how to create a bone-chilling atmosphere, and the interpretable ending of the trilogy’s finale always had me hoping the studio would come back for one last hoorah. Though both former Visceral devs and remake creators EA Motive have pitched new entries in the past, EA never bit. Speaking to FRVR, Chuck Beaver, who helped produce all three of the original games, indicates that the series’ poor sales, despite their excellence, is to blame.
Horror games have, as Beaver notes, some of the most “fervent” fan bases in gaming. Just look at Resident Evil and Silent Hill – rabid. However, having a large following doesn’t always convert into raw sales, which businesses typically use as the main indicator as to if a franchise is worth supporting long term. While back in the day, Beaver reckons five million copies would’ve kept Dead Space ticking over, “the cost of things” nowadays has seen those targets balloon. The dev says that “horror games have a bit of a ceiling” with regards to sales potential and the numbers “just aren’t there” to support a Dead Space sequel, though there are, of course, outliers elsewhere in the genre.
“Any of the Resident Evils are selling around seven million [units], that’s a pretty good number,” Beaver says. “[…] But, you know, companies now are looking for the next Fortnite. They need something that is a perennial money-maker… something like a single-player package game with no live-service offering, it’s just a dinosaur fossil of a business model.”
Even though the 2023 remake of the original Dead Space was exemplary, earning a solid 9/10 in Phil’s Dead Space Remake review, it reportedly didn’t sell as well as EA would’ve liked, ending developer Motive’s hopes for its own new entry in the series. As for Visceral, Dead Space creator Glen Schofield revealed in a November 2024 interview with Dan Allen Gaming that some of the studio’s leading lights had taken a stab at getting Dead Space 4 into production. However, EA scuppered their plans, with Schofield citing a lack of interest in the project as the reason.
Realistically, then, any new Dead Space, be it from the former Visceral team or Motive, would have to do the sorts of numbers Resident Evil Requiem put out. Capcom’s latest has managed over seven million sales within its first two months, which isn’t bad going to say the least. Though Dead Space continues to have a cult following in its own right, it sounds like it would take something special to turn EA’s head at this point.
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