Many gamers are very skeptical about the upcoming Dead Space 3 due to the inclusion of a cooperative multiplayer mode. The general online cynical consensus regarding Dead Space 3‘s co-op is that friends can ruin the horror experience, and that the mode is being awkwardly shoehorned in. Interestingly, multiplayer was being planned ever since the original creepy critical darling took survival horror back to where many felt the genre needed to return.
Dead Space‘s executive producer Steve Papoutsis told Digital Spy:
Dead Space 1, we turned on co-op at the end, we were running around at the very end of development just to see if we could do it.
We could do it, but it was way too in development, it didn’t make sense with the story, we weren’t ready to do it but it was something that we thought about.
So, with the feature running on the original Dead Space, you might be wondering why Dead Space 2 didn’t feature co-op either. You won’t hear this often, but Steve says competitive multiplayer made more sense for the story of Dead Space 2:
And if you play Dead Space 2 you remember that it was a space station city and the idea was as Isaac and Ellie and everyone was going through they were running through the aftermath of the outbreak, and the outbreak was what you were doing in Dead Space 2 multiplayer, so it made sense story-wise
Dead Space 3, on the other hand, was said to be developed from the bottom-up with co-op in mind. Are you skeptical, or cautiously optimistic about Dead Space 3?
More on Dead Space 3:
- Amazon and GameStop Now Offer an Exclusive Pre-Order Bonus for Dead Space 3
- Learn All About Dead Space 3′s Limited Edition in New Video
- Gibeau: Dead Space 3 is “Not Getting Away From Gore or Horror but… Opening up to a Larger Audience”