INT: Dead Space 2

Last Updated on July 27, 2021

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PART 1 HERE –
READ PART 2 HERE


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GLEN SCHOFIELD
Executive Producer & Creator

Origins- Sci-fi or Horror?

–

It all started as Sci Fi with
Horror right behind it. We wanted it to be gritty, dirty and believable, not
about laser guns and dudes in white. I’m a huge fan of horror films and games,
really wanted to put the two together. Doom 3, System Shock, I still haven’t
seen the two genres I love the most put together well enough in the video game
world. Event Horizon, Alien, Pitch Black, do it right, but not many.

How close is today’s game to the
original vision?

Your team of passionate people help you
to develop your idea. I was the spark, and the team spent a lot of time fleshing
out the ideas. Someone else came up with strategic dismemberment. The idea has
become bigger and better than I could imagine because we let creative people be
creative. Everyone became ‘game makers’, no matter where the best idea came
from. It was a little less violent than he wanted.

A lot of time and effort has gone into
fleshing out the in game universe. When did the animated movie and comic come
about?

We knew that sci-fi fans want backstory.
So we went back further. What are Isaac’s parents like? The story goes back to
the Ice Age. There’s another part of the story that takes place 250 years before
it starts. We began working with the comic guys as story writers, but we didn’t
want it to become an “EA Comic book”. We don’t even have EA’s name on it. We
wanted it to stand on its own as its own piece. Nor does EA have their name on
the movie, we wanted things to be quality, stand-alone products. The animated
feature was done by the guy who did Painkiller Jane and he nailed it the second
time around. There was no marketing push to get it done, we all just decided to
do it unconventionally.

How did it come about the James Wan
cut a trailer for your game?

We met with a few horror guys, wondering
if we needed a horror consultant. Met with Eli Roth, Warren Ellis, Clive Barker.
I met James- and we each had a lawyer in the room, just in case. They just sat
there while me and James talked about horror film after horror film. At some
point he said “I love this project”, and although it took awhile, we just said
“Will you cut a trailer?” And he agreed, he wanted to do something with it. I
was even talking to him about his credits in Dead Silence, which I loved, and he
put it all together.

JAMES WAN DIRECTED DEAD SPACE TRAILER

A possible live action feature?

Absolutely. At this point it would be a
real financial chance to take. We’ve talked with some real people here, but
people are offering to make it for 4 million dollars. We just can’t make a ‘guy
in a suit’ picture. If the game is successful, it probably could be a real
possibility. We’d have to cast it right. [Uwe Boll is mentioned, everyone
laughs.] I want it to be done right if it’s done.

Would Isaac’s face stay covered in a
potential movie?

No. Please play the end of the game. It’s
so good that we only showed some of the team like a week ago. The ending is
pretty damn cool, and maybe in the ending you’ll see his face. It’s a big deal.

Dead Space 2, is it necessary
considering how much work you’ve put into making this product its own entity?

I sure hope so. It’s selfish, cause we’ve
had so much fun. I don’t have to look over my shoulder for approvals, I can blow
dude’s heads off whenever I want. IT’s been a blast to make it and I could
continue making this type of game for a long time, and not cause of any EA push.
In fact, we’ve been a sort of ‘rogue team’ for a long time. It’s only recently
that people have been starting to really take notice. EA isn’t pushing a sequel,
but I’d love to make one.

What about the voice talent? Any big
names?

This was a conscious effort to not hide
behind big-name actors. We just went out and found the right person for the
role. Peter Mensah happened to fit his role perfectly (Mensah played Brodky in
Jason X, I thought I recognized him in the game). We purposely didn’t do Clive
Owen as Isaac Clarke.

Any clichés that you wanted to avoid?

Most horror is in today’s world, torture
stuff. Sci-Fi usually has some major director staking a claim, like Blade
Runner, Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, those are all major tent poles. We want to
be our own, but then we’d accidentally look like Alien. We’ve tried really hard
to be our own, if you look at Isaac’s suit, hopefully you haven’t seen it
before. We’ve got 100 different drawings of it to say that we wanted it to be
different. I read the blogs saying “He copied the Thing”, or “It looks like the
Alien”, and why would I want to do that, you know? I mean, yeah, maybe the spine
looks a bit like the Alien, God, I’m sorry! If anything was inspirational, it’s
this: I read a lot of Arthur Clarke and Isaac Asimov, hence the name Isaac
Clarke. I mean, their ideas are huge. If you look at the fact that we’re tearing
planets apart and not just mining them, but actually ripping them open, that’s a
big idea. These things are based on the concepts that these authors create,
we’re just trying to be different.

—————————-

"BONUS"
Facts from development team:

Development team prison pose!

-A lot of
work has gone into scripted events, so that they don’t stop gameplay, and that
control is taken away from the player as few times as possible. Most events
happen right in front of you and you can still control your players.

-An insane
amount of focus groups went on during the development of the game to ensure
little details were right. A lot of complaints came that Isaac moved too slowly-
something the game designers had to go back and completely revamp in order to
please players (like redoing all the enemy AI and completely overhauling the
streaming engine for the rest of the level)

-A really
awesome little fact: motion capture was done in turn with the acting for the
scripted events. So, when you die onscreen, the actor would actually be acting
like he was dying during mo-cap, speaking their lines at the same time.

-During the
initial ‘chase sequence’, the game was way too hard and testers kept getting
slashed to bits. The lesson learned? Never assume what players understand and
don’t understand. Never underestimate training!

-In fact,
the game was much harder initially, a lot of people were against the whole
navigation system, and a few other key gameplay elements. They’re glad they put
them in after all, but initially they didn’t like them.

-Yes, I’ve
seen some of the Dead Space animated feature. Not enough to give anything away,
but I still saw some of it, and it’s cool, a neat hand-animated style.

-The story
is super-detailed, including things you may never know (like what Isaac’s
parents were like).

-The team
built a life-scale replica of Isaac’s suit, helmet and weapon. On their own
time, for no reason. It was featured at Comic-Con, and it’s badass.

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READ PART 2 HERE

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