If you had your hopes set on a new game in the Dead Space series, you might be out of luck.
Chuck Beaver, former writer and producer for EA’s beloved sci-fi horror franchise, has cast doubts on seeing a new entry in future.
Speaking on the FRVR podcast, he says that what it comes down to is that the “numbers just aren’t there”, meaning Dead Space simply doesn’t generate enough sales to justify another game, despite a “fervent fan base.”
Beaver says the series stopping after Dead Space 3 didn’t feel “unfair at all”, though team members and the community were disappointed. “It wasn’t like it didn’t get a run out of it,” he says.
“I mean, it’s disappointing that we can’t make a beloved franchise to its logical end, but I guess I’m too much of a producer, [I’ve] been producing for too long,” he continues. “I understand the numbers, and I understand what’s happening, and why even Motive wasn’t really greenlit for anything after the remake.”
Indeed, the remake was a critical success and players pretty unanimously enjoyed the direction taken by developer Motive, but it seems it didn’t move enough copies for EA to carry it forward with a new game.
“Horror games have a bit of a ceiling, you know, and I think the number back in [former EA VP] Frank Gibeau’s day was 5 million units to keep going on Dead Space,” Beaver says. “I think the number is like 15 million units now, given the cost of things.”
He estimates that a new Dead Space would need to hit at least 7 million sales, comparing it to Resident Evil — a horror series that would be at a similar level of production.
“Any of the Resident Evils are selling around seven million [units], that’s a pretty good number,” he says. “Like you can make that hunt for some amount of stuff. But, you know, companies now are looking for the next Fortnite. They need something that is a perennial moneymaker… something like a single-player package game with no live-service offering, that’s like, it’s just a dinosaur fossil of a business model.”
As Beaver says, there are single player horror games that can make it work, with Resident Evil being the prime example, but it seems Dead Space just isn’t quite on the same level.
