The revival of Dead Space may have been short-lived. According to a couple of new reports, EA has put the franchise on ice again after poor sales performance by the recently released remake, with the studio"s resources now being put into other projects instead.
Originally developed by Visceral Games, three Dead Space games were launched in the mainline series in 2013 before the studio was pulled into developing Battlefield Hardline. The studio was shut down by EA in 2017. The critically acclaimed 2023 remake of the original Dead Space was developed by Motive, an EA studio that has previously worked on Battlefront II content and developed Star Wars: Squadrons.
Giant Bomb"s Jeff Grubb first made claims regarding the future of Dead Space yesterday, saying that EA canceled a Dead Space 2 remake project while it was in early development. Sources had told him that the reason for the cancelation was poor sales from the first game"s remake. Soon after, EA responded to the report, saying, "there is no validity to this story."
We will continue to operate as a two-project team, and we"re focused on the development of Iron Man and collaborating on the future of Battlefield.
— Motive (@MotiveStudio) April 9, 2024
However, earlier today, Bloomberg"s Jason Schreier posted a more detailed report of the situation and said the Dead Space franchise has indeed been put on hold at EA. According to sources within the company, the decision had reportedly been made last year as the Dead Space remake failed to hit targets set by the publisher.
While a team at Motive had reportedly explored a sequel, possibly following an original story, the project had never been given the green light by EA, according to sources.
EA recently announced that Motive will be helping with the next generation of Battlefield projects. The studio is also developing an Iron Man game with an original story following the popular Marvel superhero.