Despite proving popular critically, EA’s in-development Dead Space 4 has been canned, with developers Visceral being disbanded. That’s according to VideoGamer this morning who say that the cancellation was down to Dead Space 3’s less than anticipated sales.
The game’s first week sales were down over 25% in the UK compared with Dead Space 2.
The site claims that a fourth game was in development – no surprise after 3’s ending – “with a small team at Visceral Montreal allegedly tasked with developing prototypes and mock-ups for the title, and collaborating on ideas for the game’s narrative.”
It sounds like, from the report at least, that staff at Visceral were informed of the decision last month.
The same source claims that the third game was”almost cancelled partway through its development” and was the subject of “continuous cuts made to its budget throughout production.”
“Weapon-specific ammo was allegedly switched for generic ammo late in development, too,” the report continues, “as a method for shoehorning in the game’s controversial micro-transactions.”
EA declined to comment when we presented the rumours this morning.
You can read what we think of Dead Space 3 here.
Awayze
EA ruining games as usual.
KeRaSh
I can’t believe they’d can DS4 and disband the dev team. Dead Space is a very important franchise for EA. If they took DS4 even further down the road of DS3 and they now realized that people aren’t as hyped about it as they wanted them to be, they could have just canned the project and instead opt for a more focused, back to the basics kind of reboot. A reboot is actually what I think Dead Space could do with.
Be done with Isaac, come up with a new, dark and scary story and breath life back into the series.
This just seems like wasting a perfectly good IP and the creative people behind it.
Shame on you, EA. Shame on you…
cc_star
It’s because they aren’t happy with a game selling 1, 2 or 3m
It has to sell 5m+ else it’s out – in favour of something else that will sell that many… and in turn if that doesn’t then everything is closed down & resources diverted to something like Tapped Out or RR3.
KeRaSh
Even if the sales are down compared to the previous outings, Dead Space is a very strong franchise and killing it completely is surely not the way to go. Like I said, a careful reboot would do the franchise good. EA is not new to the business and yet this descission seems very short sighted and rushed…
coruscant
I picked up Dead Space 2 cheap ages ago and loved it, even though I’ve not played a horror-type game before. Yet after reading how much they changed it for DS3 then I think I’m more likely to pick up Dead Space than DS3.
The Lone Steven
EA forces them to focus on action, on a game that is a part of a horror franchise that was known for being quite good at doing horror. They then wonder why it didn’t sell as well as they expected and rather say “guys, i think we should have let them focus on horror”, they have canned DS4. Typical EA.
If that generic ammo bit is true, my opinion of EA will get lower. Plus it removes the fear of running out of ammo for your main weapon and you only have ammo left for a less effective weapon. Why can’t EA learn that if they let their developers develop their game without any interfernce, they may get a lot of sales? Seriously, how hard is it for them to grasp that thought? Why do i get the feeling they will give the DS rights to another studio and just turn it into a FPS? :S
I will be glad when EA end up causing their own downfall as they seem to be doing more harm then good. :-/
a inferior race
Loved DS1.
DS2 was okayish.
DS3 seemed like it would be like Resi 5 which I hated, so no sale.