Dead Space Extraction Preview

We chat to EA Redwood Shores' Steve Papoutsis on the highly promising Wii debut of Dead Space.

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There are new firearms - the Rivet Gun being an underpowered default with a bottomless clip - to bolster Dead Space's brutal roster of plasma cutters, flamethrowers, serrated blade launchers and pulse rifles, but potentially the most interesting addition isn't a weapon at all. It's a glow worm. Extraction is full of dark corners (together with well-lit corners which go dark at inopportune moments), and those dark corners are generally full of Necromorphs. With a glow worm to hand you can be sure of a clear shot, but there's a catch - the little blighter will eventually run out of juice, and you'll have to shake the remote furiously to charge him back up. As you can probably imagine, this is a bit of a hassle when there's a screeching mutant food blender chewing on your ear.

The telekinesis - pick stuff up with your mind - and stasis - put nasties into tactically advantageous slow-mo - abilities get an encore performance, both in combat and for certain environmental puzzles. Extraction's varied tool set should add up to some well-structured co-op sessions, one player clogging the Necromorph advance with napalm while the other charges his 'worm (a new couch gamer's meme?), or dishing out the stasis while the other carves things up.

One of the other reassuring things about Extraction is Papoutsis himself. Prior to serving time as "Horror Producer" on Dead Space, Papoutsis was AV Manager on Crystal Dynamics's uber-gothic action-adventure Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, which gave us one of the most consistently realised settings ever to unfurl from a RAM buffer, despite being rushed to completion. With the Legacy of Kain franchise long since gone to the dogs, it's good to see that creative pedigree reflected in other projects. Dead Space's convincing incorporation of health bars and menus directly into the game world as holograms and suit displays hasn't gone forgotten, despite the shift from third to first-person: your health and psychic energy reserves will be outlined on your aiming reticule in the finished game, and the flashy waypoint beam which sprang from Isaac's palm returns as an indicator whenever the path splits.

Extraction's concept was green-lighted towards the "middle" of the original game's development period. "I was talking with Glen [Schofield, Executive Producer]," Papoutsis recalls, "and we had the animated feature and the comics going, and it was like: 'Shit, there's a lot we haven't told. Let's go make a game for the Wii.' That was kind of where it started. I went off with a couple of people while we were working on Dead Space, trying to find some time to get the story and the idea together, the early throws of the design, had that ready to go and then was actually in parallel with Dead Space working on this." Several other Dead Space team members made the leap to the Wii project alongside Papoutsis, amongst them Art Director Ian Milham and Lead Gameplay Engineer David Yee.

That particular revelation should silence those busy brushing Extraction off as a casual-gamer-courting second shot at a struggling niche IP. Papoutsis is adamant in any case that Visceral Entertainment is "really happy with the sales reception the first game got" - 1.4 million copies sold worldwide to date. "As a franchise we've made a splash with gamers, the people we really want to connect with," he continues, in terms that will doubtless bring thankful tears to many a Counterstrike veteran's eye. "The people who are hardcore and really into games, they really like it, and as far as this game goes like I said, we were making this when we were making Dead Space so [Dead Space sales] didn't really impact it at all. It was just like: 'Hey, you've got a good idea - let's go do it.'"

And if some hapless spacemen get their arms blown off in the process then shit! It happens. Arcade shooting has enjoyed a modest second spell of critical popularity on the Wii, with House of the Dead: Overkill in particular sending reviewers into a crimson-eyeballed, brain-nibbling frenzy. With its disturbingly authentic vacuum-sealed aesthetic and technical muscle, Extraction could be the cream of the crop.

Dead Space: Extraction is due out exclusively for Wii in Q4 2009.

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