Rarely does a pistol become the star of the show in a video game, but that’s exactly what happened in Dead space. The 2008 survival thriller created the Plasma Cutter, a shotgun-like tool that shoots vertical or horizontal bullets, the most essential tool for chopping up the corpses of your enemies. When it comes to the Dead Space remake, developer EA Motive knows they have to get it right with this iconic weapon. And so it’s exactly as you remember.
“Who wants to change the Plasma Cutter? “It’s perfect as it is,” said Roman Campos-Oriola, Dead Space’s creative director at EA Motive. “I’m joking, but that’s exactly how we approached that weapon during development.
“Whoever [who] played any Dead Space before remembering that weapon, remembering the distinct clicking sound as it rotated, remembering its sound, its effect on any creature, and how it felt to play with that weapon ,” he say. “So for us, it’s really important to preserve that memory, to carry out in a sense that memory of the players.”
But while the Plasma Cutter looks and functions the same way you remember it, EA Motive has made some minor changes and improvements. These may seem invisible at first, but take a close look at the refreshed, high-definition model of the weapon and you’ll see dozens of new little details. As the rotating muzzle flips from portrait to landscape format, you can see the interlocking components of the torsion mechanism in its housing.
“We really had to get back to the drawing board,” explains Campos-Oriola. “With visual fidelity, both graphically as well as in some [the] animation that we have today, we have to go into much more detail […] about how it actually works. What is each piece? What are those little elements really doing? Whether we use it later in the game or not, we have to really determine how that thing will move and behave if it is a real engine.”
It is with this more detailed approach that the differences between the original Plasma Cutter and its remake successor begin. And the closer you look, the more differences you’ll find. “The plasma cutter is not the same as in the original Dead Space,” Campos-Oriola openly admitted. “But you feel it the same, you think it’s like you miss it. But obviously the model is not the same, the texture is not the same, the sound is not the same. We’ve completely rebuilt the way it works because it’s a brand new tool. We do not use any code, any content, anything from the original. But our goal with that weapon is to be as faithful as possible to the original experience.”
“
One element that’s more than just a visual update is the new upgrade system, which enhances the lethality of Dead Space weapons in a variety of ways. Game director Eric Baptizat explains: “Every weapon has an upgrade. “You can find a new section for the weapon that you can plug it into and physically attach it to the gun.”
“It’s really important to create components that look believable, really match the weapon, that are recognizable when you see them in your environment, and that makes sense,” he added. with their functions. So it’s really a job to create new elements that naturally fit into the original design.”
If this sounds familiar to you, it could be because you remember the weapon upgrades from Dead Space 2. In fact, the Plasma Cutter even features damage-over-time upgrades from Dead Space 2. that beloved sequel.
“One thing we brought from Dead Space 2 and expanded it a little bit is the special upgrade concept,” said Campos-Oriola. “So those upgrade buttons really have a broader impact on weapons. So one of those upgrades [came] directly from DS2. The fact is that when you shoot with the Plasma Cutter, if you have that upgrade, the limbs of the enemies you shoot at will catch on fire. And so it will burn the flesh and deal a bit more damage. So we made some such tweaks or improvements.”
Despite the exciting new upgrades, you can rest easy knowing that the Plasma Cutter is more or less exactly the weapon you’ll love and remember. However, that can’t be said for the rest of Dead Space’s arsenal, which has been significantly redesigned.
“As we approached weapon design for the remake, we wanted to rebalance them a bit to make sure that each weapon was powerful in their own way,” says Campos-Oriola. “So, for example, what we did with the Pulse Rifle is we took an element from Dead Space 2 – in Dead Space 2. [the rifle’s alternate fire] is a grenade launcher – and we tweaked it a bit, because now it’s a close range mine.”
“For most weapons, we keep the main fire [exactly the same] because they’re iconic and they serve different functions in terms of how you fight your enemies,” explains Baptizat. “But we [found] out there [was] something that we can push further to provide more tools for players to do some crowd control with enemies. And we wanted to give a unique value to each weapon.”
“
The idea of new alternative shooting modes is built on a foundation of trust in the novel. Campos-Oriola explains: “One of our philosophies, such as with the Force Gun’s alternative flame, is that we wanted that to be useful in the sense that space miners would use it like that. come on,” Campos-Oriola explained.
Force Gun, once a weapon that simply pushed enemies back, now has the ability to create a gravitational pull that pulls enemies in, much like Zarya’s ultimate in Overwatch. It does no damage, but by grouping enemies together, gravity wells can be effectively combined with something like a Line Gun, which can shoot a wide beam through crowds or set laser traps.
“The super cool thing is that you can combine [the gravity well] with all other weapons,” said Baptizat. “So either with the Force Gun’s main fire, or with the Line Gun’s trap. So you can have fun [placing] your trap, lure the enemy into this place [with the gravity well] and place them together with Pulse Rifle’s neighboring mine. Basically, the idea is to create new tools to be able to play with enemies and create new strategies.”
Elegantly (and grisly) combined with these new weapons is the skinning system, which ‘strips’ off the enemy’s flesh, layer by layer. This gory addition packs a fun one-of-a-kind punch with Force Gun and Plasma Cutter.
Campos-Oriola recalls: “The Force Gun in the original, it would shoot an enemy, a killer, he would fall on his ass, get up,” recalls Campos-Oriola. “You’re like, ‘How much damage did I do to that guy?’ You’re not really sure. He’s almost dead, but you don’t know it.
“Now when you shoot with the Force Gun, that killer falls on his ass, gets up, and now he’s really skinny because all the skin, all the fat, all the muscle is gone,” he said. he continued. “That guy is pretty much just a skeleton, and you’re like, ‘Yeah, pretty sure he’s dying.’ It becomes even more useful when it is a great weapon to combine with another, because now with just one shot of the Plasma Cutter you will be able to amputate that limb because the bone has been removed. [revealed].”
Dead Space’s re-imagining of firearms means all your favorite guns are still here and working almost exactly as you remember them, but altered to be useful and bright. create more. That seems to be the general idea behind all of the remake’s changes, which we’ll look at in more detail this month as part of IGN First. For more, check out the opening of the game in 4Kas well as a comparison between remake and original game.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK Feature and News Editor.
