One of the more overlooked games of 2023 would be the remake of the classic 2008 survival horror game Dead Space. While some were excited by the news of its remake, there were many that were skeptical of its existence to begin with: did a game that was made in 2008 really need to be remade? And does this bode well for the future of the industry when many of the newest releases are literal remakes of titles that are barely a decade old? Well, for those on that side of the discourse, it seems in this case you’ve won. As reported by Gamespot and Jeff Grubb, the Dead Space series is going back to the freezer.
It’s reported that the Dead Space remake didn’t live up to Electronic Arts’ expectations, selling much less than it was expected to:
…EA reportedly has its hands busy with both the upcoming Iron Man game and the next Battlefield entry, that it deprioritized the Dead Space 2 remake. “They were working on Dead Space 2, and they are no longer working on it…It is on the shelf because the first game had lackluster sales.” He also reported that the game was still in the pre-production phase, but now has been shelved.
So it seems EA has made the executive decision that the upcoming Iron Man and Battlefield games are going to be more profitable than continuing the remakes of Dead Space. To be fair, they are most likely right about that. But one has to wonder what exactly the sales of the Dead Space remake last year were? Estimates put it at 2 million, which is a big number but not exactly moving the needle for the ever expanding AAA market. With horror games being almost entirely populated by remakes of better, older games, with the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake by Bloober Team being the latest in a long line of them, one has to wonder just how sustainable this trend of remaking games is for any non-Resident Evil entry to the genre is if a beloved title like Dead Space can’t make the cut. Or maybe, if 2 million sales isn’t enough to warrant a success, how sustainable AAA gaming as a whole is.