Maybe the key factor in making a game, or anything scary for that matter, is the element of suspense. If we already know what to expect, it’s usually not that scary at all, as anyone who has rewatched a horror movie can attest.
To circumvent this problem, Motive Studio, developers of the upcoming Dead Space Remake, revealed in a recent blog post that they have a unique trick.
A new feature called the Intensity Controller allows the game to automatically change the state of the game, keeping players on their toes.
“It’s a content organization, generation, and pace control system,” Senior Systems Designer Dan Kim explained. “Depending on how we count things, the system has over 1,200 unique events that could have multiple combinations. Different elements like audio or light changes, fog or steam, enemy spawns – all of these are layered together to create Out feels like a handcrafted encounter.
According to Motive, the system works so well that even the developers themselves sometimes get scared when the game throws everything at them in the form of bloodthirsty necromancers, dim lights, and thick fog.
“You know, when you watch horror movies, everything is timed to the nanosecond. Everything is so orchestrated and staged; like, how can we recreate this with a motion generator? It’s impossible! But it turns out, We’re actually able to get the same feeling,” said lead senior software developer David Vincent.
We won’t have to wait long to find out if the Intensity Director is working as the developers lead us to believe, as Dead Space Remastered launches January 27 on PC, Xbox Series S/X, and PlayStation 5.