Dead Space (series)

Dead Space
The official logo
Genres	Third-person shooter, survival horror
Developers	Visceral Games
Publishers	Electronic Arts
Creators	Glen Schofield
Platforms	Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android, BlackBerry PlayBook
First release	Dead Space October 13, 2008
Latest release	Dead Space 3 February 5, 2013
Official website	deadspace.ea.com

Dead Space is a media franchise created by Glen Schofield, developed by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts. The franchise centers on a series of video games of the third-person shooter and survival horror genres, and also includes two motion pictures and a comic book series, with more media planned for the future. The series began in 2008 as an eponymous video game aimed at creating, in Schofield's words, "the most terrifying game we could"; the game was a success and spawned a prequel and later a sequel released in 2011.

Each installment in the Dead Space series is a continuation or addition to a continuing storyline which began with the release of the original eponymous game. The game is set in a 26th-century science fiction universe featuring environments, weapons and characters typical of the genre. The series' chronology is not presented in a linear format, with sections of the storyline presented in the form of either prequels or sequels, and in different media aside from only video games. Generally speaking, the series focuses on a man named Isaac Clarke and the horrors that surround him.

So far the series has been commercially and critically successful, selling over 8.0 million copies; the first game and its sequel received widely positive reviews from the majority of critics and the first game has received a number of industry awards for many different elements of its gameplay and development. For it's gory content, the series is banned in Germany, China, and Japan.

On March 4, 2013, it was reported that EA had shut down production of Dead Space 4 due to lower-than-expected sales of Dead Space 3. EA Games Label president Frank Gibeau had previously said that Dead Space 3 needed to sell 5 million copies to be successful. The following day, EA said the report was "patently false".^[1]

Setting

The series takes place in outer space in the 26th century. Mankind has expanded into space, but Earth herself is in ecological crisis, having been drained of resources. EarthGov currently resorts to "Planet-cracker" vessels, which smash celestial bodies apart for raw materials, for survival. However, EarthGov continues to investigate a second possibility. During the 23rd century, the Chicxulub crater was found to contain a "Marker," an artifact of extraterrestrial origin which appears to generate limitless energy. EarthGov's secret tests on the Marker, and attempts to replicate it, were exposed by a member of the research team, Michael Altman. EarthGov quickly had him assassinated, but the damage was done; Altman was hailed as a martyr, and a new religion called "Unitology" sprung up in his wake. Unitologists have seized on one element of Altman's research - that Markers will somehow provide unity or will "make us whole" via a phenomenon called "Convergence" - and now hail the Markers as the key to humanity's salvation.

EarthGov succeeded in creating copies of the Marker, dubbed "Red Markers" because human scientists substituted bismuth for other alien materials in its manufacture, and began to study it and the original Black Marker. Unfortunately, the truth soon became apparent: Markers emit a signal which causes paranoia and hallucinations in the living, as well as causing dead tissue to reanimate and mutate. The resulting zombies were dubbed "Necromorphs," and they are the primary antagonists of the Dead Space franchise. EarthGov closed the research projects and abandoned the Markers wherever they had been hidden, but between Unitologists, continued EarthGov investigations and the mere fact of the Markers' existence on documented planets, it was inevitable that someone would find one again.

The first game is played on board the USG Ishimura, the first and oldest planet-cracker, orbiting a distant planet called Aegis VII, then moves to a colony on the planet itself, where one of the Red Markers was hidden. The second game is set on The Titan Sprawl, a city on a moon of Saturn, where yet another Marker is unleashed. Prequels, sequels, and interquels take place on one of these two settings. Dead Space 3 takes place primarily on Tau Volantis, an ice-covered planet whose colony went dark 200 years ago and was never heard from again. Tau Volantis is believed to be where the Markers originated from.

Characters

Isaac Clarke

Isaac Clarke is the main protagonist of the Dead Space series. Originally a ship systems engineer, his life changes for the worse when a seemingly-routine repair mission becomes a struggle to survive the Necromorph scourge. Clarke originally chose the mission to make contact with his girlfriend who was stationed on the damaged vessel. Clarke is named after science fiction authors Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke.

Nolan Stross

Nolan Stross appears in Dead Space 2. Stross was once a high ranking scientist but suffered from dementia after coming into contact with the Red Marker, and was placed in a psychiatric ward of the medical department on the Sprawl. Clarke meets Stross in this area.^[2] Like Clarke, the character is named after two science fiction authors, in this case William F. Nolan and Charles Stross.

List of media

Main series

Spin-offs

Other media

Dramatizations

Printed

Music albums

Film

Filmmaker John Carpenter is interested in making a Dead Space film.^[38] Justin Marks will write the script.^[39]

References

External links

• EA's official Dead Space website
• Dead Space on Twitter