Announced at EA Play Live 2021, EA Motive's remake of the 2008 game Dead Space has gotten fans of the horror series excited to pick up their plasma cutter and brave the halls of the Ishimura all over again. Thanks to a recent interview, there is another reason to be excited as the controversial microtransaction feature from Dead Space 3 will not be making a return.
Senior producer of the project Phil Ducharme told IGN in an interview about the mindset of the team at EA Motive and how they want to look at the franchise's past to find things that can be reincorporated into the remake while also finding the mistakes and learning from them. The interview made it very clear that the story of the original Dead Space is the foundation of the remake, but the team also wants to add new mechanics that were introduced in the sequels such as the zero gravity sections from Dead Space 2.
"We're looking at what can be taken and reinjected into the first game from a future standpoint." Ducharme singles out microtransactions as a mistake that they will not be repeating in the remake. "We're also learning from mistakes such as microtransactions, which we will not have, for instance, in our game." He went on to say that they are developing the game in a way to ensure that microtransactions are "never" added into the game.
The confirmation that no microtransactions will ever be added to the game is good to hear as there have been games such as Call of Duty Black Ops 4 that released without microtransactions only for them to be added later in the game's lifetime. Electronic Arts is no stranger to adding microtransactions to games that don't need them and that fans don't want. While their multiplayer games such as Apex Legends still have the feature, the publisher seems to be moving away from putting them in single player games as seen with 2019's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Dead Space 3 was released in 2013 and was highly criticized for its inclusion of a microtransaction system, which allowed players to spend real world money to get scraps to help improve their weapons. This inclusion was a major contributing factor to why the third entry in the series was the lowest reviewed game in the trilogy.
While a release date is not yet known, the Dead Space remake will release on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC.