Dead Space (series)
| Dead Space | |
|---|---|
The official logo
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| Genres | Survival horror |
| Developers | Visceral Games |
| Publishers | Electronic Arts |
| Creators | Glen Schofield |
| Platforms | Android, iOS, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Wii |
| First release |
Dead Space October 13, 2008 |
| Latest release |
Dead Space 3 February 5, 2013 |
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 survival horror genre, and also includes two films 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 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.
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".
The series takes place in outer space in the 26th century. Mankind has expanded into space and colonized other planets, but Earth herself is in ecological crisis, having been drained of resources. EarthGov currently resorts to "planet-cracking" - the processing of mining entire planets for the recovery of raw materials, with a fleet of specially constructed space-faring vessels. However, EarthGov is investigating a second possibility. During the 23rd century, the Chicxulub crater was found to contain a "Marker" - an artifact of extraterrestrial origin which acts as a relay for a persistent electromagnetic field signal, with no apparent source. Theorizing that the Marker's signal could be harnessed to supply limitless energy, EarthGov initiated research with the ultimate aim of duplicating the Marker through reverse engineering. Even though the project was highly classified, the leading researcher, Michael Altman, managed to leak its existence. 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.
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Wikipedia