10 Biggest Risks In Video Games (That Didn't Pay Off)

8. Dead Space 3 Removes Horror, Adds Coop And Microtransactions, Kills Series

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EA

What did you do to our baby, EA?!

Despite both Dead Space and its fantastic sequel Dead Space 2 being released to critical acclaim and strong sales, that just wasn't enough for publishers EA. No - they needed more. They needed Dead Space 3 to go for the latest trends and rake in some of that sweet, sweet extra cash.

Their solution for doing this? Remove most of the scariness of their iconic survival horror IP in favour of action scenes, chuck in a generic new character so people could play coop, and then pack the game full of intrusive microtransactions.

It was awful.

The whole thing resulted in people souring on the franchise and sales of the game were way, way below EA's lofty expectations. The game did so much damage that it not only completely eradicated the Dead Space IP from existence for several years until a reboot was announced last year, but it was also the catalyst for Visceral Games, the talented studio who worked on the first two games, closing their doors for good in 2017.

Contributor
Contributor

Dan Curtis is approximately one-half videogame knowledge, and the other half inexplicable Geordie accent. He's also one quarter of the Factory Sealed Retro Gaming podcast.