So for one possible outcome the player is thinking of, we have five, six, seven ingredients, or recipes, that could lead to something else.” And if I have the vent break without a spawn, then I’m adding something else. If I don’t hear it in the vent, but I hear the vent break and it spawns, suddenly I’ve got a jump scare, because I didn’t expect that. If I hear it again, but it doesn’t spawn, I’ll go to the vent and expect something to happen that doesn’t. “So say you hear a Necromorph in a vent, then hear the vent break, then the Necromorph spawns. “But it’s always about putting the player in a place where they don’t know what to expect,” says Audio Director Olivier Asselin. Because that would be emotionally exhausting you’d be like, ‘I can’t take this anymore.’” Because we do essentially track the peaks and valleys of tension, to make sure that it’s not just back-to-back-to-back high-intensity events. “But then you might go into another room,” Steven says, “and suddenly, there’s a Slasher spawning from a wall vent, plus the lights turn off, plus there’s fog in the environment, and it becomes a lot more intense. There might be an easy room with just a few sounds here and there, but that’s it-” So we monitor the amount of intensity the player is going through while going from room to room. “That was the original intent,” says Lead Senior Software Developer David Vincent, “to make it feel like a movie even though it’s fully interactive. Different elements, like audio or lighting changes, fog or steam, enemy spawns-all that combined together in layers to create encounters that feel like hand-made situations.” “And depending on how we count things, the system has more than 1200 unique events, with a massive variety of combinations possible. “It’s a content organization, spawning, and pacing control system,” says Senior Systems Designer Dan Kim. It lets us control the emotion and tension, and to always keep the player on their toes, to keep them careful.” “The Intensity Director,” Eric says, “is a way for us to control the stress level for the player, to be sure there’s always something happening. It customizes the player experience on-the-fly, tuning the atmosphere to maintain tension without overwhelming the player. So you often get the sense that the lights are about to go out completely at any given moment-and they can!” BUILDING A STRESS ENGINEĪnd experiences like this are the work of the most significant features of this top-to-bottom remake, a new system that drives all those dynamic events. But since the ship is in a state of disrepair, the lighting is rarely ever in a fully functional state. So, the player feels like they’re moving from one limited lit-up area to the next, and that the shadowed areas in between are dangerous. “For example,” says Lead Lighting Artist Michael Yeomans, “we have a strong element of light and shadow in the game. By having more depth here, we’re able to have more control over the player’s feelings of stress and excitement.” So how do you improve on a game that was already legendary for its pitch-perfect atmosphere? “There are a lot of enhancements,” says Senior Game Director Eric Baptizat, “in terms of visuals, audio, lighting-everything is more dynamic. “The environment, the tension, keeping the player on the edge of their seat-all these things combine to create the atmosphere needed for a successful horror game.” “Arguably, atmosphere is the most important ingredient for a horror game,” says Associate Lead Level Designer Steven Ciciola. When the original game came out, its atmosphere earned nearly universal praise-so when Motive™ set out to remake this iconic survival horror game, the designers knew they needed to nail this key element. For Dead Space™, it’s all of those things and more, linked together by one crucial element: atmosphere. What makes something scary? It can be the unknown, or a known threat pure uncertainty, or the certainty of inevitable disaster. Inside Dead Space™ #4: The Intensity Director The team behind Motive’s Dead Space remake introduces new systems designed to keep players teetering on the edges of their seats. Game Overview Story Characters The Ishimura Unitology Weapons EA Play Membership Accessibility Comms Relay Crew Trailer & Screenshots Concept Art Soundtrack News Game Overview Story Characters The Ishimura Unitology Weapons EA Play Membership Accessibility Comms Relay Crew Trailer & Screenshots Concept Art Soundtrack News Inside Dead Space™ #4: The Intensity Director
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