This is an Interview with the games executive producer Steve Papoutsis
Steve, can you tell us how Dead Space 2 is different from the previous game?
Sure, so Dead Space 2 takes place three years after the original Dead Space. The premise is Isaac fights to destroy a government plot to resurrect the Marker. This story is focused around Isaac and his experience, and that's kinda the set up for the game. In terms of what has changed between Dead Space 1 and Dead Space 2 there has been a lot of enhancements. One thing I want to be clear about is that we got the chance to make Dead Space 2 because a lot of people enjoyed and were vocal about Dead Space 1, so we want to make sure that we aren't doing anything that takes away from what those people enjoyed about the first game.
With that in mind we had to make sure that Dead Space 2 was actually better than the last game; we had to do a variety of things to enhance the game. Those things start with the controller and move their way out, right? The most important thing about a game, as a game developer, is what's going on with the player when they're interacting and playing the game. So we wanted to make sure that the controls were very natural and were responsive.

When people, whether they are new players or returning players, pick up the controller it felt really good in their hands, they were able to jump in, kick ass, and start basting off Necromorph limbs. To that end we've sped up Isaac in general, from his locomotion speed, we've enhanced his melee attacks, the stomp, we've made Kinesis more responsive, so you can use it more often in combat; in the previous games, one of the personal complaints I had was that if I wanted to use Kinesis in the middle of a fight it was very clunky and hard to line up a shot. So we really made that much more responsive, so you can quickly pick something up and fire it back at an enemy just like the last game but we've added some other touches to that such as impalement.

In the previous game, sure you could grab an object or a Necromorph limb and shoot it at bad guy, it would knock them back. In this game if you actually grab a discarded Necromorph limb or a pointy object in the environment you'll actually impale them to a surface, defeating them. So that is very different. We've done some experimentation around Stasis and the way that's going to work. Those are just a few things right off the bat with the general controls.

The next evolution has been our zero gravity sequences where we've given Isaac free 360 degree range of motion. In the previous game you had point to point jumping, so you'd pick a place to go, you'd jump, you weren't able to shoot, you weren't able to do anything until you landed. In dead Space 2 you're actually able to move in 360 degree range of motion freedom and also have combat during those set ups.

Also we've really focused on the pacing of the game, so it is really important to a horror game that you have good pacing. The previous game, very tense, people were on the edge of their seat the whole time, but it was kind of a slow burner, it was like that the whole way through. I think that at points people felt it got kind of predictable 'OK something is going to jump out at me... Boo!'. With Dead Space 2 we're really trying to mix it up a bit, so there's moments where you are extremely tense, and then there's moments of epic release like we showed in that halo jump sequence, where Isaac is doing something epic, and very different, very out of the blue to what he is doing the majority of the time. The idea behind that is to vary the pacing, mix it up, so that players have, as I said, really tense moments and these moments of 'What the @!#? This is cool! What am I doing?' and then you're right back in to the scary stuff, right back in to the tension building to the next big release point. So that's kind of, in a nutshell, that's a bunch of different things that we've done with Dead Space 2.

What are you guys demoing today? Can people get their hands on the game?
In terms of what they can get their hands on... we have our E3 demo and we're also showing what we showed at the press conference at the press conference yesterday, and a little bit more. That's not hands on, but the E3 demo is playable.

If someone is new to the franchise, is it easy to get in to the game and pick up and play without playing the first game?
In terms of story? For sure. We're really sensitive to that as well. We're hoping to attract a lot of new players. When the game comes out and the story kicks off from the get go I think it is going to make sense to players, or at least give an idea of what has been happening. From that point forward I think it is going to make sense to people.

One of the big reveals you had was the reveal of Isaac's face. How do you think that went down?
I think, in terms of showing his face, some people didn't realise that we showed it in the first game; like at the very beginning you could see his face, you just had to move the camera. So that was there, and I don't want to spoil, but there is another point in the game where you can see his face. But when we showed Isaac in Dead Space 2, with the helmet coming off and all that, I think people got excited and liked that; it's a cool animation. Again, just trying to let people connect more with Isaac. I think one of the more interesting things we've done, and one of the things we hear a vocal reaction to, is his voice. In the previous game he didn't talk at all, he was a mute, and that made sense because a lot of the time he was by himself, so what do you expect, he's going to walk around speaking to himself? That'd be nonsense.

In Dead Space 2 there are going to be other characters that he is going to meet across the game, and it only makes sense to give him a voice so that he can voice his opinion, have conversations with other people, and actually relate some of the things that are going on in his head at times, because this story revolves around him,

Are you not worried by the fact that this increased communication may take away from the atmosphere? Because in the first game Isaac was mostly alone, so if you've got people speaking to you does that not affect the atmosphere?
I think people could assume that, but that'd be a bad assumption. First of all Isaac is not going to be walking down a corridor talking to himself, again that'd be nonsense, right? I don't particularly go walking around talking to myself, I dunno about you. Now if he is in a situation, just like we are, it would be silly if he didn't respond to people talking to him. I think the fear is, in a lot of other video games people tend to go over the top with the chatter, where they're just commenting about 'oh that pretzel looks awesome!'. That's just ridiculous, who cares? It has nothing to do with the game or the story, it is just filler. We are not going to do that, that is not in Dead Space 2. What is in Dead Space 2 is a story that is something we've worked really hard to create and that we want to deliver, and it wouldn't make sense if Isaac didn't speak. People are going to have to play the game to see what I am talking about, but if anyone is concerned Isaac is not going to be walking down corridors, snapping off corny one liners, you know 'oh I just blasted that Necromorph!'. That is not happening in the game, so if you guys can get the word out there, please do, because that that's not what we're doing here.

Who have you got to voice Isaac?
The actor's name is Gunner Wright, he's never been in a game before.

With plans for a new novel/manga/comic book tie in are there any plans to bring the game to the big screen?
That would be super cool; we have an animated feature coming out as well our second one but as far as a full feature film, we don't have anything locked in for that.

Do you have any plans to release a demo to the public on Playstation Network, or Xbox Live?
We don't have any plans for a demo, but we do have another game that acts as a kind of prologue to Dead Space 2 called Dead Space Ignition, which is coming out on Xbox 360 and PS3, that is a fun little thing that we are doing that's actually a combination between an animated comic that has branching paths, so you're actually able to pick different options as you go through the story. So imagine a motion comic where you can actually determine the outcome of what's going on and then interspersed throughout those decision points are actual mini games that you'll be playing- you'll be hacking and doing some of those things - and that game dovetails nicely in to Dead Space 2.

Does the downloadable game bridge the gap between the first game and the second game, or is it a completely separate entity?
Dead Space Ignition is more of a prologue to Dead Space 2.

Will there be a Dante unlockable skin in the game, as there was an unlockable Isaac skin in Dante's Inferno?
Yeah, well I can't really say, sorry. That's a good question though.

How about the multiplayer?
We are going to have multiplayer and we'll be talking about that really soon in more detail. Today all I can say is that you will be able to strategically dismember your friends.

How does the new weapon system improve upon the original?
So one thing that we've done, again trying to enhance everything about the game, we've gone back and put a lot of effort in to asking people what they thought of the original weapons. It's kind of different in Dead Space, we had a ton of weapons and many people just used the plasma cutter. Each weapon had an alternate fire, so if you think about it we had about 16 weapons if we count those alternate fires, which is an immense number of weapons. People picked their favourite weapons, they used that weapon, they focused on that, and did some rig upgrades.

What we're trying to do with the second game is give players more motivation to use an experiment with the other weapons, and that is going to come across in the upgrade trees that we have in the game. We're still going to have the work bench, so you'll be able to go in there and modify your weapons and enhance things like rate of fire, damage, etcetera. But we're also playing around with the idea of letting players re-spec their weapons, so if they invest a lot of effort in to one weapon and they decide 'you know, I don't like that' they'll be able to modify that. We're doing a lot of things there, and another piece we're looking at the weapons that people didn't use a lot - and I've been asking a lot of questions about this on my twitter feed about this stuff - and getting feedback on which weapons you didn't like, and then we've gone back and enhanced those. So, for instance, people thought the flame thrower looked really cool, but they felt like it wasn't useful in the game. So we've gone back and made some modifications to that as well as a variety of the other weapons.

Is there a release date for Dead Space 2 yet?
Yeah, in Europe it is January 28th 2011.

Are there any new exciting enemies that you can talk about?
Well, we definitely have a bunch of new enemies. So far we've talked about the Puker, an enemy that actually pukes on you. It has projectile vomit attack, you can actually use that against enemies so if you're clever you can get other enemies to stand in the way so that it'll damage them. He also has a snare ability which will, if successful in hitting Isaac, will actually slow Isaac down, which will modify the pace of combat. So when you see him you're going to want to take him down quickly because if he slows you down the other enemies could get to you. We haven't really talked about that, so that's some new news.

We've also shown off the Stalker, and we've shown the Pack, and the Nest which we showed off in the Gamescom demo, that bulbous sack with the lady that comes out, the Crawlers, and the Cysts. Those are just a few that we've talked about so far.

When you're coming up with new enemies who is it that comes up with them? Are they a bit missed up?
(laughter) Well that's one of the cool things about the Dead Space team is that there's just an immense number of very talented and creative people. We're really focused on collaborating with one and other, it isn't just one person that comes up with these things. We'll have meetings and talk about ideas, and then our production designer Ben will actually then work with the art director to create the look of the enemies. It comes from a different directions; sometimes it is motivated by what the designers want from a gameplay perspective like the idea of Puker and the snare, that was originally motivated by the design need. Other times it comes from the artistic perspective, and the designers work around that constraint, and come up with interesting dismembering points and things around the enemy. There's a lot of different people that work and contribute on that. As far as them being twisted, well yes, everybody on the team is pretty twisted.

Have you made an effort to make the game more gory, more visually visceral, than the original?
We're definitely trying to enhance the visuals of the game, for sure. But one of the things that makes horror work, in my opinion, it isn't just about buckets of blood and gore that is interesting and gets a reaction but what is really important about horror is it being relatable. When you look at the Necromorphs, I think what works with them is that they're humanoid, they're twisted, the fact that the slashers are missing their jaws, its the traumatic things on a relatable level. So you look at it and go 'wow that would suck to have my jaw ripped apart', so you immediately have a connection, whether you like it or dislike it, or are disgusted, horrified by it, whatever. That's how you're going to get a response from people, it's not just having tons of blood or things splattering, that stuff's cool but you want to use it tastefully.

We don't go in to the game thinking 'we're going to have more blood than ever before!', that's not what we're about. The other piece of the horror component is not only within the enemies, but also the environment. With science fiction you can get kind of touchy, there's high fantasy science fiction like a Star Wars, where there's magical powers, lightsabers, things like that. With Dead Space we want to make it more believable, again that's because if you're walking around an environment that you're familiar with, say a school or a shopping mall or something like that, there's something in your head that goes 'Hey OK, I know what this is' and when something happens on that spot it's scary. If you put a person in to Fantasy Space Land then its like 'OK,I don't know what to expect' so you don't have that connection, and you can't scare a person as easily, or it comes off as not scary.

In terms of environments is there going to be quite a big variation in it, what with the first game taking place primarily on the ship?
Yes, the Sprawl is a big City, so there's a lot of different locations throughout the game. Again, focusing on that idea of relatable spaces, there's going to be a lot of different spaces to see. So far we've shown the Church of Unitology in our E3 demo; today in the GamesCom room we've shown the Solar Aray, which is a futuristic almost lighthouse set up. Those are just a couple of different locations, and the end of the GamesCom footage also shows the transport hub through the Sprawl, the place where you catch the train to go to different places.

In terms of length how long do you anticipate it will take to finish?
Oh, probably about 10 minutes. (laughs) No, Five months? No, that's how long we have to finish the game. I don't know; so far it is definitely as long as the last game, although it might actually be a little longer.