EA executive producer Glen Schofield says that Cliff Bleszinski told him Dead Space "looks great" on the Unreal Engine. One problem, the game uses EA's own graphical engine. It's one highlight in a very revealing video interview that Planet Xbox 360 had with Schofield at EA's Redwood Shores location about Dead Space.
The entire video (.mpg) is on Planet Xbox 360's site. Camera work's a little shaky, but all you need is the audio. Schofield, with little prompting, talks very candidly about the game's design, how it compares with other familiar titles, and how it all came to be.
Schofield himself visited with horror directors Wes Craven and Eli Roth, and writer Warren Ellis, to inform EA's perspective on horror and how it will translate into the gameplay. Craven had a "really deep philosophy" about horror, getting downright creepy because it involves a family aspect. Roth "was little more about torture porn than the horror," Schofield says with a laugh.
But what really gets my hopes up about this game is when he talks about the reason it exists: "We wanted to make a game for us," he said. A game the small-but-passionate dev team wanted to play itself. Every gamer wishes he or she had that kind of creative outlet, and the resources to fill it, and if we had that kind of access we wouldn't waste it. And in the pitch meeting, when EA's business side "saw the numbers Resident Evil 4, it was a fairly easy business case." It sounds like they're getting all the support they need to make a winner.
Other fun details: Schofield thinks Dead Space would make a good movie, but acknowledges you can't make it on a $10 million budget like you can a game. He's also talked licensing for tie-in products, like action figures and, perhaps facetiously, a candy bar that crunches like a bone and drips cherry filling like blood.
Also, Schofield has a huge set of guns. That is all.
