Executive producer defends Dead Space 3’s human dismemberment

By: Moses Abaortae

  |   September 11th, 2012   |  

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Steve Papoutsis explains that players will finally get some payback on the Unitologists who have done them so much harm in the previous instalments of the Dead Space series.

When Dead Space 1 was released, it shocked the world with its emphasis on dismembering enemies in order to kill them instead of just shooting at them. The graphic tone of the game and the gore was too much for some to stomach but overall it reinvigorated the survival-horror genre.

The second game saw necromorph children and infants added to the enemy roster, which brought with it its own level of disturbing content. However, the third game is set to cap it all as it now allows players to dismember other human beings in the game, which many argue may be pushing things too far.

That is another debate in itself, but the game’s executive producer, Steve Papoutsis, has come out of the blocks firing as he defends the inclusion of being able to cut another human beings arm or leg or head off using plasma cutters and the Ripper, one of the more popular weapons in the series.

Papoutsis explained that the roots of the violence all have context. He said, “I think, again, we bring this all back to the story.” Before elaborating, “Through the iterations of the franchise, The Unitologists have been up to some pretty nefarious deeds.”

These deeds included attempting to ‘harvest’ one of the Markers, before building another one using Isaac Clarke, the game’s protagonist, and turning hundreds upon thousands of people into necromorphs and other monstrosities.

Papoutsis explained how the chance for payback will be something that fans of the series will enjoy, albeit in a slightly more sadistic way than one is normally used to. He said, “Fans of the franchise will immediately have a level of dislike for them, and will be hoping to get an opportunity to take it out on them, because they’ve definitely been messing with Isaac for a while.”

Messing with Isaac involves the reason he lost his wife and also all the hallucinations he has had of her since, as well as the fact that they had kept Isaac in a state of coma for a number of years as they attempted to build a Marker.

This time around it seems that Isaac will be taking the fight to them on their home turf as he looks to end the group and their twisted beliefs once and for all, while trying to maintain his sanity.

But this is a touchy subject, especially with the media being all up in arms against some of the content in video games these days.

What do the readers think; has Visceral gone too far with human dismemberment or is it just what the game needs in order to keep it going forward? Let us know in the comments section below.