There are two writers on this article: Alex & Zack, so for the purposes of this article, everything written by Alex will be in bold.
As franchises begin to prosper, the developers aim to create new experiences in their sequels. In Dead Space 3, Visceral Games mixed Isaac Clarke into a new environment that was unlike anything we had ever seen before in the Dead Space franchise. Dead Rising 3, on the other hand, is where they seem to be building on the predecessors to create a more fulfilling experience that relates to franchise. Dead Space 3, in its own right, is a great game, but collectively amongst the franchise it doesn’t quite add up.
-Zack
For me, Dead Space is an interesting franchise: it isn’t often I find myself absolutely horrified, but fantastically giddy at the same time. Dead Space, or at least One and Two, evoked this response in me almost as if by some means of mind control. When picking up and playing the third iteration in the series, I almost immediately found myself profoundly disappointed.
-Alex
Dead Space 3 expanded on weapon inventory by enabling the player to collect parts throughout the chapters in order to build their weapon. This sounds good in theory, but this search for parts starts to take away from the horror that the series has manifested in previous titles.
-Zack
Therein lies the problem: without maintaining a solid path of evolution, a franchise will just lose site of itself. You lose touch with the fun or excitement that made that first entry in the series so exhilarating. By simplifying aspects down to make it more streamlined, you take away some of the tedious that is good, including the fear and the slow pacing.
-Alex
When I think Dead Space I think of Isaac Clarke destroying necromorphs for survival, not Isaac Clarke pitted against a religious cult that’s after him. This is where Dead Rising 3 stays true to the franchise by surrounding the player around a mob of zombies.
-Zack
It’s hard to mess up a giant horde of zombies, but it would be easy to deviate from what made Dead Rising fun. For example, making you fight hordes of people in place of hordes of zombies would definitely be an unwelcomed change to the formula.
-Alex
When exploring through the expanded universe Dead Space 3 creates, it’s charming in a morbid way to see the necromorphs origins, but to be chased around by pissed off people wanting revenge just isn’t the same. With necromorphs, each one has its own style in attacking Isaac, but with humans all they really have are guns, which dilutes from the intended horror in Dead Space.
-Zack
What I’ve taken away from the Dead Rising 3 trailers and content being pushed out to the public is a representation of what makes that franchise interesting. Hordes of zombies? Check. Crazy combination weapons? Check. There is even the promise of psychopaths to fill in the boss fights. It’s okay to change the fundamentals of a franchise, if you don’t lose sight of what makes that franchise appeal to its audience.
-Alex
It can be easy to stray away from the original intent of the franchise when the developers are concerned with creating a relevant game to match the series. Unfortunately, we saw how these characteristics depleted the Dead Space franchise, but Dead Rising 3 seems to reinvent the mechanics in a subtle way that expands the franchise in the right direction.
-Zack
