As one of the sleeper hits of 2008, Dead Space was a game that cried out for a sequel. But while it didn’t take long for it to get one, this autumn’s follow-up isn’t quite what people expected.

 

Dead Space: Extraction transfers the franchise to the Wii for the first time, switching gameplay to a first-person, on-rails shooter in the process. It’s a shift that’s had some fans howling in protest, but will it actually work? We went along to a preview event to see how things are shaping up.
 
Playing as a team
Extraction may share a game universe with Dead Space, but it’s different in many ways. Aside from the on-rails mechanic, one of the most striking features is that, this time, you're not alone.

 

Dead Space had you take on the role of Isaac Clarke, a lone gunner who never uttered a word. This time, you’ll be playing as part of a team of four - McNeill, Weller, Eckhardt and Lexine - with dialogue between the characters driving the storyline of the game.

 

McNeill and Weller are a pair of security guards, described by scriptwriter Antony Johnston as old friends reunited by what’s happening in Extraction. They’re chalk and cheese types that are always bickering, but with an underlying friendship.

 

Eckhardt is a company executive who Johnston describes as “a bit of a coward”. Though he’s a smart guy, he relies on others for his survival.

 

The only woman in the group is Lexine, who works on the colony as a surveyor. Like the other characters, she’s not super-tough, but she‘s level-headed and keeps the group working together.
 
Although there are four characters, the game supports up to two human players, with a jump-in, jump-out co-op feature available.
 
Colony wars
The storyline kicks off in the Aegis VII colony when the 'marker' – the source of all the nastiness that Clarke battled in Dead Space – is extracted to the Ishimura ship orbiting above. Most of the gameplay takes place in the colony, though the player will ultimately get on board the Ishimura as well.

 

Just as with Dead Space, a key focus is on creeping the player out. During the demo, the phrase often repeated by executive producer Steve Papoutsis is “real space, real terror.”

 

Papoutsis loves films like Alien, Cloverfield and The Shining and cites them all as inspirations because, although they're scary, they also have an edge of realism. Extraction follows the same path; there are no muscle-bound marines to be found here, just everyday folk thrown into a deadly situation. “We're not going for straight-up testosterone-driven ass-kicking,” says Papoutsis.

 

The demo level we’re shown backs this up. The game’s bursts of action are punctuated by sections where the group explore their surroundings and gather clues about what’s happened. It certainly looks different to the usual ‘hammer the fire button’ action of on-rails shooters.

 

As a passive observer (we’re promised some hands-on play at E3 next month), it was easy to forget the player didn't have control of where he was heading. There are also some nods to player freedom, such as branching paths and the option to look around your surroundings.

 

Perhaps this guided gameplay could even prove more scary than a game with full freedom, with the game leading you into spaces you’d rather not visit. Time will tell, but Extraction is certainly a world away from the gleeful self-indulgence of the likes of House of the Dead: Overkill. As Papoutsis says: “It’s not a shooting gallery.”
 
New controls
This deeper approach to the genre has also meant the development team have had to come up with a control system that’s more than just ‘point and shoot’.

 

“We’re trying very hard to make sure our controls do not feel gimmicky,” says Papoutsis. “We want them to be analogous to actual real world motions. We don’t want to force the player to do waggles or weird shakes that just are nonsensical.”

 

So, you’ll perform melee attacks by swiping the nunchuk at the screen, or point the remote at where you want to jump when using Zero G. Using the alternate fire option of a weapon uses a neat mechanic where you rotate the remote 90 degrees. There’s also a timed reload, reminiscent of that in Gears of War. Get the timing right and you get an instant reload. Still, there is waggling to be found, notably when you’re fighting off an enemy hand-to-hand.

 

Lock and load
Weapons-wise, we’re looking at all the hardware from the original, plus at least three new ones. Papoutsis was happy to talk about two of those - the other remains under wraps for now.

 

First, there's an arc welder, which will send out a beam of electricity that will arc between multiple targets. It's a serious weapon with an alternate fire mode that creates a larger ball of electricity that detonates.

 

Second is a more basic addition: the rivet gun. This is simply a tool, a bit like a nail gun, that can be used as a weapon if absolutely necessary. It’s essentially your last ditch weapon, and as such will have unlimited ammo.
 
More to come
Given the effort already put into the Dead Space franchise - as well as this second game, there are also comics and an animated film, Downfall -  it's clear there's more to come.
 
No-one’s yet talking about what that might be, but according to Papoutsis the end of Extraction will set up another instalment.

 

“There will be a secret that gets revealed that's hopefully going to excite the fans and continue to propel the franchise forward,” he says.
 
So a sequel proper would seem to be in the pipeline. But in the meantime, we have some serious shooting fun ahead of us on the Wii.