The corpse of Dead Space is being reinimated for Battlefield 6, with the latest trailer for Season 5 seemingly teasing a crossover.
Battlefield 6’s new trailer shows off a new Las Vegas map that looks like a lot of fun, as choppers and machine guns tear up casinos and skyscrapers along The Strip. But then the music fades out, ominous sounds creep in, and it cuts to a bloom-filled scene where two Dead Space engineers stare up at The Marker, the survival horror series’ alien artifact that drills into your brain.
Earlier this year, series writer Chuck Beaver claimed sales were too low for EA to greenlight a Dead Space 4. Series co-creator and developer of The Callisto Protocol, Glen Schofield, also retired from the industry this year after his spiritual successor failed to light up the industry.
Battlefield 6 players on Reddit already spotted potential Dead Space skins, which were rumored to launch in the Halloween update this October, so that’s probably what you can expect. Developers at Dice have previously gone on the record to say Battlefield 6 won’t feature goofy, immersion breaking skins. That’s done now, if these rumors are true.
EA recently added a Dead Space skin to Skate and charged $40 for it so there’s precedent for skins in the universe. Players weren’t happy with the skin itself or the cost, so it’ll be interesting to see if EA aims for more realistic pricing for the next crossover. Battlefield 6 previously did a crossover event with Top Gun, but that makes sense in a game featuring fighter jets.
Battlefield 6’s fifth Season features three new maps, including Vegas Strip and Area 51, six new weapons and two new vehicles. You can jump into Vegas on October 13.
As for Dead Space, talking on the FRVR Podcast, Beaver said that to recoup the costs of the franchise’s high production values, any new game would need to sell over 10 million copies — a tall order for even a breakout horror game.
“Any of the Resident Evils are selling around seven million [copies], that’s a pretty good number,” Beaver said. “But, you know, companies now are looking for the next Fortnite. They need something that is a perennial moneymaker… something like a single-player package game with no live-service offering that’s like it’s just a dinosaur fossil of a business model.”
The Dead Space remake, developed by EA-owned Motive Studio and released in 2023, was well-received but appears to have not done enough business to convince the powers that be at the mega publisher to invest in a follow-up. IGN’s Dead Space remake review returned a 9/10. We said: “Dead Space is a superb remake and undoubtedly the definitive way to experience one of the best survival horror shooters that Capcom never made.”
“Horror games have a bit of a ceiling, you know, and I think the number back in [former EA VP] Frank Gibeau’s day was 5 million units to keep going on Dead Space,” Beaver continued. “I think the number is like 15 million units now, given the cost of things,” he added, before joking that it was “a sadness in capitalism for all of us to suffer, until AI makes it apparently easy for you and I just type ‘make Dead Space 4.'”
In October last year, Schofield told IGN he hoped to bring the franchise back to life, despite EA’s lack of interest. “I went to [EA] recently and they’re like, ‘No, we’re not interested anymore,’” he said. “I said, ‘I can get back the leadership team. I need the models from EA Motive and I can save you 30 to 40 million dollars on the idea that I have.’ And, they’re like, ‘No.'”
“I have quite a few ideas that I’m ready to go with and one of them is Dead Space 4,” Schofield continued. “The fact that EA just got bought, I think there’s an opportunity. I’m already making calls.”
Kirk McKeand is a Contributor on IGN News. Find him on Twitter @MckKirk
