How Dead Space's Scariest Scene Almost Killed the Game | War Stories | Ars Technica

this was one of the original enemies we thought for sure that flying enemies would work and we found out they were really hard and they weren't that much fun but in the end we did end up having a character that was some I liked him that would cover up any of the dead people and turn them into an echo morph hi I'm Glenn Schofield creator and director of dead space I set out to make the scariest game of all time along the way I had to break some rules make some new ones and really redefine how I meant for the others [Music] I started thinking about dead space around 2005 to do a prototype that everybody would approve we actually took a deaf kid of the Xbox a lot more than real mo of everything and we filled it with just three rooms with spinning lights and you know fans and everything because we wanted to just see what it would look like and then we found out after that it was easy to actually give it to the engineers and then they knew exactly what we wanted a by accident we found a good way to develop and create newer engines because they if they saw what we wanted and they were able to make it my number one goal was to scare the heck out of one person I wanted to make the scariest game you know you have to go in and go I want to make the scariest game ever but you don't go in and say I want to make the third sketch but I also wanted a game that was exactly what I wanted to make you know I've made a lot of kids that people wanted me to make and I was happy doing because making video games but this one I wanted to really make my creative side just really happy and so I think you can see it in the end product was just really a handcrafted game so my influences to make deadspace from a game industry with definitely the Resident Evil series and Resident Evil 4 had just come out one of the things I would say the team is we're gonna make Resident Evil in space and you got it right away the resume before is one of my top five games of all time and I just like the mood the mood was impressive sometimes it was dreadful but it was I I just got caught up in I was always worried about what's around the corner but I always wanted to see was around the corner too I wanted to be in the world anyway there was a blind enemy and that thing was so scary and so hard that when I finally got it I was cheering and that's a different kind of scary this is tension in playing and then there's just like running away and all but the moment that the dog jumped out and Reza diva one still goes down is probably top 5 scariest moment in history against is what pushed me to want to make another video game and I think because I thought the video games hadn't yet become a scary as movies at least overall now I will say the Silent Hill the town and the whistle and the nurses and my god the feeling in that room when it would go from nice to to awful things that would influence me and creating tension or dread or oppression or whatever it is I look to movies and horror science fiction at the top there is event horizon the idea of a spaceship going to hell man it's that something just crazy and then I wanted to create something like that I found event horizon to be successful in creating the storytelling that was just done in the backgrounds one of the characters is standing with her back through the cockpit in the cockpit and a light goes on and the glass behind it is just covered it's it's not normal-looking it looks like just some Awful's happened and this character here has no idea and I wanted to get that feeling somehow all throughout the game we wanted you to have moments of relaxation but not not too much the sound designer in horror movies is one of my my favorite aspects of making the game and I had such a good time working with with Don Becker who is my longtime friend and collaborator and we want a ton of awards on the sound design because the sound is so important in a video game to me and a lot of games sound design was like sort of the thing that came in last wasn't that important though we ran out of memory we don't have a lot but right from the start we said sound design and the music and the audio are key one in particular really got me was the BART train will Don Mecca was telling me one day he's like Glen I was going in the BART train we went under the bay and it's the worst sound in the history of my head or something like that and I'm like recorded next day he's hanging out the BART train getting the sound when it's in the tunnel and everything and he plays it for me and that we have these really nice sounds it was like screeching and it's great is what we were looking for is how can we scare people just without no monsters no nothing so you're in zero g in the game you get to an airlock and it's down quiet again then you open the door and people are running in the room they are just trying to get out of that room it's so awesome there was such a thrill for us because that was a great way to now realize that we can use sounding more a ruse of developing dead space were no HUD character never talks we were gonna do this member meant all big moments are gonna be interactive and everything is gonna run through the filter of innovation meaning everything that we do in the game should be innovated on whether it's the HUD or the things that we called out or not even just that his look is something you've never seen before the stomp and that's just a simple melee with resume for one thing that we wanted to do was you know you walk and then you want to shoot you got a stop that's what made it really scary but I also thought it just that sometimes took me out because I'm like don't know I want to be running and shooting I want to get away from the character so that's what we did well I didn't want him to stop and have to shoot I wanted to be able to turn shoot just like he wouldn't be alive that just was a nice place to innovate one thing with the enemies we didn't want to have a place where the door open then there were the enemies that we just always there or something we wanted to be real we wanted to be semi random so we have this system of vents but it wasn't just a spawning point if we had a vent here and event here depending on where the character was is where the enemy came out so what we were trying to do in many cases was the enemy would come out of that and we go I'll shoot back up that's that's another enemy coming out of the other man just by innovating a little bit on the way spawn points are you can really get something special we wanted you to feel like you were Isaac that's why you don't see a lot of HUD up we're talking about HUDs and somebody said you know I once thought I saw hard on the back of a scuba divers back I'm like that makes a lot of sense I'm in deep water that's where the idea came from was like I don't get that because I kept saying how do we put it on the character have we put on the character one of the engineers realized that there are times that Isaac was getting killed and you would see his back and it would still have green on it so the engineer went and made sure that every time Isaac died that it didn't went red and that you just see parts on his back I love that I love that one the engineers when anybody comes up with just something to make the game better the main character Isaac was not gonna talk you had to try and make a character that didn't talk not look like he was always just taking orders like he was person on himself that came from half-life 2 we just wanted to have the sort of the Gordon Freeman feeling again so character never talked the other rule was we were going to do this member meant the thing that we built the game on so changed the way that the enemies were designed it changed the way every single weapon was done because now they had to be something that could chop off arms and legs isaac dying is purely to systems enemy system attacking a character that has dismemberment the death animations weren't pre based each one was different based on where the enemy was at da the enemy killed you however it happened he may cut off Isaac's arm to make up his legs that's all it's all so that's why they're all different so the death scenes they ended up being like a feature the thing that changed a little bit over time in developing the game was actually the length of the death because we realized what a fun thing we had so he just took two great systems and had at it so wanted to get as many points as we could in the arms and legs and everything so that it felt really real like I don't want to chop here and his wrist falls off yeah this here is the all the notes from my animation director Chris stone he took all the notes from the meetings that we had because this one here is all about this member man you can see the different points that we were talking about this is how we started and then you can see we number two and then we got more and more complicated as time went on and technology got better well you can just see that the care that went into justice member meant was something really special interactive moments there are no cutscenes in the game so we're trying to tell the story through video logs but also what Isaac does you know one of the main things with with this game was trying to come up with really cool big interactive scenes because they're really complicated to make one that we came upon almost made us break our rule because it was so hard that we almost just said well let's just have him dragged Isaac and we'll just shoot it was like no we're not gonna do that we're not gonna break our rule just for one one that led to a lot of a lot of work a lot of changes in the way that we do things and a lot of things a lot of ways that we still do work was the drag tentacle this was a problem that was so big and so hairy for I said it just he kind of stopped us in our tracks for a month the drag tentacle was meant to be a medium moment well medium thing within the game we're gonna do it once the tentacle comes out grabs you and then pulls you down on the ground and then you you die if you get caught by it but as we're getting into it we're realizing that no no Isaac would want to shoot he would want to be on the ground and pulled and shoot you don't think anything's gonna happen to you because I think just before that we had a scare and so we wanted you to kind of instantly go geez that was pretty scary and then you walk through this door and within a couple of seconds this thing comes out and grabs you at that moment just when it grabs you I wanted to be one of the scariest moments in the game because it flips you on your back and you can't get away from it you'll have to shoot it through that wasn't just about animation that was about technology finding the target and being able to wrap around and grab the way by the ankle which is what we wanted so we had the creative his tentacles kind of figured out what you were there to create falling on my back and get the sounds for it all this stuff went through the lists okay animators you're gonna be animating the thing kind of grab you guys are building the drag tentacle okay you know what it's got to do it's got to be animated at the grab foot and everybody had their lists and things to do but went away for a few days on business trip when I came back nothing was working but yet all the stuff was there right and it was done right was done good but they're like Glenn we did everything you asked but it's mess and I'm looking at it going it is you know it is after just kind of making a whole bunch of mistakes for a couple of weeks we realized it's got to be a better way and I realized that you know the problem wasn't the team it was really now I was giving them their assignments some things need to come first I need to have them grab them by the leg before where I can throw them on the ground and I he needs to be on the ground before I can start an anime so all these things that started coming in as layers so I started thinking about how the heck we get the tentacle to come in grabs the leg picks him up throws him on the ground the sound hits because all that could be slightly different I could be there in the hallway or I could get the laughs or it could be the right realize had to do one thing at a time all right guys just animate the track tentacle coming out of the hole and it grabs him by the leg like yeah but this sounds like just do that part came back that worked then he came back and said okay the next thing animate him being picked up and thrown in on the ground on his back like yeah but then he shoots him I know just do let's just do this party now everybody is starting to get it when you do everything at once you're not sure why it's not working when you layer it and you break it down you peel the the onion peel you keep you know you had one you had one you had one and then you hit a spot where it's not working now you can focus everybody just on that spot and get through it a lot quicker I started calling it layering layering management you know there's probably a term for it but that for us we still call it you know we got a we got to add layers we got to do this in layers guys in there and nowadays most of the guys on my team will know that this is a layered problem and that started back on on dead space and so we threw him on the ground and we realized that now he's dragging him and we dragging him for a long way because we wanted have some way of shooting so this is kind of naive I think at the time too we thought well if he throws you on your back we'll just play like one of the moves of you shooting the different weapons while you're standing but you're kind of on your back we'll have him full and we put that in there in the litter so we realized then that we have to animate all his moves on his back shooting all the different weapons just for this one scene that someone told me lasted about 40 seconds we had to remake all of his shooting mechanics and some struggling mechanics it was daunting we had to put a team on the animation then we realized the tentacle would have to be blown off and broken and it could be anywhere along that long way so there was just so much work that went into it so we started layering on all the issue then when it was all done completely done that's when we went back and we headed them special effects on top throwing a mother ground the sound of him hitting and all that and then we were able to put the triggers incorrectly because now we knew all the different places that the character would be it could be he probably had anywhere between 15 and 22 people working on the drag tentacle at any time and I remember you know people coming in and asking me Glen are you sure you really want to do this we cut to other things just to get that in I can't tell you what we cut because I don't care like that that that drag tentacle was was really cool you know doing the the drag tentacle moment normal lessons that we learn from it some of the stuff that came out of that were just a sense of pride now they felt like they could take on anything and the rest became after that was I don't want to say easier but there was like hey there's a challenge just break this down at the layers and see what we can do you know by doing stuff like this we were more efficient we save time we save money we can make more game because we knew that we had a way that could break down any problem I like the ones that are hard because I'll say to the guys do you think another studio would do this and they say no I don't nobody can take that I'm like good having an overarching desire to make something great and have quality be your number one thing is the bass lesson he may say oh well you should always be that way and it's like yes but there are times when you have budget cuts we have changes you don't have to write people a need you have to let down your guard a little bit we ship the game two weeks early because we have gotten all our bucks we have gotten all the way down to C bucks the game came out and then we won I'll not forget the biggest one was sitting at the dice Awards which is the big one for us and when they called our name I'll never forget this the the feeling of validation honey just said it's okay to go make another one now I founded sledgehammer games with my partner Michael Condrey July 21st of 2009 and we made three games modern warfare 3 advanced warfare and then we made World War two the cool thing about modern warfare 3 was we also want action game of the year so we won dead space and then modern warfare 3 so we got him back to back when I think back about death space and I think back on its origins which was just me and my car talking to paulie about making a game I can't believe ten years later it's become something I never you just don't expect it a real highlight of my career has been you know making dead space and then what it's brought since I've been playing more of the types of games that I'm making right now that doesn't mean I haven't been writing I still write a horror stuff and I've got quite a few stories and I enjoyed making that space so much that you know hopefully someday I'll make one of those games again [Music] you

Channel: Ars Technica

Views: 8,758,403

Keywords: dead space, war stories dead space, dead space game, dead space xbox, dead space xbox 360, dead space ea, ea games dead space, visceral, visceral dead space, dead space making of, making of dead space, dead space 1, dead space tentacle scene, dead space drag tentacle, drag tentacle, tentacle, glen schofield, glen schofield dead space, dead space gameplay, dead space horror, survival horror, dead space 2, dead space 3, dead space interview, ars, ars technica, technology

Id: BQ3iqq49Ew8

Length: 19min 7sec (1147 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 08 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/CivilC]

Wow. Considering how brief and infrequent those drag tentacle sequences were, I didn't know how complex they were. They're so smoothly done with no jankiness while still being tense and scary. Big props to Glen for leading and guiding everyone in the right direction!

[u/Coypop]

Still the undisputed champion of HUD presentation; the spinal health bar is my single favorite element of the whole game, followed closely by the breadcrumb trail SFX and animation.

[u/CybranM]

Great interview, I love that they show what theyre talking about. Its always annoying to have a video interview where they talk about something, a scene or a picture or what have you, but they never show it on screen.

This video was really well made, the 3d effects and video distortion wasnt something that they needed to do but it added quite a lot.

[u/Snrm]

At work now and can’t watch. I just played this for the first time recently, which was the scariest scene that they’re referring to?

[u/yumcake]

Great story. It's really impressive that team made that scene happen, on top of the other impressive achievement of even getting a game like that greenlit, which was was a crazy thing in and of itself.

It's a sequence that lasts about a minute, but you have to: 1) Build assets/technology that don't exist in order to make the vision possible. Starting from a position of "Is it even possible? I don't know how we could even do that?" and going from there.

2) Get everyone else organized and committed to executing on their part of doing this thing that is outside of their past experience.

3) Believe that this thing you imagined is so important that it should sideline a whole bunch of other important things that need to be done, even though you can't actually be sure that it's possible or that it'll even be good at the end. Gotta believe in everybody on the team.

Seems like accomplishments that would be really damned hard for a cynical person to achieve. Takes a lot of faith in the team and in the vision to commit that hard to a risky project.

[u/Mr_Jensen]

I miss this series so much, the lore behind the scenes for Unitology and the Necromorphs were so good. I hope we go back to that universe at some point.

[u/Evernight]

Between DS1 and 2 I had developed a very helpful and extremely tactical positioning plan that helped me through both games.

Anytime you hear literally anything you run to the nearest corner with the Force Gun ready and wait until everything is either dead or your butthole unclenches. Between each level of the game, turn off the game and lie awake in bed for 3 hours.

Works like a charm.

[u/1leggeddog]

Dead Space is one of those games that i KNOW, as a game dev, i need to play, in order to better understand a lot about game design choices like he mentionned.

But i'm such a fucking pussy i can't bring myself to play it.

And i did buy the darn game!... 9 years ago... still haven't played it...

damnit

[u/iBird]

As a person from the Bay Area, the BART train screeching sound is absolutely on point. That thing is scary as fuck sometimes, the screeching sounds are pretty much constant and the train makes other weird noises on top of that, while also not being all that smooth of a ride. I love how they incorporated that.