The unsurprising announcement earlier this week that Dead Space 2 is officially in development, is now being supplemented with some more wonderful news. The latest issue of Game Informer includes new information on the Dead Space 2 protagonist, setting, and even online play.

Isaac Clarke, the returning lead character, will be getting a personality this time as he's seemingly not going to be a silent observer anymore. Dead Space 2's Executive Producer Steve Papoutsis told Game Informer:

"He's a little bit more of a veteran, and he's going to have a voice. He's going to relate through dialogue and story, and have more of a take-charge attitude this time around."

The game takes place on Sprawl, a space station built around one of Saturn's moon shards. It will feature larger areas that are more open than the claustrophobic corridors of the USG Ishimura. With a more open locale, there will no doubt be need for more weapons that help in different ways. The development team is working on some new weapons which they hope will keep players from solely using the plasma cutter.

It also seems that rumors from last month about online play being a feature in Dead Space 2 have now been made official. While online play was confirmed, very few details were given:

"From the start of this project, we've had a team of people working on this. It's a core feature to the game; we're taking it very serious, as we do with anything in the Dead Space franchise. All I can say is that it's really fun, and you'll get to strategically dismember your friends."

While I'm excited about the possibility of free for all battles or even team based battles, what I'd really like to see is a multiplayer mode where you can choose to take sides and play as either humans or Necromorphs. What other ideas do you think would be great for Dead Space 2's online play?

Source: IGN, GameInformer