The big surprise at the EA Play 2021 event was the reveal of the rumored Dead Space remake, in development for PC and next-generation consoles. All that was shown of the Dead Space remake was a brief teaser trailer, but more information on the game has slowly been trickling out since its initial announcement. Now it's been confirmed exactly who is leading the Dead Space remake as its game director.
As revealed by his LinkedIn profile, Eric Baptizat is working as the Dead Space remake game director at EA Motive. Prior to the Dead Space remake, Baptizat worked at Ubisoft for 16 years where he served as game director for Assassin's Creed Valhalla and other games in the Assassin's Creed series, like like Black Flag and Unity. Baptizat is not to be confused with Ashraf Ismail, who was Assassin's Creed Valhalla's creative director before he was fired by Ubisoft for misconduct.
Baptizat has a proven track record of delivering high quality gaming experiences, so it seems as though the Dead Space remake is in good hands. EA Motive may be one of the company's newer studios, but its Star Wars: Squadrons game earned mostly positive reviews and was well-received by fans, so chances seem good that the Dead Space remake will live up to expectations as well.
Based on what's been revealed so far, the Dead Space remake will be a mostly faithful recreation of the original game, but with souped-up graphics and some new content. Apparently some of the cut content from the original Dead Space is being figured back into the equation, so even those who have played the original game to death should be treated to some surprises when they play through the Dead Space remake.
It's also been teased that some popular features from later games in the series will be added to the Dead Space remake as well. The zero gravity sections from Dead Space 2 were specifically mentioned, though the remake is also expected to incorporate narrative beats that weren't touched on until later entries as well to make the story more cohesive. How this all pans out remains to be seen, but it will be interesting to see, to say the least.
Since Baptizat has only been in his role as the Dead Space remake's director for a few months now, it's safe to say that the project is in the very earliest stages of development. EA only showed a brief Dead Space remake teaser trailer at EA Play after all, so it seems fans will have a long wait ahead of them.
Dead Space is in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.
Source: LinkedIn