Dead Space Remake: Developer Talks Plasma Cutter Changes

For the Dead Space Remake, the plasma cutter has not only been visually revised, but also gets special upgrades.

Dead Space’s Plasma Cutter slices through anything like it’s made of butter. Of course, she shouldn’t be missing in the remake of the horror game either.

Developer EA Motive spoke to IGN about the iconic tool, which Roman Campos-Oriola says is actually perfect as it is.

According to the creative director of the remake, all aspects of the plasma cutter had to be redesigned and redefined. From every single part to the animation.

Campos-Oriola said: “We really had to go back to the drawing board. With the visual fidelity, both in terms of graphics and some [der] animations that we have today, we had to go into much more detail […]how the thing actually works. What is each individual part? What do these little elements really do? Whether we use that later in the game or not, we really had to define how that thing would move and behave if it were a real tool.”

With the upgrades for the plasma cutter, a function from Dead Space 2 was brought into the remake of the first part, as the developer further revealed. This allows the tool or weapon to be expanded to include special properties.

“One thing we took from Dead Space 2 and expanded it a bit is the concept of special upgrades. So those upgrade nodes that have a bigger impact on the weapon. One of those upgrades [stammt] directly from DS2. Shooting with the plasma cutter will cause the enemy’s limb you’re shooting at to catch fire if you have this upgrade. This will burn the flesh and do some more damage. So we made some adjustments and improvements,” Campos-Oriola said.

In addition, the pulse rifle has also been expanded to include a mine launcher as an alternative fire mode. In addition, the Force Gun can generate a gravity well. She pulls enemies in, allowing for other devastating attacks.

Game Director Eric Baptizat narrated about the weapon changes:

“We kept primary fire on most of the weapons because they are iconic and serve different functions when fighting enemies. But we found that there is something we could push even further to give the player more ways to control the enemies. And we wanted to give each weapon a unique value.”

“What’s super interesting is that you [den Gravitationsbrunnen] can be combined with all other weapons. So with the primary fire of the Force Gun itself or with the trap of the Line Gun. So you can have fun placing your trap, the enemy to that place [mit dem Gravitationsbrunnen] and combine it with the Pulse Rifle’s proximity mine. Basically, the idea was to create new tools to play with enemies and create new strategies.”

“Now if you shoot the force gun, that same slasher falls on his butt and stands up and he’s really skinny now because all the skin, all the fat, all the muscle is gone. The guy is almost a skeleton and you’re like, ‘Yeah, he’s pretty sure he’s going to die soon’. It has become even more useful because it is a great weapon to combine with another because now with just one shot of the plasma cutter you are able to sever that limb because the bones [freigelegt] are.”

Dead Space Remake will be released on January 27, 2023 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC.