Visceral wants to make Dead Space 3

Dead Space 2 isn't out until January next year, but developer Visceral Games hopes it'll be successful enough for EA to sound the call for a third game in the action horror series.

The EA-owned developer has mapped out a huge timeline of events to draw upon when creating future games, and already knows where it'll take the story next.

But Visceral will only get the go ahead from on high to create Dead Space 3 if Dead Space 2 receives an "outpouring of support" from gamers and critics, executive producer Steve Papoutsis told Eurogamer this morning.

"We've mapped out where we'd like to go with it. Not at a super high level of detail. But, for instance, we've just released our novel, Martyr. We've talked about the inception of the Unitology religion.

"We've thought about it all. But ultimately, just like with Dead Space 2, we have to have the support from the players in order to do it.

"Hopefully the game comes out, people like it, it has critical support, and a lot of people buy it. And then we'll get an opportunity to do another one.

"Nobody's going to just let you go and do another game just because. You have to have the people that are interested in it.

"That was what was great about Dead Space 2. There was such an outpouring of support that it was easy for us to get the company behind it and give us the opportunity to make it.

"Games are complex and expensive. It really helps when you've got a lot of people who are excited and supportive of what you're doing. We can do great things when that happens.

"But when there isn't an outpouring of support it doesn't make a lot of sense to do that.

"We're working really hard to make sure this game's better so we get a chance to do Dead Space 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 20."

Dead Space 2, due out on the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on 28th January, continues the story of space engineer Isaac and adds competitive human versus necromorph multiplayer.

With Visceral at the polishing stage of development, attention turns to the future.

Papoutsis said a full-blown open world game "could be kinda cool", but not in keeping with the somewhat story-driven Dead Space experience Visceral excels at.

"I don't see why you couldn't [take Dead Space into open world territory]," Papoutsis said. "When we think about Dead Space we think of a very story driven experience. Generally speaking an open world doesn't lend itself to that.

"You can. There have been great open world games – inFamous – there are a bunch of games that have that element.

"But really what we're good at is that crafted progression you're seeing currently when we demonstrate Dead Space 2 and what you've seen in Dead Space."

But wouldn't Visceral get tired of making Dead Space games?

Not a chance, according to Papoutsis.

"It's pretty cool. We're all really into it. The fact that so many people care about what we're making – we've all been making games for years. It doesn't happen often where you get this level of support.

"I worked on a lot of different games. I worked on Tiger Woods, Lord of the Rings games, James Bond games, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver – 15 years worth of games. This is probably the most support I've ever seen for a franchise I've been on. So it's pretty cool."

Tom went hands-on last month and returned with a Dead Space 2 preview. A video showcasing the multiplayer is below.