Though there are mixed feelings, Modern Warfare is known to deliver an action-packed experience; in other words, they’ve set a new kind of standard in action delivery. When being interviewed by IGN, senior vice president and head of Visceral Games, Nick Earl offered some details to the anticipated sequel.

“I can tell you that we’re a little more focused on action horror as opposed to survival horror. We just created a really beautiful sequence that we’re showing internally — we haven’t showed it externally yet, but we will get it out there soon — that I think speaks to the high voltage nature of the game,” he said.

“Some really strong action sequences that I think are on par with the level that we’re seeing in the Modern Warfare series and with the level that we’re seeing in Uncharted. Just beautiful, visual imagery and very electric action,” he continued. Earl then stated that Dead Space 2 would see further polish, making the experience “jaw-dropping in terms of scale and scope”.

Two weeks after its release, Electronic Arts made it known that they did indeed plan on doing a sequel; stating that “the sequels already under construction”. With that in mind, in the past couple of months, we’ve been scenting the presents of Dead Space 2, thanks in part to clues placed around the internet.

Electronic Arts announced today that Dead Space 2 is indeed in development, and that we should expect it to release sometime next year – which isn’t a surprise seeing that an inkblot teased at its annnoucement late last week.

In the sequel, our hero, Isaac Clarke, makes a return from the first game. But, this time, he’ll be armed with new tools allowing him to gruesomely slice and dismember his enemies. However, survival isn’t the only thing that’s on Isaac’s mind – “this time, he calls the shots”.

“We’re thrilled to jump back into the series, making the next chapter in Isaac’s journey. The infection continues to spread throughout space and our hero Isaac Clarke is the only person able to contain it. There are still loads of necromorphs that need killing!” said Steve Papoutsis, Executive Producer of Dead Space 2. “In Dead Space 2, not everything is exactly as it seems. Expect plot twists that will surprise you and a huge cast of twisted, disgusting monsters that are sure to scare the daylights out of you.”

Though many wouldn’t have thought that, after completing Dead Space, a sequel wouldn’t be on the horizon. A cryptic inkblot has appeared on the Dead Space Twitter account, created recently, pushing the possibility of a sequel – which has been in speculation for awhile now.

The image contains representations of many of the first game’s creatures, and the symbols are actually Unitology, a fictional religion in the Dead Space universe, and it reads “the nightmare is over but it will not end”. That said, whether or not the inkblot means anything is anyone’s guest. However, it’s just good to see some signs of hope.

Much like what we’ve seen with Dead Space, a survival horror title, Dante’s Inferno, a game based on a “definitive view of the afterlife”, will be getting the animated treatment in the form of a animated feature; this is no new announcement, Electronic Arts announced the animated feature along time ago, however, this is the first trailer.

Tracking Dante’s decent into hell, the upcoming animated feature follows his pursuit to retain the soul of his beloved, Beatrice. In which, Dante encounters “many gruesome forms of evil” that dwell within circles of hell. This animated feature will release in February 2010, the same month that Dante’s Inferno is unleashed upon the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and the Sony PSP. Enjoy the very entertaining trailer.

There’s going to be a Dead Space sequel, Electronic Arts even confirmed that there’s going to be another one – that isn’t Dead Space Extraction. And, according to Reuters, the Dead Space sequel is due to hit next year, evidence given by the “advanced state of preparations for Dead Space 2’s development”.

In a Halloween themed feature on horror video game sales, Reuters reported that the Dead Space sequel will be shipping next year. Sadly, there’s isn’t any other details, nor did EA respond happily to the news statement. ”This comment by the Reuters reporter is speculative,” an EA representative told GameSpot. “There is no announcement for a Dead Space sequel (or in this case, prequel) beyond Dead Space Extraction.”

As for the original, Dead Space was widely accepted by critics. However, that didn’t translate into high sales. According to the NPD Group, the game shifted just 9,200 units during its first week at retail in the US. Which, back in may, translated into 1.4 million units worldwide.

Dead Space, hands down, has to be one of the best horror titles this console generation; with its cold atmosphere and intertwining storyline. It just seems right that EA would producer a sequel. However, EA did say that there’s going to be another Dead Space title – other then the one for the Wii – but they never said that it’s in development.

You see, with the Dead Space sequel in the pre-production stages, Visceral Games is looking for a Lead Combat and Controls Designer to help jump start the titles full development, reveals a job listing posted by EA. Along with that, its senior recruiter Jeff Ballard says that “the core team is in place”, and that it’s ready to start development.

With that said, it seems that Visceral is putting an emphasis on gameplay with the Dead Space sequel – because in the job listing it reveals that gameplay is one of the teams first values, which is very exciting news to hear. Anyway, we can’t wait to hear more about the sequel, and its development – which is said to start in the “next few months”.

Activision are building a new studio in San Francisco. And, believe it or not, they need people to work there. So they have picked up two of Visceral Games’ senior staff member.

According to Kotaku, Activision got their hands on Glen Schofield, who was general manager at Visceral, and Michael Condrey, who was chief operating officer.

They both left today.  To go onto work at Activision’s new studio, whose name and purpose are a mystery. However, I bet we can rule out anything “family friendly”. Seeing that EA’s Visceral Games worked on such games as Dead Space and Dante’s Inferno.

[Dead Space Devs Jump Ship To Activision via Kotaku]

Last year, EA release some very interesting new titles; raging from parkour to mutant space creatures. The key to success? Hardly, because EA seems to think that, that was its down fall in 2008.

“I think in the spirit of your question, I think we launched too many new IPs all at once in Q3,” said EA’s Frank Gibeau in an interview with Gamasutra.

“I would have spread them out and found better windows for them. I would have had longer marketing for them. The marketing cycles were fairly short. We didn’t have enough assets to really build the fanbase, build the community, and get that long lead demand built,” he continued.

“So I probably in hindsight would have picked a couple different windows for Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge.”

In the shadow of Gibeau’s statement, yes!!! If their titles had more time to develope a stronger fan base, the sales would have seen a increase, along with, stronger interest. Just look at Valkyria Chronicles.

Dante’s Inferno will take gamers to the western world’s most definitive view of the afterlife as created in the 13th century by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri in part one of his epic classic, “The Divine Comedy.” The game is shipping in 2010 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and the PSP.

Key Features:

• An Epic Adaptation of a Classic – Based on part one of Dante Alighieri’s classic poem “The Divine Comedy,” Dante’s Inferno is a 3rd person action adventure game that takes Dante on an epic journey through Hell as he seeks to rescue the soul of his beloved Beatrice.

• The Nine Circles of Hell – Just like the poem, players will descend through Dante’s unique nine circles of Hell: limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery. Each circle features distinct environments, enemies and story elements befitting the sins committed by their inhabitants.

• Control the Beasts of Hell – Dante’s Inferno features large scale beasts and bosses, some of which Dante will be able to fully tame, utilizing them to throw back Hell’s wrath to its minions.

• Fast, Addictive, Responsive Combat – Dante fights through the nine circles armed with Death’s Scythe and Beatrice’s Holy Cross, with magic powers and a deep, customizable upgrade system helping the player take full advantage of a fast and fluid gameplay experience that will never run at lower than 60 frames per second.

• Bring Hell With You Wherever You Go – Dante’s Inferno gives PSP owners the same level of fast, responsive gameplay through all nine detailed and unique circles of hell the team is aiming to achieve on the consoles.

• Visceral Games Stamp of Approval - From the award-winning studio that created the critically-acclaimed Dead Space, Dante’s Inferno will receive the same relentless focus on quality and polish Visceral Games has become known for.

[Show as slideshow]

The award-winning developers at EA Redwood Shores have changed their names to something sightly more extreme.

Instead of being called EA Redwood Shores the studio has been renamed and rebranded to Visceral Games in order to better reflect the studio’s culture, identity and focus on creating intense action-oriented intellectual properties.

“Action, intensity, excellence. It isn’t just in our DNA, it’s in our blood,” said Glen Schofield, VP and GM of Visceral Games. “For the past two years, we have adopted a new culture that prizes excellence above all else. Primal action is the beating heart of the studio and now our new name reflects that.”

Visceral Games are currently working on highly anticipated titles like, Dante’s Inferno and Dead Space: Extraction, and two other unannounced titles. 

Electronic Arts announced today that they have decided to change Dante’s Inferno’s release target from within this year to sometime within 2010.

They have also confirmed that Starz Media will be creating an animated feature film based on the title – though no release date for the project has been given. If you remember, Starz Media are the same folks responsible for the animated feature film for Dead Space entitled Dead Space: Downfall, which we saw last year.

“The feature-length project will expand on the story in EA’s new, must-have game coming out for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system and PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system in 2010,” an official statement reads. Dante’s Inferno will available for PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360 platforms.

After John Riccitiello revealed the games extents, it looks like EA is finally ready to reveal the game. Today,  Electronic Arts have announced  Dead Space Extraction, an all-new chapter from the studio that delivered the award-winning action-horror Dead Space game.

Built from the ground up and developed exclusively for the Wii, Dead Space Extraction is a prequel that reveals the events leading up to Isaac Clarke’s mission on the USG Ishimura in the original Dead Space game released in 2008.  Dead Space Extraction will marry the innovative motion controls of the Wii Remote with a frenetic first person perspective to create a new action-packed horror experience.

The game tells the story of a handful of space colonists desperately struggling to escape from a horrific infection on the Aegis VII mining colony deep in the furthest regions of space. The game introduces a new heroine to the fiction and as the crew fall victim to a mysterious contagion aboard the ship, it becomes clear that protecting her may be their only hope for survival. Dead Space Extraction introduces all new characters, weapons, enemies, puzzles and co-operative multiplayer gameplay.

“We could not be more excited to extend Dead Space into an experience exclusive to the Wii. Nintendo has a wonderful history in the horror genre and we are thrilled to build on that tradition with Dead Space Extraction,” said Glen Schofield, VP and General Manager of EA Redwood Shores studio.“As we were developing Dead Space, we realized that there was so much of the story going untold. Dead Space Extraction tells that story with all of the intensity, blood and gore that fans would expect.”

Well, I never though that I would be saying this about this game, but wow… just by the title, of the story, it sounds good. I know, I know. It does sound like if it’s going to have some very garbage zero-gravity sections, but with a combination like God of War and Dead Space it makes me want to jump for joy.

In the latest issue of PSM3, dev EA Redwood Shores revealed the first details of there upcoming title, Dante’s Inferno, which is ‘God of War meets Dead Space.’

“What really sets this apart from God of War is the setting. Dante’s trip through hell is altogether more unpleasant, twisted creatures burst from doorways, lava spews from inverted crosses and bottomless fiery pits yawn deep beneath your feet.”

Dante’s Inferno is a third person action game that tells the tale of Dante and his journey through the twisted, menace nine circles of hell in pursuit of his beloved Beatrice.

Before you start reading please take note that the story has been updated below.

Independently, Black Box Studio was a great studio that produced many great games for one of the industry dominant publishers, EA – which is also a developer. There was a rumor going around that the company had plans to close Black Box Studios because they were having some financial problems.

Now, Black box Studio, responsible for the Need for Speed and the Skate franchises, has officially been given the boot. It was said that the games that EA released this holiday, like Mirrors Edge, Dead Space and Need of Speed, didn’t sell as well as they planned.

“Shutting down the studio is part of EA’s restructuring plan that hopes to save them US$ 120 million in annual costs. Part of the plan is to reduce their overall workforce by 10%, or 1,000 people.” said the press release. There was no word given on if the studios upcoming game Skate 2 has been affected.

[EA has officially closed Need for Speed Studio Black Box via Slice Gaming]

Updated: We had a chance to speak to an EA spokesperson and according to them, “Black box studios is not closed. It is going to relocate to [EA's] Burnaby facility in June 2009.”

It’s funny because when Dead Space was released reviewer’s said that it  was better then Resident Evil. This was because it was the first time in a long time that anyone took a good crack at the horror series. I’m mean Dead Space is a really good game but now that you look at it, the game doesn’t have that long lasting appeal but I’m not here to review. Anyway, the guys over at Gaming Indians had a chance to go hands on with Resident Evil 5 and according to them the game looks alike on both platforms which are the PS3 and 360.

“As expected, Capcom’s proprietary Framework engine churns out some gorgeous visuals. Chris’ model in particular is superb with excellent attention to detail. Sadly, the frame rate in this particular build wasn’t up to the mark. The level also suffered from a few V-sync (screen tearing) issues. Although we only got to play the PS3 version, both versions are expected to look nearly identical when released.”

We all know the game has some “gorgeous visuals” because we have all seen the videos and gameplay. But it’s great to know that Capcom isn’t that byist on platforms. The game going to be amazing and this just adds to the hype, great job Capcom.

According to Variety, EA is planning on producing sequels to recent hits Army of Two and Battlefield: Bad Company. This news comes from EA boss, Frank Gibeau, who loosely confirmed EA’s plans for some new franchise iterations in an interview with Variety.

“If you look at the year “Gears of War” shipped the first time, it was one of the best sellers. “Bad Company” has come out and done very well. “Army of Two” sold very well. We’ve got sequel ideas planned for those.” -Frank Gibeau

There was also some talk about there being some new toys for their recently released game, Dead Space because EA is talking to some partners about it. There’s was also talk about there being a Dead Space movie in the making and EA Redwood Shores general manager, Glenn Schofield, also revealed that there is a “Dead Space” sequel is already in the works.

[Army of Two sequel, Dead Space movie talks, and more on EA's new approach to original properties via Variety]

Space the final frontier, this game takes place in the distant future an Isaac Clarke, a space engineer equipped with a protective armor called “the Rig”, and his company, Concordance Extraction Corporation, receive a distress call from a ship called USG Ishimura. So they go out to check out the distress call and when on the ship they find out that the ship is over run by an alien race called Necromorphs, who dependent upon necrotic flesh.

In this game Isaac has alot of weapons at his disposal and one of the many weapons that you will have is the plasma cutter. This weapon is used to, as it’s name suggested, cut enemy’s up with a plasma blast or ray. Another weapon in the game is the industrial lasers, which is basically a laser. Also each weapon in the game has a alternate attack or secondary fire, which, thank god, has just as much usage as the weapons primary fire. The types of weapons to pick from are flamethrowers, lasers, saws and, what they didn’t show you in trailers, Isaac’s vista of telekinetic abilities which allow to slow down time and etc.

One of the many things that make this game epic is the ability for you to build your own weapons from blueprints that can be found all over the game. This also goes for ammo, items, and suit upgrades but, nothing is more important then upgrading your suit because it is crucial to your survival in the game. Upgrading your suit also gives it some nice graphical upgrades to “the Rig”, which really adds to the games replay ability.

Nothing is more important in this game than it’s zero-gravity environments which adds a nice graphical and technical aspect to the game. When you enter the games zero-gravity environments one of the first things that you will notice is that the hologram display on Issac’s back will now show how much oxygen you have remaining. One of the coolest thing we saw when you are in this mode is the ability leap across entire rooms, and shoot enemies floating around in the air. This really adds to the zero-gravity feel and it makes you feel like you’re in space.

Closing statement:

For a now fan of this game, this game has everything that you would want for a video game from epic boss battles, big guns and even a crazy death gallery. Trust us when we say that this game is one of the greatest horror titles ever made and they really didn’t miss anything with this one and yes, it’s “even better then Resident Evil.”

Score: A+

Isaac Clarke. Who is that? Well, you don’t know? So let me tell you, he is the back bone of this game and today CVG revealed that the back bone of Dead Space has already been tested. According to ComputerandVideoGames, first review for EA’s impressive survival horror game is in and that the fans will be very happy with the verdict. In the latest Xbox World 360 mag, which is on shelves today, it revealed a score of 91% and it claims that Capcom should take note, “Because EA can teach them a thing or three about survival horror.” Sounds like Resident Evil 5 had just have meet it’s match. “Keeping a clear head sits just below keeping a head at all in the importance stakes,” it says. “Because unless you carefully pick the limbs off the approaching enemies you’ll find yourself surrounded with an empty cartridge in your weapon.”

“The Ishimura has a fully designed vent system which allows monsters to make their own way through the ship. Fail to stop them before they jump into an air duct and they’ll pop out behind you minutes later and take two bites out of your arse.”

But Dead Space’s real showpiece, continues the review, is its Zero G environments. “When the gravity is removed the fun really starts,” it says. “Usually the space hopping is combined with a lack of oxygen. If you’ve not been bolstering your O2 supplied via the BENCH upgrade system, the time limit can make for a tense scramble for the next airlock.”

For a game that’s anything but funny this game sure has alot of hype behind it and this is a survival horror game that you don’t want to miss. Today, Electronic Arts revealed that it’s hit survival horror, Dead Space, has gone gold and will ship in North America on October 14 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. They also revealed that the PC version will ship on October 20. Also people who buy within the first two weeks of the game’s release will have the opportunity to download a platform exclusive suit.

In addition, for Xbox 360 owners in North America, the EA Store is offering a very limited run of 1000 copies of the Dead Space Ultra Limited Edition. This package contains a copy of the game, Dead Space Downfall Animated Movie on DVD, bonus content DVD, 97-page art book, the 160-page graphic novel (which combines all six issues of the Dead Space comics), exclusive lithograph illustrated and individually signed by Ben Templesmith, and an Ishimura crew patch, all sealed in a limited edition Dead Space packaging. The Dead Space Ultra Limited Edition will be available on the Xbox 360 for MSRP $149.95.