As we chatted, I found that giving Isaac a voice wasn’t as cut-and-dried as writing a script, getting Wright in a studio, and recording. Such a change wasn’t a simple task, but a complicated creative process for EA. I think that gives the player a little bit more engagement, brings the player a little bit more into the fold, and makes them feel like they’re capable and working with a capable protagonist.” He’s the space engineer that gets the job done. “Our version of Isaac is more solution-oriented. “We wanted to give him more agency and put him in the driver’s seat,” MacMillan said.

That created a disconnect that the team felt it could solve. MacMillan notes that Dead Space now comes off as non-player characters telling Isaac what to do and having him go do it, with his lack of response making it feel like he’s being ignorant of the world around him. While Wright was more than happy about returning to the role, what prompted the change in the first place? MacMillan and Motive Studio didn’t want him to come off as a “do-boy” as he did in the original. So it was a pleasure to go back and revisit that character.”

“I’m so blessed to have a character like Isaac Clarke, who I feel I’m a lot like,” Wright tells Digital Trends with a chuckle. Giving Clarke more to say wasn’t a throwaway decision that was easy to implement it forced the team to think about where the original game’s silence doesn’t mesh with his final arc. In an interview with Wright and Dead Space‘s Realization Director Joel MacMillan, the two told me why it was necessary to revisit the past in this way.

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