Dead Space art director discusses suit design concepts

Suits – the last thing you’d really want to talk about after a myriad of first person shooters sported combat gear from black and shiny to green and battle-worn. But for Electronic Arts‘ Dead Space, the topic is unavoidable. The game’s protagonist is blessed with a more than just a single coverall to strut around in, and art director Ian Milham discussed some points of their conception in a yet unreleased developer blog entry. Check out what he has to say at the full story.

Ever since the first screenshots of Dead Space, Electronic Arts‘ sci-fi, horror shooter currently in the works for the PlayStation 3, Windows, and the Xbox 360, introduced its leading protagonist in another suit, there have been some chit-chats revolving around how it looked.

Some have noted that it seemed the alien-bashing Isaac Clarke donned a functional suit for mechanical space maintenance, and as art director Ian Milham explained, it was meant to look that way:

Isaac’s look came about through a lot of thinking and designs. The key idea is that Isaac is an Engineer, not a Space Marine. His outfit had to look functional and utilitarian, basically like a space welder. He is very specifically not designed to be shot at, and he doesn’t have macho armor plates all over him.

But the overall conception of the suit – coupled with an integral add-on referred to as the RIG – boiled down to what Isaac was in the game’s plot. So that suit he was snugly fit into didn’t stop bullets or cushion from high-velocity, high-force impacts. As Milham explained:

Isaac’s suit and RIG are functional mining equipment designed to help him survive and augment his strength for lifting and cutting, not fight aliens. The idea is kind of like taking the loader from the end of Aliens and evolving it 400 years or so.

Though the art design of Dead Space was inspired from a collection of the most memorable alien-horror films and survival-horror games in existence, Milham wasn’t about to tread on every path traveled before.

To give the color and set the mood of the survival-horror shooter, Milham decided that it was best to determine what hues would suit the unlikely and woefully equipped hero, his dilemma, and his perilous adventure. In the end, EA Redwood Shores, the studio behind the game, chose the tried-and-tested “warm and decayed” feel and theme. He also said:

So Isaac’s suit was warm colored, instead of the super slick chrome/black suits you might see in Crysis or another Sci-Fi shooter. But we also wanted him to be relatable, not a superman. So underneath that metal, his suit has familiar textures. Leather, cloth, and stuff like that.

More updates on Dead Space as we get them.

Buy: [ Dead Space (PlayStation 3), (Xbox 360) ]