Dead Space may be light on Ellis' work

by Justin McElroy { Sep 11th 2008 at 1:30PM }

Even though it may be true that, as he said, Warren Ellis "wrote a bunch of the groundwork, backstory and structure on the forthcoming EA videogame Dead Space," it would appear that you may not find a whole lot of that work in the final product.

Speaking with IGN, executive producer Glen Schofield said, "With all due respect to Warren ... Warren came at the very beginning of the game; we figured we needed a writer and Warren came in and we had our direction, our ideas ... how many of these ideas are leftovers from what he wrote, I don't know – I'd have to go back a reread all his work." We'll probably never know how much of he game was inspired by the prolific writer, but it doesn't exactly sound like Warren Ellis' Dead Space, does it?

On a happier note for Ellis fans, the Castlevania movie is still coming. That's something, right?

Tags: castlevania, dead-space, ea, warren-ellis

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Rk0n @ Sep 11th 2008 1:34PM

:O is this true?

zuburi @ Sep 11th 2008 3:57PM

"...how many of these ideas are leftovers from what he wrote, I don't know – I'd have to go back and reread all his work..."

Sounds not only true, but disrespectful!

Rk0n @ Sep 12th 2008 10:11AM

"Sounds not only true, but disrespectful!"

Now that's true

Antagonist @ Sep 11th 2008 1:52PM

My only experience with Ellis' work is in reading the Authority, and I am not impressed. I've read through the first 4 or 5 TPBs of the Authority, and I find it to be dull and vanilla. There is a bit too much deus ex machina going on and not enough struggle for my tastes. Then again, I'm into story arcs that carry more weight than the episodic drivel in that series. The artwork is nice though. Perhaps he has some other work that could be recommended by someone more versed than I.

Oh yeah...I can't friggin wait for Dead Space!

Trev @ Sep 11th 2008 2:01PM

I'd suggest Nextwave, but it sounds like you're into super cereal comics. You could try Transmetropolitan. It seems to be popular, but I really didn't enjoy it. If you want some of the most depressing (but still an interesting read) Marvel stuff ever, try Ruins.

Yourself @ Sep 11th 2008 5:28PM

I was personally not a fan of Transmetro (I hated it a lot, actually), but if you like more serious work then you could try Iron Man: Extremis, Ultimate F4 (not sure exactly which issues of that he wrote, but the book was good for the first 25 or so, regardless), or Ultimate Galactus. The latter was definitely one of my favorite Marvel events (though no where near Annihilation quality).

Outside of those few runs, I've always found him somewhat overrated.

Boffo the Sock @ Sep 11th 2008 9:48PM

I don't know how serious I like it. I'm just now defining my tastes. What I do know is that I'm just not really into the conventional super hero comics. Even if two of the super heroes happen to be a gay couple, like in the Authority, it still follows the same structure.

rockstargodzu @ Sep 11th 2008 2:14PM

"We thought we needed Warren Ellis, but then we decided to just rent Event Horizon and The Thing."

How exactly do you write for a horror video game? Other than the overarching storyline and some dialogue, it seems like most stuff would be left up to the visual developers. "And then this demon jumps out from behind a pillar in a way that would make the player scream 'Aw hell naw'."

And if the animated Dead Space comics were close to Ellis' original concept, it's probably better that he's taking a less prominent role.

Andrew @ Sep 11th 2008 7:30PM

Well, that's smart - take a comment from a huge and popular author that he helped work on something, and then come out and say that not much of his input was used.

That's a fantastic way to disuade his fans from buying the game after all :)

Part of what made this game interesting to me was WE's input, now... less interesting.