Dead Space 3 to have micro-transactions

Fans of the survival horror genre are eagerly awaiting the release of Dead Space 3. The game may see some fan backlash thanks to the inclusion of something that looks like a micro-transaction system in the game. According to Eurogamer, Dead Space 3 seems to have the option to buy resources for crafting weapons with real money.

This could be a problem, as the game is based on surviving with the resources you can find, and having these resources available at the touch of a button could potentially take away from the atmosphere of the game.

“You can buy resources with real money, but scavenger bots can also give you the currency that you can use on the marketplace,” Dead Space 3 Associate Producer Yara Khoury explained to Eurogamer. “So you don’t have to spend [real world] dollars.”

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While Khoury did not divulge information on how much the “DLC” would cost, she did mention several different packs of in-game currency being available and being priced at varying amounts.

It seems like EA is completely missing the point of DLC (image credit: Eurogamer)

When asked if a player could possibly just buy parts for the best weapon in the game right at the start, Khoury replied, “No you can’t!” She continued, “There are a lot of weapon parts that are only available to buy later in the game. Unless you’re playing through it again [on New Game Plus].”

Dead Space 3 would be the first game in the series to feature a micro-transaction system. Another unlikely candidate for micro-transactions that EA managed was the multiplayer component of last year’s Mass Effect 3. The game featured micro-transactions to buy trading card-styled “booster packs” of randomised weapons, abilities and power-ups.

Recently, EA had announced the Dev Team Edition for Dead Space 3. Along with the announcement, EA had also released a trailer for it. The Dev Team Edition for Dead Space 3 features a bunch of extra goodies, including a giant metal case for the whole set. It also includes artwork and lithographs along with a figurine of a Marker, an S.C.A.F. Jotter and a bloody notebook that fleshes the universe out even more, among others.

Back in December, producer of the game Steve Papoutsis revealed in an interview with CVG that the game will be making special use of the Kinect to set the mood. According to Papoutsis, the game will detect certain expletives that the player may yell out when especially frightened by the game’s many jump scares and might react, giving you a unique gameplay experience. “There are commands where you might be in a certain situation,” he said, “and you might yell a specific expletive and it might behave in a way that you want it to.”

He didn’t specify exactly which words will be detected, but it may not be all that difficult to guess. Also, going by the ingenuity of the Internet, it may not even take a whole day before the entire list of words that are detected by the game is available online.