Not sure if anyone else has been following development of EA’s original IP title, Dead Space, but they’ve recently posted a new developer diary video.

What immediately stood out to me about this video (besides the nasty-looking alien meatbags) was that the developers are really trying to focus on story first. It is interesting that they mentioned that they’re building the story first, THEN the gameplay, and this hasn’t really been done before. Well, I can’t speak to whether it’s been done before since I’m not sure how most developers do things, but it is promising, nonetheless. 

As a huge fan of the System Shock series (especially System Shock 2), I’ve been moderately encouraged by what I’ve seen on Dead Space, so far. The environments look pretty darn good, even with several months left in the development cycle. I’m not sure if Dead Space will have the depth that Deus Ex or Bioshock had, but a great story is definitely the right place to start.

As one of the first major IP’s since EA’s shift from licensed IP’s to original IP’s, it’ll be interesting to see what the end result will be.