EA's not trying to alienate Dead Space 3 fans with changes, but it has to be "broadly appealing"

EA Labels president Frank Gibeau has said the firm doesn't want to "p**s off our fans" by taking Dead Space 3 too far from its horror origins, but in the same vein, the game needs to be more "broadly appealing" to the masses.

Speaking with CVG, Gibeau said features such as co-op will help the series become "great" because you need around five million people playing a series such as Dead Space to continue investing in it. However, you can't change the game so much that it alienates the fanbase, he acknowledged.

"What we've tried to do with each instalment is tell a different story about Isaac but at the same time bring in new features and ways to turn the game into a more connected experience," he said. "... so we embraced [the co-op] idea and we tried to open up the accessibility of the IP a little bit by adding a little bit more action, but not undermining the horror. We can't not be a horror game because that's what Dead Space is ... and at the same time we definitely do not want to p**s off our fans by taking it too far from horror.

"We're very self aware of that - we listen to the fans and we hear them. We're going to be releasing more assets over the coming months that show you how deep the horror is. It's definitely not getting away from gore or horror, but at the same time it's opening up to a larger audience by adding some elements.

"In general we're thinking about how we make this a more broadly appealing franchise, because ultimately you need to get to audience sizes of around five million to really continue to invest in an IP like Dead Space. Anything less than that and it becomes quite difficult financially given how expensive it is to make games and market them.

"We feel good about that growth but we have to be very paranoid about making sure we don't change the experience so much that we lose the fanbase."

Dead Space 3 is out in February 2013 on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360