Battlefield 6 Teases Dead Space Crossover with Marker Cameo

The Dead Space franchise might be getting a surprising revival through Battlefield 6, as the latest Season 5 trailer hints at a crossover. The trailer showcases a new Las Vegas map, with helicopters and machine guns wreaking havoc on casinos and skyscrapers along The Strip. But then the music fades, eerie sounds emerge, and the scene shifts to a bloom-filled moment where two Dead Space engineers gaze up at The Marker, the iconic alien artifact from the survival horror series that messes with your mind.

Earlier this year, Dead Space writer Chuck Beaver mentioned that sales were too low for EA to greenlight a fourth installment. Glen Schofield, co-creator of Dead Space and developer of The Callisto Protocol, also retired from the industry after his spiritual successor didn't make a big splash.

Battlefield 6 players on Reddit have already spotted potential Dead Space skins, rumored to arrive in the Halloween update this October. So, that's likely what's coming. Dice developers have previously stated that Battlefield 6 wouldn't include silly, immersion-breaking skins. If these rumors hold true, that stance is now a thing of the past.

EA recently added a Dead Space skin to Skate and charged $40 for it, setting a precedent for skins in the universe. Players were unhappy with both the skin and the price, so it'll be interesting to see if EA prices the next crossover more reasonably. Battlefield 6 previously did a Top Gun crossover, which made sense for a game with fighter jets.

Battlefield 6's fifth season includes three new maps, such as Vegas Strip and Area 51, six new weapons, and two new vehicles. You can dive into Vegas on October 13.

As for Dead Space, Beaver said on the FRVR Podcast that to recoup the high production costs, any new game would need to sell over 10 million copies—a tough ask for even a breakout horror game. "Any of the Resident Evils are selling around seven million [copies], that's a pretty good number," Beaver said. "But, you know, companies now are looking for the next Fortnite. They need something that is a perennial moneymaker… something like a single-player package game with no live-service offering that's like it's just a dinosaur fossil of a business model."

The Dead Space remake, developed by EA-owned Motive Studio and released in 2023, was well-received but apparently didn't generate enough business to convince the mega publisher to invest in a sequel. IGN's Dead Space remake review gave it a 9/10, calling it "a superb remake and undoubtedly the definitive way to experience one of the best survival horror shooters that Capcom never made."

"Horror games have a bit of a ceiling, you know, and I think the number back in [former EA VP] Frank Gibeau's day was 5 million units to keep going on Dead Space," Beaver continued. "I think the number is like 15 million units now, given the cost of things," he added, before joking that it was "a sadness in capitalism for all of us to suffer, until AI makes it apparently easy for you and I just type 'make Dead Space 4.'"

In October last year, Schofield told IGN he hoped to bring the franchise back to life, despite EA's lack of interest. "I went to [EA] recently and they're like, 'No, we're not interested anymore,'" he said. "I said, 'I can get back the leadership team. I need the models from EA Motive and I can save you 30 to 40 million dollars on the idea that I have.' And, they're like, 'No.'"

"I have quite a few ideas that I'm ready to go with and one of them is Dead Space 4," Schofield continued. "The fact that EA just got bought, I think there's an opportunity. I'm already making calls."