Dead Space 3 will feature Kinect voice commands

Dead Space 3 will take longer to finish than the previous two games in the series, according to Visceral's Steve Papoutsis, who described it as "the biggest game we've ever made."

Speaking in a preview with Polygon in which the game's co-op and Kinect functionality were shown, Papoutsis said the team wanted the co-op character to have his own backstory and personality.

"If you're playing single-player, the story has characters that come and go, and Carver is one of those characters," he said. "In single-player, you don't have an AI follower. No AI follower. It's just Isaac, and other NPCs come in and out of scenes.

"You get pieces of his story in single-player, but you get more details of his struggles with dementia and his family and backstory in co-op."

As noted by Visceral previously, the co-op experience contains extra missions which will have no effect on the single-player content. Still, players will probably wish to try co-op during their time with the game to experience the full offering.

A rappelling mechanic has also been implemented which will allow the characters to scale up icy cliffs, while other gameplay additions will be revealed at a later date.

With Kinect, voice support was implemented so players wouldn't have to pause during combat situations in co-op in order to heal, signal for help, or implement Stasis mode. Instead of pressing a button or scrolling through the menu, players will instead call out: "Quick heal", "Help me", or "Stasis", respectively.

Polygon notes the voice commands only seemed to work "about half of the time," as the preview was either an "incomplete build... or because we're playing in the back room of a noisy club."

You can read more through the link, and other previews have started landing as well on such sites as: Shack, Digital Spy, IGN and Joystiq.

Dead Space 3 will be available on February 5 in North America and February 8 in Europe for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.