Visceral Games

EA Redwood Shores Becomes Visceral Games

Dead Space released in 2008 to strong critical reception, giving the studio its first real identity after a decade spent on sports titles, licensed games, and one-off projects. The following year, EA rebranded EA Redwood Shores as Visceral Games, formally tying the studio's name to the horror-action identity Dead Space had established.

Dante's Inferno (2010)

Dante's Inferno was Visceral's follow-up to Dead Space, a hack-and-slash action game loosely inspired by the Divine Comedy. It received a mixed critical reception, and the studio returned to its stronger footing with Dead Space 2 the following year.

Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3

Dead Space 2 released in 2011 to similar critical success as the original, though EA later considered it a financial disappointment relative to its development and marketing costs. Dead Space 3 followed in 2013 under pressure from EA to broaden the series' appeal, adding cooperative multiplayer and a faster pace that pulled the game away from the tighter horror focus of the first two entries.

Battlefield Hardline (2015)

Battlefield Hardline shifted the long-running military shooter series into a cops-and-criminals setting, with Visceral leading development on the campaign and shared systems alongside series regular DICE. It marked a departure from the horror and action-adventure identity the studio had built through Dead Space and Dante's Inferno.

Visceral Games' Star Wars Project and Closure

Visceral spent its final years developing a Star Wars action-adventure game codenamed Ragtag, with Amy Hennig, best known for writing the first three Uncharted games at Naughty Dog, serving as creative director. The project was pitched as EA's answer to Uncharted set in the Star Wars universe, positioned between Episode IV and Episode V.

EA closed Visceral Games on October 17, 2017, citing a need to move away from the studio's single-player, linear design approach and pivot Ragtag toward a design more in line with player and market trends at the time. Ragtag was reassigned to EA Vancouver under EA Worldwide Studios, with the existing work intended to form the foundation of the redesigned game, though it never released in any form.