Originally released in 2008 by the now defunct Visceral Games, Dead Space is a sci-fi survival horror video game that invites players to take on the role of Isaac Clarke, a systems engineer sent to perform maintenance on a spaceship called the Ishimura.
However, this is more than just a routine assignment for Isaac, as his long-distance girlfriend Nicole is serving as the chief senior medical officer onboard. Excited to finally see her again, Isaac’s day goes awry when his team discovers that the ship has been ravaged by mutated monsters known as Necromorphs. After a violent confrontation, Isaac finds himself trapped on the Ishimura with little of his team still alive. He must scavenge for materials and use his engineering knowledge to figure out what created the Necromorphs, what happened to Nicole and how he can evacuate the doomed Ishimura.
It’s not very controversial to say that Dead Space is an excellent video game. In fact, it’s a game that’s become even better in its 2023 remake developed by Motive Studios, which is the version of the game that this article will be discussing.
The remake preserves the game’s core narrative while adding gameplay elements from later entries in the series, most notably converting Isacc Clarke from an old school silent video game protagonist into a fully voice-acted character. For that reason alone, I’d say that the remake is the superior way to experience the game, as it introduces a new layer to the narrative by allowing Isaac to speak with other characters and voice his own thoughts to the player. The feature also provides an especially memorable gameplay mechanic, being that Isaac shouts expletives when the player runs out of ammo or kills a particularly annoying enemy.
Looking at Dead Space as a whole, the game takes a lot of mechanics from other video games. For starters, the game’s third-person over-the-shoulder view was taken from the original Resident Evil 4, which is effectively the father of all modern third-person shooter games. The perspective of Dead Space makes the player feel immersed as Isaac during traditional gameplay while allowing the camera to naturally transition into sweeping cinematic shots during boss battles or when entering areas that have been annihilated by the Necromorphs.
Dead Space also features many gameplay mechanics that feel very inspired by 2004’s Half-Life 2. This is most obvious when looking at the inexplicable telekinetic powers Isaac’s engineering suit possesses, which seem to be taken from Half Life’s famous gravity gun.
However, I’m not one to complain, as these powers open up a new level of gameplay, beyond the traditional aim-and-shoot mechanics of most shooter games, with players now able to use Isaac’s kinesis to interact with objects located throughout the ship. While this is primarily used for puzzle solving, the player can also use it to pick up dangerous looking items scattered throughout the ship, like saws and spikes, and ram them into enemies. Get good at it, and you might even be able to shoot a Necromorph’s arm off, pick it up, and impale it with its own dismembered limb.
These dismemberment mechanics make up the bulk of Dead Space’s combat. Unlike traditional shooters, which are typically designed around landing headshots, Dead Space is built around dealing limb-based damage to the Necromorphs, with the goal being to cut off their limbs to immobilize them. The design of the Necromorphs themselves supports this, as almost all the enemies in game have elongated limbs and appendages that sprawl out from their bodies.
In fact, players will be actively penalized if they revert to traditional shooter muscle memory during gameplay, as body shots do little to no damage and headshots only make enemies more enraged during combat, increasing your chances of getting jumped and having your body reduced to dining hall spaghetti.
This inversion of traditional gameplay mechanics makes up much of Dead Space’s horror, with players often battling their traditional shooter instincts during the heat of attack while getting swarmed by waves of enemies. This is where those expletive mechanics really make an impact.
The design of the Necromorphs also adds a lot to the game’s horror. Typically, when most sci-fi films or games make a horror design, they usually go for one of two routes. They either make the monster look like a combination of bug anatomy and human genitalia (think the Xenomorph from “Alien”), or make their monster look like a grosser, more misshapen version of a zombie (think the Flood from Halo).
Dead Space goes firmly with option B, with the Necromorphs resembling twisted, decaying human figures, often writhing about when they’re not actively trying to rip your face off. Of all the enemies in game, the most disturbing are easily the Lurkers, which can best be described as resembling human fetuses with 3-foot-long hemorrhoids that spew acidic discharge at you. They’re about as much fun to fight as they are to look at.
Outside of just the body-horror of its enemies, Dead Space also excels at making the Ishimura a genuinely terrifying setting to traverse. The ship almost entirely consists of long hallways filled with distant screaming, flickering lights and walls caked in viscera and bodily fluids. In short, it does a great job at accurately recreating the atmosphere of freshman residence halls on Halloween.
All in all, Dead Space is a master work of horror that stands on its own as an all-time great video game despite taking heavy inspiration from other games. I recommend the 2023 remake to any that are brave enough to follow Isaac and take on the Ishimura and all the horrors it holds. Have a great, safe Halloween, and if you’re at Storrs, avoid North Campus unless you’re looking to experience the Ishimura in real life.