The Dead Space name is well-regarded, or at least it used to be. While the first two titles proved worthy of overwhelming amounts of respect and praise, the series seemingly fizzled out in 2013 with Dead Space 3 — an underwhelming title that lead the entire series into a decade of dormancy not with a bang, but rather a sad whimper. The closure of developer Visceral Studios a few years later seemed to reinforce further the idea that this series was as dead as the crew of the USG Ishimura.
Against all odds, the franchise has returned in 2023 with Motive Studio’s remake of the original Dead Space — a familiar yet surprising title that delivers the exact type of experience I was looking for, but it also bothered me to no end given the circumstances behind its existence.
What Is It?
Image via EA
It’s almost exactly what you think it is: Dead Space is a remake of the first entry in the series. Unlike other high-profile video game remakes like The Last of Us Part I or Demon’s Souls, this game is not a shot-for-shot retread of the original. Instead, Dead Space feels more like a mega-patch of the first game that keeps what worked back in 2009, while not only nixing what didn’t but also replacing said weaker parts with stronger ones. Perhaps the most notable change is that the linear level design of the original has been scrapped in favor of an interconnected Ishimura that you can backtrack through to find secret items, complete side missions (another new addition), and open locked doors.
It should also go without saying that the game boasts a huge graphical update, and it looks remarkable.
The story follows a lot of the same beats, and you’ll come across many of the same locales featured in the original game, but some smart deviations in level design and exploration make this familiar adventure feel surprisingly fresh.
Why Should I Care?
Image via EA
Much of the fun to be found in the horror genre stems from the stress these works impose on its consumers, and Dead Space is a game designed to stress you the hell out in the best way. Even when you think you’ve found a ton of ammunition, it’s never going to be enough. You’ll almost always be starved for bullets, and subsequently forced to switch to another weapon. Further adding to the pressure — the game does not pause when you access your inventory, so you must ensure you’re ready for a fight at all times, or else you’ll end up doing inventory management while on the run from Necromorphs.
One thing the Dead Space series has done exceptionally well in the past is the communication of some of its more harrowing aspects through environmental storytelling, and the same can be said of the remake. Being able to freely explore the Ishimura allows you to see the vessel not as a sequence of levels, but rather as a space that people — especially working-class folks — once worked, loved, and lived in before things went to hell.
The Ishimura is packed to the brim with echoes of brighter times: Used coffee cups presumably drank by miners who thought they were in for just another day of work; corpses adorned in comfort wear, most of whom assuredly hoped for just a moment of relaxation away from the job; and a zero-gravity basketball minigame, a reminder of one recreational activity that the Ishimura crew used to be able to look forward to.
These minute details add terrifying context to the already horrid tales you’ll hear/read in Dead Space’s various voice/text logs (including accounts of suicide, human experimentation, and religious indoctrination), which, in turn, add equally terrifying context to the abominable enemies on display, who take many forms ranging from the iconic Slasher to reanimated humans infants known as Lurkers.
The Necromorphs truly shine under the light of current-gen hardware, as they’re more detailed and repulsive than ever before. Every inhumane limb contortion, tear in flesh, and elongation of a Necromorph’s body makes them an absolutely hideous enemy to look at, especially given that your only means of defeating them is to mutilate them further. Fire your plasma cutter once at a Necromorph’s arm, and you might peel away its flesh, exposing its bone. You’ve now made your enemy even more disgusting to look at, and you’ve got at least one more shot before its arm is off — then you have to worry about the other three limbs.
The game’s visual update is also present in its lighting, which is a massive improvement from the original title. Many parts of the game are purposefully poorly lit, forcing you to walk around areas with your weapon drawn, using your flashlight to spot enemies before they spot you. Areas look like they are actually lit by real sources of light that reflect off of surfaces and react to various obstructions realistically. Like everything else mentioned so far, this only adds to Dead Space’s eerie atmosphere, especially when coupled with the game’s stellar sound design, which trained me to instinctively draw my weapon at the first sign of any unusual in-game noise.
What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?
Image via EA
If you’re apprehensive about this remake due to some of not-so-good parts of the original Dead Space, such as the turret or zero-gravity sections, don’t be. Motive has seemingly identified such weaknesses in the original game, and has either swapped them out entirely for something different and unique, or altered them to such a degree that they stand out as highlights in the remake. The zero-gravity sections are surprisingly fun this time around, as Isaac can actually fly freely, similar to Dead Space 2. Of course, so can the Necromorphs, adding yet another layer to the aforementioned stressful combat encounters. The game is mostly killer with minimal filler, and doesn’t even come close to overstaying its welcome; I wrapped up my near-100% exploration run in around 18ish hours.
Dead Space meets shot-for-shot remakes like The Last of Us Part I, and inventive remakes like Final Fantasy VII Remake somewhere in the middle. In simplest terms, it is Dead Space remade and redesigned from the ground up for a new generation of both consoles and players, developed with modern technology and game industry sensibilities in mind. It’s easily the definitive version of Dead Space, and perhaps the best title in the series. If you are at all into horror, science fiction, or conspiracy-laden plots, it’s hard to go wrong with this game.
Both the game and developer Motive undoubtedly deserve the critical and commercial success Dead Space has been enjoying thus far, and fans should probably be happy too. But when considering EA’s history with this franchise, something about this title’s success feels somewhat immoral.
Like any other media franchise, Visceral Games’ original Dead Space trilogy lived and died under the pressure of sales numbers. After Dead Space 2’s disappointing commercial performance, EA reportedly played a heavy hand in Visceral’s development of Dead Space 3, which saw the franchise desert its survival horror roots for a more action-based approach rife with microtransactions and other industry trends. The end result of this interference was a bad game that sold poorly, effectively leading to the cancellation of the franchise. In 2017, Visceral Games was shut down. Just a few years after that, Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 remake put up some pretty solid sales numbers, which reportedly inspired EA to then revive Dead Spacewith a remake.
And now we arrive at the present. Dead Space is back, and it’s better than ever, but it is simply not fair that the company that killed it in the first place now gets to reap the benefits of nostalgia by doing exactly what killed the franchise — stubbornly chasing a trend. It’s even more unfair that the folks responsible for popularizing the franchise can’t have a share in the series’ renewed success, especially when the game follows the template crafted by Visceral.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see Dead Space back up and running again, but there is something soulless about the way EA has handled this series that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in its long-term future. I want nothing more than to be proven wrong.
The Dead Space name is well-regarded, or at least it used to be. While the first two titles proved worthy of overwhelming amounts of respect and praise, the series seemingly fizzled out in 2013 with Dead Space 3 — an underwhelming title that lead the entire series into a decade of dormancy not with a bang, but rather a sad whimper. The closure of developer Visceral Studios a few years later seemed to reinforce further the idea that this series was as dead as the crew of the USG Ishimura.
Against all odds, the franchise has returned in 2023 with Motive Studio’s remake of the original Dead Space — a familiar yet surprising title that delivers the exact type of experience I was looking for, but it also bothered me to no end given the circumstances behind its existence.
What Is It?
Image via EA
It’s almost exactly what you think it is: Dead Space is a remake of the first entry in the series. Unlike other high-profile video game remakes like The Last of Us Part I or Demon’s Souls, this game is not a shot-for-shot retread of the original. Instead, Dead Space feels more like a mega-patch of the first game that keeps what worked back in 2009, while not only nixing what didn’t but also replacing said weaker parts with stronger ones. Perhaps the most notable change is that the linear level design of the original has been scrapped in favor of an interconnected Ishimura that you can backtrack through to find secret items, complete side missions (another new addition), and open locked doors.
It should also go without saying that the game boasts a huge graphical update, and it looks remarkable.
The story follows a lot of the same beats, and you’ll come across many of the same locales featured in the original game, but some smart deviations in level design and exploration make this familiar adventure feel surprisingly fresh.
Why Should I Care?
Image via EA
Much of the fun to be found in the horror genre stems from the stress these works impose on its consumers, and Dead Space is a game designed to stress you the hell out in the best way. Even when you think you’ve found a ton of ammunition, it’s never going to be enough. You’ll almost always be starved for bullets, and subsequently forced to switch to another weapon. Further adding to the pressure — the game does not pause when you access your inventory, so you must ensure you’re ready for a fight at all times, or else you’ll end up doing inventory management while on the run from Necromorphs.
One thing the Dead Space series has done exceptionally well in the past is the communication of some of its more harrowing aspects through environmental storytelling, and the same can be said of the remake. Being able to freely explore the Ishimura allows you to see the vessel not as a sequence of levels, but rather as a space that people — especially working-class folks — once worked, loved, and lived in before things went to hell.
The Ishimura is packed to the brim with echoes of brighter times: Used coffee cups presumably drank by miners who thought they were in for just another day of work; corpses adorned in comfort wear, most of whom assuredly hoped for just a moment of relaxation away from the job; and a zero-gravity basketball minigame, a reminder of one recreational activity that the Ishimura crew used to be able to look forward to.
These minute details add terrifying context to the already horrid tales you’ll hear/read in Dead Space’s various voice/text logs (including accounts of suicide, human experimentation, and religious indoctrination), which, in turn, add equally terrifying context to the abominable enemies on display, who take many forms ranging from the iconic Slasher to reanimated humans infants known as Lurkers.
The Necromorphs truly shine under the light of current-gen hardware, as they’re more detailed and repulsive than ever before. Every inhumane limb contortion, tear in flesh, and elongation of a Necromorph’s body makes them an absolutely hideous enemy to look at, especially given that your only means of defeating them is to mutilate them further. Fire your plasma cutter once at a Necromorph’s arm, and you might peel away its flesh, exposing its bone. You’ve now made your enemy even more disgusting to look at, and you’ve got at least one more shot before its arm is off — then you have to worry about the other three limbs.
The game’s visual update is also present in its lighting, which is a massive improvement from the original title. Many parts of the game are purposefully poorly lit, forcing you to walk around areas with your weapon drawn, using your flashlight to spot enemies before they spot you. Areas look like they are actually lit by real sources of light that reflect off of surfaces and react to various obstructions realistically. Like everything else mentioned so far, this only adds to Dead Space’s eerie atmosphere, especially when coupled with the game’s stellar sound design, which trained me to instinctively draw my weapon at the first sign of any unusual in-game noise.
What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?
Image via EA
If you’re apprehensive about this remake due to some of not-so-good parts of the original Dead Space, such as the turret or zero-gravity sections, don’t be. Motive has seemingly identified such weaknesses in the original game, and has either swapped them out entirely for something different and unique, or altered them to such a degree that they stand out as highlights in the remake. The zero-gravity sections are surprisingly fun this time around, as Isaac can actually fly freely, similar to Dead Space 2. Of course, so can the Necromorphs, adding yet another layer to the aforementioned stressful combat encounters. The game is mostly killer with minimal filler, and doesn’t even come close to overstaying its welcome; I wrapped up my near-100% exploration run in around 18ish hours.
Dead Space meets shot-for-shot remakes like The Last of Us Part I, and inventive remakes like Final Fantasy VII Remake somewhere in the middle. In simplest terms, it is Dead Space remade and redesigned from the ground up for a new generation of both consoles and players, developed with modern technology and game industry sensibilities in mind. It’s easily the definitive version of Dead Space, and perhaps the best title in the series. If you are at all into horror, science fiction, or conspiracy-laden plots, it’s hard to go wrong with this game.
Both the game and developer Motive undoubtedly deserve the critical and commercial success Dead Space has been enjoying thus far, and fans should probably be happy too. But when considering EA’s history with this franchise, something about this title’s success feels somewhat immoral.
Like any other media franchise, Visceral Games’ original Dead Space trilogy lived and died under the pressure of sales numbers. After Dead Space 2’s disappointing commercial performance, EA reportedly played a heavy hand in Visceral’s development of Dead Space 3, which saw the franchise desert its survival horror roots for a more action-based approach rife with microtransactions and other industry trends. The end result of this interference was a bad game that sold poorly, effectively leading to the cancellation of the franchise. In 2017, Visceral Games was shut down. Just a few years after that, Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 remake put up some pretty solid sales numbers, which reportedly inspired EA to then revive Dead Spacewith a remake.
And now we arrive at the present. Dead Space is back, and it’s better than ever, but it is simply not fair that the company that killed it in the first place now gets to reap the benefits of nostalgia by doing exactly what killed the franchise — stubbornly chasing a trend. It’s even more unfair that the folks responsible for popularizing the franchise can’t have a share in the series’ renewed success, especially when the game follows the template crafted by Visceral.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see Dead Space back up and running again, but there is something soulless about the way EA has handled this series that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in its long-term future. I want nothing more than to be proven wrong.
by Jon Yelenic
