Dead Space Review: Return to the Ishimura

Don't be scared, they're armless.

In a world drowning in sequels and remasters where new IPs are scarce, polishing up an existing game blow for blow in most cases often feels a bit of a cash grab fueled by the nostalgia of ageing gamers. As that myself, I’ll admit I’ve succumbed to that cash grab on more than one occasion with varying degrees of satisfaction. Fresh versions of Tony Hawk 1 + 2, Oddworld New And Tasty and Demon’s Souls among others have their place in my collection.

For me, the value in a remake is defined by the timing of its release. Too early and the cash grab is front and centre, potentially leaving players reluctant to buy a game they can already play via backwards compatibility; too late and the source material ages less like wine and more like milk with tired mechanics of the era gone by impacting the experience for the worse. Thankfully with Dead Space (2023), developer Motive has almost nailed the timing.

First released in 2008 the game has you playing as Isaac Clarke, an engineer in a small crew assigned to investigate events on mining ship USG Ishimura. Upon boarding, Isaac quickly finds that everything has gone to hell in a handbasket; the ship’s crew have turned into violent and horrific biomass blobs few remaining survivors have termed necromorphs. While initially tasked with investigating the cause of this disaster and re-establishing communications onboard the ship, the mission for Isaac quickly changes to one of survival and containment of the source of the outbreak. To make it personal, Isaac is also chasing an additional motivation of discovering the fate of his girlfriend Nicole… who just so happens to be working on the ship.

Let’s be honest: the whole “people are now monsters/zombies/demons let’s find out why and also we need to save the princess!” storyline has been done to death. It’s far from an original plot now, and it wasn’t exactly imaginative in 2008 either. While a dark and scary corridor setting was getting a little tired by the time the original Dead Space came out, Visceral Games did innovate through a dismemberment mechanic that the franchise is known for. It’s also what made the original series so great.

For those catching up, killing enemies in Dead Space requires the removal of their limbs. While baddies will eventually die if subjected to a random hail of excessive plasma, dismembering them with precise shots to the arms and legs will dispatch them much faster while conserving ammo and — in my case — with a somewhat concerning level of satisfaction.

Further, Dead Space was one of, if not the first, third-person shooter to completely omit any kind of static on-screen heads up display and instead ingeniously replaced same with a holographic HUD in the game world that appeared only as necessary. With never before seen gameplay and mechanics, Dead Space certainly earned its critical acclaim even if the game’s primary plot didn’t push any boundaries.

Before we continue, it’s important to be aware that this new version of Dead Space is a complete remake from the ground up. It’s not just a remaster of the original with some tweaks to textures and lighting; the work that’s been put in absolutely shows. In Quality mode on Xbox Series X, every dank and dark corridor of the Ishimura — and every bloody chunk of enemy flesh — is simply stunning even when running at least 30FPS.  If you turn Performance mode on instead, you’ll be treated to 60FPS (more or less) with visuals that are almost comparable. Wouldn’t it be great, though, if we could do away with all of this and have 60FPS performance on consoles that was also quality? I’m not inclined to get into all the technical terms when it comes to visuals, so go see whatever Digital Foundry is doing if that’s your jam. What I will say is it’s worth remembering that the first Dead Space was praised for its dark and scary atmosphere fifteen years ago. It looked good then, and it’s beautiful now no matter the graphical option you select.

It can’t be all about flashy looks though. A remake needs to have much more than pretty visuals to earn your hard earned cash so let’s look into this. The most obvious change in this version is that Isaac has a voice; Gunner Wright reprises his roles in Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3. No longer mute, Isaac speaks throughout proceedings, fleshing out the narrative quite well and actually interacting with other characters rather than appearing to be the bland trained puppy of the original game.

Some of the in-game puzzles have also changed, which may be with the intent presenting somewhat of a new challenge to seasoned players. Though new as they may be, the puzzles are all still a little too simple across the board. While they present intermittent changes to pacing and are neatly woven into the narrative, they offer very little by way of challenge with almost all being easily solved on the first attempt. Sections in areas with zero gravity have also changed a lot in that they adopt the mechanics of Dead Space 2 and 3 with the ability to freely fly around the space rather than being limited to jumping from surface to surface in the original. This has been cleverly incorporated into the updated puzzles in some instances, adding a new layer to proceedings.

I could reel off quite a few other differences, some so subtle many players are likely to miss them entirely and others that completely change the way certain later chapters of the game are played. Though half the joy in stepping back on board the USG Ishimura is spotting the changes to the experience. One more change that’s absolutely worth mention is what Motive calls the Peeling System. As you attack the limbs of necromorphs, the targeted body part becomes gradually more damaged, exposing flesh, organs and bones in exquisite detail. This of course adds to the already gory experience but it plays a surprising role in the strategy of firefights as you’ll find yourself instinctively looking for the more damaged limbs to sever.

While Dead Space is an excellent game, and as stated it is well deserving of its critical acclaim back in the naughties, I do have to pull Motive up on a few small gripes I have with the rebuild. As mentioned earlier, games remade can sometimes highlight how far video games have progressed over the years. In Dead Space that becomes most obviously apparent in the game’s save stations that appear sporadically throughout Ishimura.

Considering this is a complete rebuild, overhauling the rather primitive save station component of the original might have been a good move. Admittedly it’s not a systemic issue throughout the experience, but there were a few instances in which death would send me too far back for my liking. This would on some occasions force the need to repeatedly re-upgrade gear before re-attempting a rather challenging fight. Further, after my third attempt at beating the final boss, I got pretty damn sick of re-watching the unskippable cinematic that played out before going into battle.

And another thing: when a game is rebuilt and does away with some 2008-era pain points, that should extend into its final boss battle. The fight, which remains absolutely lacklustre by the way, doesn’t incorporate new mechanics in any way and is a silly design choice. Some ingenious dismemberment would have gone a long, long way.

That aside, this new version of Dead Space is one of the few remakes that has managed to slot in that little window of time where it’s not been too soon or too long since the release of the original. It brings with it nostalgia, and almost enough change to make it feel fresh and familiar at the same time. For some this will be good news, for others not so much. For me, having loved every minute of only a single play through back in 2008 I was elated by the fact that I had pretty much forgotten almost all of the details in the game. This time around, it’s like playing Dead Space for the first time… again.

Dead Space was reviewed using a promotional code on Xbox Series X, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.

Dead Space 27 January 2023 PC PS5 Xbox Series S & X   Buy on Windows PC via Steam Buy on the Microsoft Store Buy on Amazon: PS5, Xbox