After more than a decade in stasis, the Dead Space franchise returns with a remake of the first game from 2008. But did Motive Studio hit the mark? Let's see if Isaac will make us whole once again in Game8's review of the Dead Space Remake.
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Dead Space Remake Review and Score Explanation
Dead Space Remake Score Explanation
| Overall | The total rating of the game. The scores available range from 1-10 with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. The scores are added together, then multiplied by two. |
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| Story | Rating the plot, characters, as well as pacing, and overall depth of the story. |
| Gameplay | How we rate the gameplay mechanics and systems designed in the game. |
| Visuals | Rating how beautiful the game's graphics are as well as its user interface. |
| Audio | Rating how the game's music grips players during battle and cutscenes, and how well the voice acting and other sounds are done. |
| Value for Money | The base game's length, replayability, and time needed for 100% completion. |
Dead Space Remake Review: A Pure and Terrifying Remake
The Dead Space Remake is a pure and terrifying remake that takes a classic game and gives it a fresh coat of paint while enhancing the overall experience. This is how a remake should be done in the modern era, and both veteran and new players can look forward to surviving the Ishimura once again.
Dead Space Remake Full Game Review
Pros of Dead Space Remake
| Things Done Right |
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 A Purist's Dead Space Immersive Atmosphere Gaslights You New Coat of Paint, New Coat of Terror Gameplay Perfectly Balances Player Agency and Helplessness Sound Design Tears Your Soul Apart |
A Purist's Dead Space
There are two kinds of video game remakes. Remakes that stick to the original vision while polishing it with modern graphics and game mechanics, and remakes that reimagine the game to some degree while also polishing it with modern graphics and mechanics. The Dead Space remake is the first kind of remake, not the second. Take note, I am a sucker for polished-up remakes, so you may want to take my word with a grain of salt. But I will go out on a limb and say that Motive Studio didn’t just reskin the original game and called it a day. Instead, they expanded it to new and terrifying heights.
The intro cutscene alone lets you know that this is a pure
remake of the 2008 classic. As the USG Kellion flies through space, you are treated to the spectacle of the debris field in orbit of the planet Aegis VII. These are what remains of a planet cracking operation, and within the field lies the ship responsible: The USG Ishimura, as ominous and imposing as she was more than a decade ago in the original Dead Space's release. Having played the original does not keep you from imagining all of the horrors that lie within the ship. I'd argue that it only makes you fear it even more.
That's because even if this Dead Space follows the original's plot and vision to a T, some things around the major story beats have been changed. Don’t worry though; all your favorite (or should I say ‘most hated’?) parts made it to the remake. Along with some things you probably didn’t expect.
For one thing, the most obvious upgrade is in the graphics department. Of course, with the right mods (or even without them), the 2008 original still holds up to this day because of the uniqueness of its presentation (and some smart FOV tricks). But in the remake, the power of the Frostbite Engine is on full display with new lighting, volumetric effects, and much, much more detail on character models and environments. We’ll talk more about this below.
The second thing that’s changed with this remake is the overall atmosphere of the game. In a good way, mind you. They took the claustrophobia, the telegraphed terror, and the general unease players felt in the original and enhanced it with the new Intensity Director, as well as a new 3D audio system. Remember in the original game where you start hearing something crawl around in the vents whenever you enter a room? In the remake, you will hear that and the direction it’s coming from, making you imagine the necromorph that will mog you once you turn around this corner and find… nothing.
That is how Dead Space instills terror in its players. It telegraphs its scares in advance, building up the player’s paranoia and anxiety, until the inevitable payoff. This has not been watered down by the remake’s new bells and whistles, but strengthened, making the experience all the more terrifying.
If the new graphics and the enhanced atmosphere is not enough to reel you in, then maybe my third point will. The Ishimura itself isn’t exactly a linear chapter-by-chapter experience anymore. It’s a Metroidvania-like area that’s divided into places you have security clearance for and areas you don’t have security clearance for. That means the tram’s not your primary mode of transport anymore. There are new ways to reach familiar locations, as well as entirely new areas to explore. Forgot to loot the Medical Bay before going to Engineering? Nothing is stopping you from going back there… except necromorphs, of course.
The remake is both the “pure” kind of remake that polishes the experience with all-new graphics and game mechanics and the “reimagined” kind of remake where certain parts have been redone just right. The result: unadulterated space terror.
Immersive Atmosphere Gaslights You
Let’s talk a bit more about the atmosphere of the remake. Cramped corridors surrounded by vents where monsters, real or imagined, may come out. There’s the din of machinery all around, interrupted by periodic clattering within the metal walls. Sometimes, these rooms are well-lit, sometimes they’re pitch dark, and you’ll only have a flashlight to guide your way. Sometimes, they’re well-lit and safe, only to suddenly go dark before bathing you in red flashing lights and industrial noises so loud, you fail to hear the Slasher necromorph right next to you…
The atmosphere, hands-down, is what made the original game shine. Motive Studio seems to know that necromorphs can only be so scary – they’re essentially enemy mobs designed like puzzles you have to solve (thinking which limb to detach to dispatch them easily). They get stale once you’ve faced them enough times. It’s setting them up that’s important – making the lighting, sounds, and gameplay enhance their presence – and keeping every interaction fresh.
Enter the so-called “Intensity Director”. If you’ve played Valve’s Left 4 Dead games, then you would be familiar with its own AI “Directors”, the “Director” that handles enemy and item placements, and the “Music Director” that handles what music to play at any given moment. The Intensity Director is more or less that – an AI whose sole purpose is to screw with you and gaslight you to the edges of space. Necromorphs will pop out of vents behind you, corpses will move for absolutely no reason, the lights will suddenly go out and the music will start screeching… but nothing happens. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the Intensity Director enjoys every moment it manages to freak you out.
The original Dead Space was already great at gaslighting players into believing necromorphs were hiding behind every vent, every wall, and every corner outside of Isaac’s field of view, even if it was impossible for the game to do so. The remake’s Intensity Director, meanwhile, makes good on its threats.
New Coat of Paint, New Coat of Terror
The Dead Space remake runs on a souped-up version of the Frostbite engine, which gave us the crisp visuals of the Battlefield and Star Wars Battlefront games. In this department, the arguments against a Dead Space remake might as well be rendered moot. The textures are crisp, there’s volumetric fog, and the lighting is subtle, giving the game a distinct shade of realism.
Those dark corridors that struck so much terror into our hearts in 2008? They have been lovingly recreated with so much detail that you can feel the industrial oppression just by looking at them. There’s the blood splattered all over the walls, the scrawled handwriting of deranged maniacs, and the shadows of vents and steel grates across the Ishimura.
When you enter the Ishimura for the first time after the Kellion’s near-crash landing, there’s so much stuff to look at. Your walk to the flight deck shows you crates and rails and everything you’d expect from a flight deck. The Flight Lounge now has papers, folders, suitcases of all sorts, and screens showing flight times like a mini-airport. When you reach the centrifuge, there’s more emphasis on spectacle with all of the lights, the huge spinning thing that will crush you into a pulp, and the expanse of outer space just below it.
Then, when things inevitably go to hell, you’ve got the alarm lights – and then, your first glimpse at the new necromorphs. Fleshy, bloody, freakish. There’s no time to look at them up close and personal until you get to the iconic elevator scene where a Slasher necromorph gets guillotined by elevator doors. Where do we start? The skin is bloody and wounded, the jaw is dislocated, and the arms have fused to become two sharp blades. Worst of all, it’s bald. At the very moment the elevator doors slice this mother in half, the blood splatters all over Isaac’s suit.
Let me talk more about the necromorph designs. From the lowly Slasher to the menacing Hunter, the enemy designs have been refreshed to look more terrifying than before, complete with wounds oozing with blood and sores. The game boasts of a new ‘Peeling’ system, which has your weapons peel off a necromorph’s muscle and skin to reveal bone before you sever their limb completely. Grisly details make for the best horror, after all.
Of course, who can forget about Isaac himself, and the rest of the cast? Sure, Isaac looks like Adam Sandler in some parts, but on the whole, I would say basing their models off their voice actors was a smart move. There’s a lot more fidelity in the characters’ facial features, heightening the immersion.
Gameplay Perfectly Balances Player Agency and Helplessness
Just like the original Dead Space, the remake is a third-person shooter with over-the-shoulder aiming. I was afraid that there would be some gameplay changes, but once I got into Isaac’s shoes and landed in the Ishimura’s Flight Deck, the movement and aiming felt the same as it was back in 2008. Any changes were minimal but significant enough to freshen up the core gameplay a bit.
Most of the game is spent going around the Ishimura, killing necromorphs, solving puzzles, and buying/upgrading your equipment. Body shots on necromorphs won’t do you much good; you’ll need to cut off their limbs with your arsenal of repurposed mining tools. Once they’re on the ground, you’re encouraged to stomp on them until you’re sure they’re dead, because they have a nasty habit of getting back up to try killing you again.
It’s great that Motive Studio managed to replicate the gameplay of the 2008 game. I felt like I was playing the exact same game. And I don’t mean that in a bad way because the original Dead Space’s gameplay fits its genre perfectly. Yes, you get to shoot the necromorphs, stomp them into a bloody paste, and upgrade your weapons. But do you have enough ammo? Are you enough of a good shot to blast their limbs off? Are you sure a necromorph isn’t behind you right now? These are questions you’ll have to answer on the fly while playing the game, and this is perfect for survival horror. Give the player enough agency so they believe they can actually do something about the situation, but make them helpless enough so they won’t have complete control of the situation.
Though I can’t go out and give Motive Studio too much praise for simply adapting an already good formula to modern standards, I do appreciate their efforts in trying to mix up the gameplay. The circuit breakers and redesigned and expanded levels, especially. I don’t want to expound on them too much at the risk of spoiling the game. But let’s say the devs corrected many complaints made about the original Dead Space and not only fixed these issues, but made enhancements as well.
I swear, I never played a game that made me string together so many four-letter words in a daisy chain of terror and anxiety. Great job, Motive. 10/10 will scream as I stomp a necromorph that snuck up on me into a bloody paste again.
Sound Design Tears Your Soul Apart
The Dead Space experience wouldn’t be complete without stellar sound design. Where do we start? The groaning and sounds of something crawling from within the vents? The faraway screams? The sounds of undead feet stomping on steel decks? The original Dead Space knew how to craft immersive soundscapes, and the Remake enhanced it.
In this game, the sound is now three-dimensional, meaning you can hear from which side of the room those crawling or skittering sounds are coming from. You can hear the steps of a slasher as it walks toward you, or sneaks up behind you. Where did that scream come from? You don’t know, and you may never find out. But you'll come to depend on sound cues to know whether or not the necromorphs are near.
Inversely, during the Zero-G segments, you will only hear the muffled sounds of your own breathing. This is hard as you won't hear any necromorphs sneaking right behind you. Good luck hearing that Leaper before it grabs you.
The music system from the original seems to have also returned, which puts on screeching violins and rapid plucks as a monster positions itself to ambush you. At least when the music stops, you’ll still know that there are no more enemies left.
The sound is one of the most harrowing parts of Dead Space, and fans won’t be disappointed with the audio quality of the remake.
Cons of Dead Space Remake
| Things That Can Be Improved |
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Was a Remake Really Necessary? Glitches Can Throw You Out of the Experience |
Was a Remake Really Necessary?
With how good this remake of Dead Space is, it’s hard to find any fault with it. But of course, there will always be a discussion as to whether the remake was necessary in the first place. Considering that Dead Space was made in 2008, the game still holds up to this day with controls that modern players can easily get a hold of. It isn’t as archaic as, say, Resident Evil 2 and 3, which Capcom made remakes of and may very well have influenced the decision to revive the Dead Space franchise.
Veteran players may find that the game plays a little too similar to the 2008 original, and find changes to the gameplay and story trivial. This is why newcomers to the series might appreciate this title much more compared to longtime Dead Space fans.
At least, if the remake turns out to be successful sales-wise, we might see remakes of Dead Space 2, and the polarizing Dead Space 3. This could be a chance to re-do and revitalize a franchise that spent a decade being dead in the water.
Or, you know, dead in... space.
Glitches Can Throw You Out of the Experience
This will sound like a nitpick, but like I’ve said it’s hard to find fault with the Dead Space Remake, and the only things I found fault with were the bugs.
Sometimes, you’ll see an Infector necromorph’s tail peeking out of an air vent. That’s a minor graphical glitch, sure. But there are also game-breaking bugs like a supposed infinite money glitch which could destroy all challenge that the game has.
Hopefully, these bugs are resolved in later patches of the game, turning them into minor bumps on an otherwise smooth, glitch-free road.
Dead Space Remake Story Plot
The Dead Space remake is, well, a remake of the classic 2008 horror survival game of the same name, developed by Motive Studio. Engineer Isaac Clarke and a small team are sent to a Planet Cracker-class ship called the Ishimura that’s orbiting around the planet of Aegis VII. The whole ship has gone dark, and it's Isaac’s job to fix it. However, upon landing, you find out what exactly caused the ship to go dark, and the game immediately becomes a fight for survival against the contagion that has taken it over.
Dead Space plays like many third-person shooters with over-the-shoulder aiming and an assortment of mining tools fashioned into weapons. But you won’t deal with the main enemy of the game – “necromorphs” – by shooting them in the head. Instead, you will have to blast off their limbs. Also, there’s no UI; all of it is diegetic and shown to you via hologram in-game, adding to the immersion.
You’ll also have to contend with standard survival horror game features like resource management and solving puzzles. But the main pull of the game is simply surviving within an abandoned ship floating in the middle of space. It’s dark, it’s cramped, and it’s only you and a bunch of mealy-mouthed murder zombies that want to eat your flesh. They’ll crawl in the vents, sneak up on you, and try to just psych you out in general. Will you get off the Ishimura? Or will you crack from the anxiety before you do?
Who Should Play Dead Space Remake?
Veterans of the Dead Space Series
If you’ve played the original Dead Space way back in 2008 (and the following sequels), you will be glad to know that this remake is largely faithful to the original, but changed up enough to string you along for the ride. Veterans will mostly enjoy the remake’s new graphics, as well as the enhanced enemy and game AI.
Newcomers to Both Dead Space and the Survival Horror Genre
The Dead Space Remake is perfect for people who are new to the franchise and those who are new to survival horror games in general. The modern graphics put it at par or even ahead of contemporary games, and the mechanics are still interesting and varied enough to set it apart from other survival horror titles. Plus, you’ll get to play the story with the benefit of not knowing what will happen next, so you'll get to fully enjoy the experience.
Is Dead Space Remake Worth It?
Dead Space Remake Is Worth Your Money
The Dead Space Remake is worth your money because of three reasons.
1.) If you’re a Dead Space fan, then this is the best way to experience the original game all over again because of the upgraded graphics, gameplay, sound design, and refinements made to the story.
2.) There’s a reason to replay the game to get your hands on an alternate ending to the story.
3.) No two runs on the Ishimura will be the same because the Intensity Director switches things up, offering a good amount of post-game playtime. Add to that the difficulty modes you can finish the game in (Story, Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impossible) and the potential rewards for Impossible difficulty.
We recommend trying out Dead Space Remake because it’s a polished experience that will give you at least a solid 8 hours of playtime, double or triple that if you want to be a completionist.
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Dead Space Remake Trailer
Game8 Reviews
Dead Space Remake Product Information
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| Title | DEAD SPACE | |
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| Release Date | January 27, 2023 | |
| Developer | Motive Studio | |
| Supported Platforms | PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC | |
| Genre | Survival Horror | |
| Number of Players | 1 | |
| ESRB Rating | M | |
| Official Website | https://www.ea.com/games/dead-space | |
