![]() ![]() The few systemic changes that Motive, the developers behind this remaster, have folded into the game can be categorised as ‘perfectly fine’ to ‘largely irrelevant’, however. The vastly improved facial animations that play out while your compatriots dole out tasks to you across video calls did most of the heavy lifting to endear me to my little band of survivors. The main crew of survivors are more collaborative this time around, less quick to point fingers and undermine each other across the radio while protagonist Isaac Clarke gets to work actually solving the myriad disasters unfolding on the Ishimura. An added detail here, a shift in tone there. Narratively, there are some minor reinterpretations of the script which mainly play out through character interactions. I often forget the narrative detail of the long leadup to madness that the crew of the Ishimura experienced, even before people started becoming monstrosities, long before you set foot on it, but wandering around its halls in this remake brings its protracted catastrophe into an even greater detail than before. Playing on a High Dynamic Range (HDR) enabled screen increases this effect even moreso, with the inky blacks of the Ishimura’s forgotten and massacred depths providing little solace where they’re rendered with such detail. The far more dramatic implementation of light and shadow in the Dead Space remake (alongside improvements in textures and overall detail) manages to keep you on your toes, even though the general shape of the game is the same. But the original Dead Space’s appreciation for sound design and atmospheric lighting raised the bar significantly for how effective those tools can be when scaring the shit out of people, as they skulk around a floating tin can far off in the cosmos somewhere.ĭead Space (2023) has hung on to this lesson well, with the vast majority of what’s new here being a completely overhauled visual engine, a deeper and more intricate approach to sound design, and minimal changes overall to the layout of the Ishimura itself. ![]() The Ishimura the ill-fated ‘planet cracker’ mining ship which provides the staging ground for Dead Space isn’t one of the most unique environments in horror games – if you listed off generic scary places for a video game you’d hit ‘monster-infected spaceship’ pretty quickly. Read: The Callisto Protocol review – We’ve seen this gore before The original Dead Space is such a masterclass of intense atmosphere, varied yet balanced gameplay systems, and satisfying exploration that its remake barely has to change a thing at all beyond a streamlined and ‘loading screen-free’ interpretation of its world. The expert pacing of its opening hours, the core-gameplay loop wound as tight as can be, and one of the most satisfying stomps in video game history. Having played the original 2008 release in preparation for the remake, it’s shocking just how modern it feels a vision with a confidence and clarity we just don’t see as often in video games anymore. A meshing of satisfying, scary, empowering and atmospheric systems all coalescing into an impressive, elegant statement of cosmic and body horror a title that planted about as solid a flag as you can on a vision of the future of horror games. Here is the originator of quite possibly the most beloved horror franchise of the 2000s and early 2010s. Without sounding too flippant, it has to be said how easy the job of a Dead Space remake seems from a casual observer’s perspective. ![]()
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