For years, we have been seeing many of our favorite titles getting remakes and remasters. However, these almost always just equate to the same experience we had originally with a few upgrades, throwback moments, and sometimes a tweak to the controls. While that is fine and fitting for a remaster, it simply isn’t going to cut it for remakes after this game.

Motive Games, a team created by EA, has just released the Dead Space Remake and it is beyond what I was expecting. Dead Space originally launched back in 2008 and it was one of my first platinum trophies on the PlayStation systems, so I have been looking forward to experiencing a slightly upgrade version of the game, but I got so much more than that. This title is officially my new benchmark on how a remake should be made!

Story

Take on the role of Isaac Clarke, an engineer heading to the massive colony spacecraft known as the Ishimura to provide repairs. Excited to see his beloved Nicole once again, a job on the Ishimura is one he couldn’t pass up. However, it seems there is much more going on than just a few technical issues on board. It isn’t long after the team makes their way inside the Ishimura that they are attacked by the real cause of the call for aid from the Ishimura; necromorphs! Of course, they don’t learn what they are until later, but from the initial attack the crew is slimmed down to three remember members; Captain Hammond, Programmer Daniels, and Engineer Clarke.

Through the chaos, the original ship that got the crew here is lost and so begins the journey to find a way off of the Ishimura. Little did they know this would turn out to be the biggest fight for their lives as they end up traversing multiple quarters of the spacecraft in order to put everything together well enough to even find options to escape the overrun and deadly situation on board. This journey also leads them to the truth of what has happened. It appears the mining crew for the nearby planet has dug up more than resources and found what they call ‘The Marker.’ This… device… seems to mess with people’s heads and has unleashed the terror that has overrun, killed, and taken over the spacecraft.

This story remains the same as it was before, but in the remake, they have made quite a few changes. Our silent protagonist has dialogue and it is actually well-written, everything the crew learns on board isn’t just because Hammond and Daniels happen across all the information Clarke needs to keep moving forward but instead, they all find bits of information out from a variety of sources (survivors encountered, logs, even a dying man’s final words, and more) and converse together. All-in-all, the improvements and upgrades to the story made the game flow so much smoother than the original, everything felt organic and not like video game objective updates, and the fact that there are no load screens is a major plus. Another thing I was impressed to see is that chapters aren’t changed by taking the tram as before but rather they flow into each other as the previous one is completed.

Gameplay

Here we have an improved version of what was before. You start out with the Plasma Cutter and can find various weapons along the way. There is a limit to how many weapons you can have equipped at one time, but you can keep whatever you want in your inventory, so if you want to have six weapons on you then you can do that and swap out which four are currently equipped for quick changing. The weapons you have equipped are the ones you’ll mostly find ammo for, but there are times you’ll find whatever you find and that can be ammo for a weapon you have stored away in storage.

The pathway of the game is vastly different! While this seems like something that could be problematic, they actually made the game feel and play so much smoother than I could have hoped for. There are a lot more zero-gravity moments, you’ll run into a larger variety of enemies (with even more hidden behind New Game Plus), to get to new areas you will have to take new pathways and then unlock the tram station when you get there for future traversing, and more. Even things like the asteroid blaster mini-game section were changed to be more sci-fi story-fitting where you are focused on linking to them individually and calibrating them rather than just fighting off astroids until the system links up with itself.

They added a security clearance system into the game. This comes into play for rooms and storage crates that are locked away from you. At first, I thought was a bit annoying, but later on, I realized that I had to traverse through the same areas more than once with the new game pathway, and by the time I reached the area a second time I had the clearance for more rooms and stuff which helped me resupply at that point in the game while I was able to resupply with unsecured lockers previously. While the security clearance is clever for those who want to complete side objectives closer to the end of the game and run around the ship some more, it is a super clever way to keep players supplied for all parts of the game even when they go through the same area more than once.

Something that returning players can look forward to is more sequences. Sure, you’ll be able to spot when a few key moments are going to happen again as they did memorably before, but they threw in a few new surprises for you to experience as well. I would like to dive into more on what I mean, but that would go into spoiler territory, so just note that you won’t be expecting everything thrown at you even if you played the originals recently.

Lastly, let’s talk about the store and bench options. Just as before, in order to get things out of the store you will need to find a schematic for the item and bring it to the store. Eventually, you’ll be able to purchase health, stasis, oxygen, ammo, nodes, and weapon upgrades. I managed to fully upgrade my Plasma Cutter on my initial playthrough, which was handy for fully figuring out the bench system. Just as before, you use nodes to upgrade your rig and weapons, but it isn’t exactly the same. Before the upgrade tree had progress spots that didn’t really do anything for you but brought you closer to the other upgrades in the tree, but this time you will need to find upgrades and purchase the one weapon upgrade from the store in order to fully unlock the tree. Each upgrade unlocks more of the tree for that specific item, same with rig upgrades for your suit, but the good news is that every node you place into your rig or weapon will be an upgrade of some kind for it.

Once you beat the game, you unlock some free items and New Game Plus. The New Game Plus mode will have new enemies to encounter and new mystery’s to uncover while letting you start off with all your credits, upgrades, and such from your initial playthrough. Your gear will simply be in storage once you come across the first store in the game. Also, for those that want a real challenge, the game offers a new difficulty called ‘Impossible’ and it is quite a fitting term. For those that think Hard mode isn’t hard enough, good luck with that mode.

Audio and Visual

They managed to keep the sound effects and music style to how the original game was. It honestly felt like they just pulled all the old audio files, cleaned them up where needed, and put them in the game. However, all the voice work was pretty much redone since the story is told in a different manner and a lot of different things happen than how they did originally. This is thanks to the overall game’s flow improvement and the additional voice given to our protagonist.

Aesthetically speaking, this game is beautifully grotesque! You can tell that the enemies actually evolved through the game from the way their design was at the beginning versus how they looked at the end, the scenery was dark and disturbing, even with the brightness turned up a bit, and all of the hologram work was done so well. The improvements to this game really get encapsulated by the visuals around the player’s environment.

Replayability

Given that there are side objectives, a never-ending flow of enemies in the ship, various difficulties to play on, a new challenging difficulty that I see very few player’s actually beating, and a New Game Plus mode that is said to actually offer new lore and enemies means the experience opportunity in this game are vast. So, I would say this game definitely has some replayability to it, although not a lot.

What It Could Have Done Better

With how advanced everything is in this game, it is no surprise that there are a few glitches and issues to be worked out. I did run into a number of glitches that were a bit visually distracting and a small handful that actually impacted my gameplay, but nothing actually problematic. With a few updates, they should be able to knock out the handful of annoyances within the game at this time.

Verdict

Dead Space Remake is the benchmark title for how remakes are meant to be handled! While maintaining the same integrity, story, lore, and experience, they provided a whole new experience with new enemies, dialogue, overall pathway, and really took advantage of today’s technology. I would argue that this version of the game is what the original game would have been like if technology back then was advanced enough to handle it and now that it can, they provided their originally conceived experience. I strongly recommend this game to any sci-fi horror fan, especially those who played and enjoyed the original Dead Space.

Dead Space Remake is available now for PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.