Summary
2008’sDead Spacecontributed in a major way to the start of a new era of modern survival horror games. Around the time of that generation, the genre had not quite broken through to a wider mainstream audience, though it certainly had its share of fans who were eager for titles that provided well-designed experiences. With the firstDead Space, Visceral Games produced an enthralling entry, capturing the sense of isolation and fear central to survival horror, satisfying players with its intense and unnerving atmosphere. After two more entries over the next 5 years, with the third in 2013 not being all that well-received, publisher EA unfortunately shuttered the studio in 2017, upsetting many fans and putting a halt to the franchise.
However, last year, theDead Spaceremake, developed by EA Motive, which was given the IP, was released to wide acclaim. Its work on improving and expanding the elements that made the first memorable while making excellent use of the most current and impressive technical capabilities took Visceral’s rock solid foundation and formed it into what is regarded in many ways as the best way to experienceDead Space’s terrorsand gut-punch of a story. With this success, it opens the door for the second title to receive the same treatment, and if so, it may be the series' iconic Necromorphs that would see the biggest upgrade in it.
Though nothing official has come from EA Motive yet, the studio has expressed the possibility of developing aDead Space 2remake based on fan interest.
In the originalDead Space,protagonist Isaac Clarkewas more of a standard character for the time. He was mute and largely hidden behind a cool-looking, but impersonal armored helmet. It was a bit of a disconnect that Issac never commented on or responded to situations and other characters as he found himself in increasingly dangerous circumstances as well as under mental duress from the nature and effects of the aggressive alien Necromorph’s psychic influence.
The remake rectified this by making Isaac fully voiced and engaged with the plot, often clearly visible, and including more personal moments of his struggle. This all added more weight and emotion behind the character, rounding out his internalizations, and in turn making him more believable and the entire experience more immersive. Now that Isaac has been revamped, apossibleDead Space 2remakecould instead focus extra attention on greatly enhancing the Necromorphs.
The Necromorphs' personality, such as it is, comes mostly with their unsettlingly grotesque design and animations. Especially sinceDead Spaceemphasizes removing and destroying enemy limbsversus more traditional strategies against horror creatures, like headshots, which makes combating them more stressful and unique compared to many other titles.Dead Space 2is set on Titan Station (aka The Sprawl), a much larger and more diverse environment thanDead Space 1’s claustrophobic corridors of the Ishimura mining ship, and contains many more types of Necromorph infesting its interconnected locations.
EA Motive has the opportunity to renderDead Space 2’s menagerie of Necromorphsin greater gory glory than previously possible with current graphical capabilities, giving them the attention and improvement paid to Isaac as above. As one example, The Pack inDead Space 2is a particularly disturbing version due to its nature of being groups of young children who fell victim to the Necromorphs and their gruesome process, but still appear more recognizably human-like than other kinds, like Lurkers. The point, though, is that the entire range ofDead Space 2’s Necromorphs would benefit across the board from the remake’s modern upscaling process, allowing more detail and behaviors to be imparted onto them. This would surely elevate the feeling of encountering them to more intense levels, and keep up the franchise’s momentum of effectively improving upon the originals in many respects.
