Dead Space Review | PCMag

The original Dead Space is a horror classic.Inspired by Resident Evil and the movie event horizon, Dead Space offered something unique. It’s satisfying action and a novel gameplay twist punctuated by grotesque body horror and shock horror. Developed by Motive and published by Electronic Arts, the $59.99 remake of Dead Space is a relatively faithful recreation of the 2008 original. 2023’s Dead Space introduces impressive new lighting, great visual enhancements, and amazing gameplay improvements, making it the perfect shooter to add to your PC game collection. There are some notable changes that deviate from the original, but nothing that detracts from the experience. In a nutshell, Dead Space is a great, super fun game.

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Chatting with Hammond (Credit: Electronic Arts)

More than just a touch of paint

You play as Isaac Clarke, a spaceship engineer en route to USG Ishimura. Your mission is to fix the communication failure and spend time with Clark’s girlfriend Nicole, who works as a medic. Things quickly went south and Isaac and his team found themselves stranded in Ishimura with a large number of murderous mutants. Navigate the maze-like halls of an abandoned spaceship, shoot down monsters, find your girlfriend, and uncover the mysteries surrounding the mutant outbreak.

The Dead Space remake (referred to simply as Dead Space in this review) stays true to the story of the original game. The biggest difference, however, is how the story is presented. Originally, Isaac was a taciturn protagonist, so his team and Ishimura’s survivors told the story via dialogue or radio communication. It has been rewritten to incorporate his speech into the story. Thankfully Isaac isn’t very talkative, but his input feels a little odd, especially when the events of the original game are still stuck in your head. has proper voices and dialogue in Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3, so it’s not bad per se.

The cast has also undergone a stylistic overhaul, so everyone looks distinctly different from the original game. The same goes for Isaac’s girlfriend Nicole, who looks noticeably older compared to the 2008 original. Conceptually, it’s not that bad. Isaac didn’t speak, so we rarely saw his face in the original game. As we often see now, his character his model doesn’t express emotion in the same way his voice does.

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Break monsters apart using the Ripper (Credit: Electronic Arts)

A new way to hurt mutants

Like the original game, the terror stems from the viscera of fear and frustration in the twisted bodies you encounter when exploring USG Ishimura. Monsters constantly rush at you through the vents, musical needles underscore every surprise encounter, and everything quickly becomes mundane. Please note that .

So how do you kill something that’s already dead? Dead Space’s solution to this conundrum is to not move. Disconnection is an important gameplay mechanic and one of the reasons the original game is so memorable. The core gameplay system revolves around dismantling enemies and controlling movement to manage the looming threat. Sprays and prayers don’t really get you very far, as they waste precious ammo and don’t necessarily stop the target. Headshots are also not very effective. Calculated limb shots are the best way to deal with them. Blowing off a leg and removing an arm increases the chances of the Necromorph going down.

Dead Space introduces even more gore and visceral carnage with a new graphic peeling system. When you damage an enemy, their flesh and viscera are ripped from their bones, giving you a grotesque yet clever visual indicator of how much damage you’ve done. If you can see the bone, your next shot is more likely to pierce it. It’s a simple visual decoration, but it looks great.

As a marine engineer, Isaac is armed with traditional and highly unorthodox weapons. For example, the first weapon you get is the iconic Plasma His Cutter, a mining tool for excavating rocks and minerals. Three guided lasers help align shots, which he can rotate 90 degrees to cut vertically or horizontally. Naturally, this makes for a great tool for hurting monsters, and the weapon can carry you throughout the game if needed.

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Limbs can be blown off with skillful shots (Credit: Electronic Arts)

dead space weapons

Of course, you can also get other unique space-age and military tech. Weapons have been overhauled with passive perks or completely new features not seen in the first game. For example, the Pulse Rifle originally had a weird 360-degree alternative fire mode that chewed up everything around it, but it also chewed up ammo. Unfortunately, this firing mode was only useful when playing on Easy or Normal difficulty. This ability was woefully underpowered on higher difficulties: Dead Space changes his fire to alt mines. For a cost of 25 rounds, you can plant mines on surfaces or enemies for massive damage. This will breathe new life into your weapon. I found myself swapping to pulse rifles just because those mine grenades were a great complement to other attacks. It now drops a firewall that separates and encloses enemies) and Disc Ripper (a secondary armament bounces blade saws off walls and surfaces). With these weapons you can be incredibly creative. As a result, Dead Space feels less like a horror game and more like an action game with some very deadly enemies.

Complementing the Arsenal are the Stasis and Kinesis modules. Stasis freezes the target in place for a few seconds, giving them plenty of time to line up their shots (or give them time to breathe). Costly and requires stasis energy that can only be replenished with dedicated charging stations or consumables. It’s also a good tool to use against tough enemies with hard-to-attack weaknesses.

Kinesis is the second module and allows you to collect and lob objects in your environment. You can stab enemies into walls with sharp objects and sticks, and use larger objects as shields. Unlike Stasis, Kinesis has unlimited uses, making it a great attack option when you need to increase your ammo stockpile.

Dead Space is still great, and the gameplay changes have improved. The combination of tools, unique weapons, and alternate firing modes keep the game fresh and engaging. Dead Space has a New Game+ mode that lets you take over weapons and take down the more powerful Necromorph variant of him, so it all feels doable.

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USG Ishimura is your home (Credit: Electronic Arts)

Additional changes and improvements

The original Dead Space had a zero-gravity platforming zone with the task of pointing the camera at a location and space-jumping to a destination. It worked fine, but it was a relatively well-founded problem. Dead Space now uses Dead Space 2’s fully controllable omni-directional movement in these sections. Hovering and boosting in disorienting directions can radically change how these sections play and feel. In fact, some of the later set pieces feel much more interesting due to the new horizontal and vertical movements.

USG Ishimura is a much more interconnected location than the original game, offering more freedom to explore. To complement this, a new security clearance system was introduced to encourage backtracking. As you progress through the story campaign, you’ll come across lockers, storage units, and rooms sealed behind clearance locks. Gain clearance at various story points that you use to access upgrades, healing packs, and extra ammo.

Several sections have been overhauled to include new puzzles and dynamic elements. For example, some rooms have circuit breakers that you have to fiddle with to progress. In situations like this, you make a conscious choice about how to proceed. This will give you more agency. Additionally, Dead Space has added side quests that can be found and completed by exploring Ishimura. These are optional experiences, but they do have some spoiler-related effects on the story.

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Dead Space has a large number of puzzles (Credit: Electronic Arts)

Can your PC run Dead Space?

Dead Space has significantly improved graphics and lighting, as well as an all-new gameplay system, so system requirements are significantly higher than the original (but not as stringent as Forspoken).

To play Dead Space, your PC must have at least an AMD Ryzen 5 2600x or Intel Core i5 8600 computer processor, an AMD RX 5700 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card, 16GB of RAM, DirectX 12, 50GB of storage space, and a 64- Bit Windows 10 operating system. For the best experience, Electronic Arts recommends AMD Ryzen 5 5600X or Intel Core i5 11600K CPU, AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT or Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 GPU. Dead Space features full controller support as well as keyboard and mouse support. Dead Space also has Steam Achievements and Steam Cloud Saves. Not currently supported for Steam decks.

On my desktop PC with AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU and 16GB of RAM, Dead Space performed well at 1440p resolution. The game reached 120 frames per second in scenes that didn’t have much action. However, the game still ran at a smooth 80fps during hectic action. It also dropped to about 60 fps during the loading sequence. Thankfully, Dead Space lets you preload shader caches before the game starts. This makes the intro a lot smoother than games that can’t preload shaders.

Note: An Electronic Arts account is required to play Dead Space on PC.

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No one can hear you scream in dead space

If you’re new to the series and love action and jump scares, I think Dead Space is definitely worth buying. Its excellent cutting mechanics allow for a degree of creativity that most shooters don’t offer. Additionally, the remake is fresh enough to attract franchise fans interested in graphical and gameplay changes. Dead Space bounces back from the failures of its last two mainline titles and lays the groundwork for a brighter future in the darkness of space.

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