In 2008, EA released Visceral Studio’s survival space horror Deadspace, and managed to answer a question that I had no idea needed answering. What would you get if the movie Event Horizon and the movie Alien had a baby. Not only did Visceral answer this question in 2008, but then, in January 2023, Motive Studio decided that question needed to be answered decisively again, and answer it they did, with a full on from the ground up remake of the original title.
Deadspace holds a special place in my sci-fi heart, this was the first game I played that made me want to actually sit down and write about how good it was. For the first time in my gamer life, it wasn’t just enough that my friends knew how great this title was, but I wanted everyone in the world to know how great this game was. As someone who really doesn’t do Hollywood gore very well, Deadspace was my way of being able to experience the dread and terror fans of movies like Friday the 13th or more recently the horror community’s favorite new slasher series Terrifier do, but with the added benefit of me being in control of the silent protagonist, and absolutely worse case scenario, I could turn the Xbox off if things got a little to intense.
So, I’m going to get right to the point of this article. If you are a fan of survival horror, and sci-fi, the Deadspace remake should 100% be in your library, and here’s why.
The original Deadspace had a pretty simple story preface, take an ordinary everyday engineer, and throw him into the worst possible repair job he could have ever taken, season with a light dash of romantic tension, throw in some religious fanaticism, and bake at 425 in a derelict planet cracker mining ship full of mutated undead crew members. The result of this mix, a white knuckled thrill ride full of jump scares, and the feeling that while Isaac may make it out of this alive, his therapy bills are going to be very, very expensive.
The greatest thing about the Deadspace remake is that the team at Motive Studios knew the story and decided to leave it alone. What they did do with the remake was take everything that added to the story, and improve upon it. From the ground up, everything that surrounded the story was reworked, starting with Isaac himself. In what may be the smartest change Motive brought to the remake table, Isaac went from being a silent member of the repair team, to having a voice, and actively engaging in conversations with his team. Instead of being a silent do-boy, Isaac was now offering ideas on the best way to repair the Ishimura’s systems, much like an engineer involved in an active repair would do. This added dialogue added an emotional depth to Isaac’s character that was missing from the original game.
Giving Isaac a voice wasn’t the only audio change that the team at Motive brought to their remake. The team brought the character to life even more through Isacc’s biometrics. Throughout the game, Isaac’s heartbeat, and breathing is always present in the audio mix, and is used to heighten the tension of the game, half dead? Isaac’s breathing becomes labored, and he grunts with pain as he moves. Opened a door into a room of murder babies and mutated crew members? Isaac’s heart rate (and coincidently yours) go through the roof. Adding to the already creepy atmosphere is the ambient audio throughout the game, as Isaac explores he is constantly surrounded by the whispers of the dead Ishimura crew, as well the groans, and grinds of the fatigue, damaged hull of the Ishimura, the ship is about to fall apart, and Isaac’s got a front row seat.
Audio improvement’s weren’t the only things focused on in the remake. Motive took a look at what today’s consoles can do graphics wise, and dramatically upped the ante. Deadspace now brings it’s disturbing imagery to life in full 4k. You think those murder babies were creepy in 2008 when they were 1080p? Now they are fully realized, fully rendered, fully terrifying 4k murder babies, and Motive didn’t stop there. When the the original Deadspace launched in 2008, shooter fans found themselves in a situation where headshots did not matter, instead players were greeted with instructions on how to kill the mutated dead crew members scrawled in blood on the wall of a maintenance room.
These simple 4 words are the key to Deadspace’s gameplay. Now the focus wasn’t conservering bullets with headshots, but using maintenance tools like plasma cutters, or circular saws to cut off arms, and legs and murder baby tentacles. This was disgustingly rendered in the original, Motive took that, and decided to go full Hostel with it. Now instead of a blood spray, and the limb going flying, enemies limbs essentially show battle damage, with flesh and cartilage being ripped through with each shot that Isaac takes. And if you thought the scene of one of the surviving crew slitting their throat was bad in the original, well, you’re definitely going to avert your eyes when that scene comes up in the remake.
Along with the focus on getting players to feel as if there were in Isaac’s shoes, the team at Motive also expanded on the Ishimura itself, while the linear progression of the main story wasn’t touched, Motive did add additional “off the beaten path” areas to the planet cracker
that Isaac can explore as he progresses through the main story, which does a great job of bringing the ship to life, now instead of just trudging through the guts of the ship from start to finish, Isaac now has the chance to explore maintenance areas and discover more clues regarding exactly what happened aboard the Ishimura. Along with hidden maintenance rooms, and corners, Motive introduced a fast travel system in the form of the Ishimura’s tram. This allows Isaac to double back through the ship to explore areas he may have not been able to access previously, due to his security clearance level.
All of these enhancements to the original title make the Deadspace remake a necessity in any sci-fi horror lover’s game library and honestly make it feel like a brand new game. The added exploration features take nothing away from the story, and feel of the game, and in my opinion, add to it, allowing players to dig deeper into the mystery of how the Ishimura ended up in the state that it’s in. The change of Isaac from a silent errand boy, to an active participant in his team’s repair mission breathes life into the game that was missing from the original. The game’s graphic and audio improvements do a great job of making players feel like they are standing in Isaac’s shoes. Honestly, at points in the game, I felt as if the only thing preventing me from feeling like I was Isaac was the fact that Deadspace uses a third person over the shoulder view. I can only imagine what this game would feel like in VR. (Motive, get on that will you?)
Overall the team at Motive did an amazing job of breathing life into a title that unfortunately did not result in the series many of us would have liked, while personally I did enjoy Deadspace 2, and Deadspace 3 the sales of those titles never did live up to the bar that the original Deadspace set; even with the third installment bringing some of the creepiest environments to the table (seriously go back and play 3, and pay attention on the ice planet). Unfortunately it seems due to sales of the Deadspace remake not living up to the hype either, the remake may very well be the last Deadspace game we get.
