Dank Clank Reviews: Dead Space (2023)

Recently the gaming industry has seen a deluge of remakes of old classics. From Capcom's remake of Resident Evil 4, to Nightdive Studios's remake of the original PC classic, System Shock. What's old is apparently new again, that is until the industry drives this trend into the ground right alongside Visceral Games. Being a fan of the System Shock series, I found myself falling down the proverbial rabbit-hole, learning about the history and development of the first two games in the series. Which then lead me to the first attempt at a follow-up to System Shock 2. What started as sequel to Shock 2 would eventually be transmogrified into more of a spiritual successor. I am of course referring to 2008's Dead Space...

Long before OtherSide Entertainment's long-awaited - and still is, seriously - sequel to System Shock 2, there was another studio eyeing to take a crack at their own version of what could've been the third System Shock. In an interview from PCgamer with Dead Space (2008) Designer, Ben Wanat, the development for System Shock 3 was a bit of an undertaking. Especially since it was an entirely new team behind it attempting to follow up Irrational Games' and Looking Glass's Shock 2. However, due to a combination of their parent company, Electronic Arts, failing to attain the rights to the franchise and the massive success of Capcom's Resident Evil 4 in 2005, Ben and Co. took the Carmack and Romero approach and decided to make their own IP. Despite it being a commercial disappointment in the eyes EA, Dead Space (2008) was a critical hit. Innovating off mechanics the original Resident Evil 4 had established with third-person shooters, while simultaneously building up its own repertoire of new mechanics, such as the dismemberment system. It also launched a ton of spinoff media and two other sequels of its own. And a loyal fanbase that's kept its undead, recombinated heart beating long after the scuttling of its studio, Visceral Games.

Which brings us to its 2023 remake...

Dead Space (2023) is a complete overhaul of its progenitor. Both in terms of graphics and gameplay. The lighting is more crisp, the shadows are as black as soot, and the industrial interior of the Ishimura is possibly the best it's ever looked since the original. Plus with the added benefit of Ray-Tracing, this is the closest to genuine realism Dead Space has ever gotten. A neat bit of visual detail is when you return from the vacuum of space, the frost you accumulate on your RIG suit will melt away to a glossy sheen over the metal portions of it. And you can now get drenched in blood after an encounter with Necromorphs. Leaving Isaac looking like a menstrual art project. It also takes mechanics from previous games in the series and retroactively implements them into the remake. Such as the kinetic impalement system and rocket boots from Dead Space 2. The latter of which allowing for more freedom of movement in Zero-G areas. Though as fun as they are, it's a little clunky trying to maneuver and land on surfaces, especially while you're being shot at. Personally, I would've preferred if they had kept the Zero-G platform jumping mechanic from the original as an option in addition to the rocket boots.

Aside from the audio logs and text files you'll find strewn about the Ishimura, the remake takes the environmental storytelling a step further with the addition of holographic journal entries. Emphasizing key moments that took place before the havoc of the Red Marker consumed the ship and its crew. Holographic UIs are no stranger to Dead Space. And I love the added touch of the hologram journals themselves being somewhat low-res and pixelated. Fitting in rather nicley with the low-fi aesthetic the original lovingly ganked from Ridley Scott's Alien.

Much of the enemy design has been carried over from the first game. Adding to their original design in ways that you wouldn't notice at first. Little touches like patches of hair on their heads, the bundled up spaghetti of guts in their abdomen, skin pigments, adipose tissue; muscles are more defined. Everyone gets the Janet Jackson-facelift and is left looking more grotesque than ever before. The sheer amount of detail EA Motive cram into these guys is fantastic. Not just the enemies, but even the environment itself. The Corruption that you'll come across throughout the Ishimura is packed to the gills with detail. You'll find bodies of dead crew-members strewn about a pillar of biomass, like a cornucopia of dead flesh. Just don't bring it home to decorate for Thanksgiving. Imagine the smell.

These improvements to the original's visual design are what act as a nice garnish to what was already a great-looking meal. Unfortunately, there's a fly in the soup. Let's talk about graphical issues...

The remake looks damn near perfect. The keyword being "near perfect" It is sadly not without flaws. Because if you're the unlucky bastard to still have the most recent update of DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), that being the 3.0 version, then I hope you like ghosting because running Ray-Tracing, while it does offer a decent FPS boost, it does not soften the Windows 98 logo edges of Isaac's upper body. And that's on the high graphics setting. Switching Ray-Tracing off and just enabling Temporal Anti-Aliasing does help, but the frame-rate is a measly 30-40. So I have to manually install the previous 2.51 version of DLSS just to get it back up to snuff. Granted there's still some frame-rate drops in certain areas, and the occasional texture pop-ins, but it's still smoother ride than running it on vanilla. And as for the texture pop-ins, there's this weird delay when you use the Flamethrower once on a Neceomorph where the body will morph into it's burnt texture preset. My guess is they figure if you use the Flamethrower on full stream you won't notice. But your brain will. Then there's the ring of fire in the vents, Slashers randomly freezing in place, or it just forgets to turn a corner when it's obvious it can see you less than a yard away.

Also, can we all agree the new menu intro to the game sucks? The original menu had this grungy and glitched holographic display over this fleshy miasma background. It looked like the menu of a horror game. The new one doesn't even attempt that. It's just blank and nothing. Lame!

In the original game, when upgrading your weapons and RIG suit, you're required to fill in the blank spaces with power nodes you collected. Which were a fairly precious resource. Meaning that whichever path you chose on the upgrade tree, you had to sacrifice at least one power node in order to reach the desired upgrade. Increased damage, rate of fire, reload time, etc. It was a slow and methodical process where you had to pick and choose what upgrades to get. And the option to hit the reset button and shuffle around your power nodes was always there. But no matter what you chose, you had to commit to that build for the remainder of the game, often without getting to fully-upgrading your weapon of choice. Now in the remake, the blank spaces in the upgrade tree have been completely excised. Streamlining the process of upgrading your weapons and RIG suit more quickly. Plus with power nodes being more abundant this time around, depending on how you approach it, you can pretty much fully upgrade a couple weapons to their fullest extent. Allowing you to get the most bang for your buck. Sidenote: The inability to sell your weapons back in the store is bullshit. But I digress. This is in stark contrast to how the original approached its upgrade system. The remake's intention is to encourage more experimentation with your weapons. And I think it's a change that does work in its favor because I find myself using more than just my go-tos. That said, having played the remake a few times now, I think I have more of an appreciation for how the original did it's upgrades. Rather than just hurl power nodes at your head the way the remake does, it made you pay attention to what you invested them in. Part of the whole risk-reward aspect. Now this will likely come down to personal preference for some. It's not bad, it's just different. And it's not like the remake is made any easier for it or anything. I've died plenty of times due to not lining my shots properly or being careless with ammo.

Speaking of dying, the Leviathan bossfight is kinda borked. The big issue I have is the fact that you can't use air filters via mapping them to a hotkey the same way you can kinesis modules. You have to open the inventory in real-time during the bossfight. Which caused me to get killed twice. Thankfully the second bossfight has air supply stations available if you're out of spare air filters. So that's nice.

The weapons in the remake have a greater emphasis on versatility. The amount of videos I've seen of people using the Line Gun to turn crates and other items into weapons you can levitate around—effectively turning it into another tool from your arsenal—is insane. By the end of this game you'll be getting your own degree in engineering. The Force Gun can now rip the skin off enemies. Leaving them looking like a stripped turkey. A pissed off stripped turkey with stabby appendages. Even the Flamethrower is actually useful for a change. Like the Force Gun, it's been improved in the remake. Meaning that instead of the Flamethrower functioning like you're pissing in the wind ala the original, now you can turn Swarmers into hot wings. It actually feels like it does real damage. The Pulse Rifle has also been retooled from its original version. Switching out the useless circular alt-fire for a grenade launcher that I got way more use out of than I thought I would. Only downside though is that I'm not really digging how it sounds while firing. It doesn't have nearly the same punch to it as before. In the original, firing it felt like you were shooting off a Howitzer indoors. Dead Space (2008) had great sound design. And the remake is no slouch in that regard either. But its version of the Pulse Rifle doesn't carry the same weight to it as the original. Functionally it works, it just doesn't sound great. Like Luke Combs' cover of Fast Car.

Since we're on the subject of sound design, it's great! It's largely one-to-one with the original in that respect but with higher fidelity. It should go without saying, but sound is crucial to any horror game. Not just for setting the mood, but establishing an atmosphere. The clinking of chains hanging above you in the mining elevator, a wrench being knocked onto the floor in Tram Repair offscreen, even the sprinklers in hydroponics can give you cardiac arrest. You're just as likely to jump at your own shadow before even encountering a single Necromorph. The amount of reverence EA Motive pay to the original game is admirable to say the least. That being said, I have another minor quibble about the sound design: the heart pounding. You'll sometimes hear it after really tense encounters in the game. It's on the nose and unnecessary. I can do that just fine on my own, I promise.

Finally, let's get into the story and characters. MAJOR SPOILERS ahead. You've been warned...

Issac Clarke
I think it was pretty apparent the story would be changed to some extent with Gunther Wright reprising his role as Issac Clarke from Dead Space 2 and 3. That said, he does a fantastic job with his performance. And I'm happy to have him back. There's some great subtle details they add in for his delivery where depending on your health bar, if it's in the red, Issac will sound more haggard and beaten. If you're still at full health he'll sound normal. There's also a great flashback recording between Isaac and Nicole shortly before shit hit the fan that adds a real gut-punch to everything. His last words to her were pretty nasty and cruel. It adds a new layer of guilt for Isaac that in retrospect makes the Phantom Nicole's words in Dead Space 2 all the more damning for him. All of that's great. However, I'm gonna defend OG Issac a bit. The debate between silent protags and voiced ones has come up again after the remake's release. Some arguing one is inherently superior to the other. Personally, I don't believe either approach is inherently better or worse. It's how it's executed that matters. In Dead Space (2008) YOU, the player, are Issac Clarke. Apart from some bare-bones motivations for why you're on the mission to repair the Ishimura, you embody the character and can define him however you see fit. This approach would change in the sequels as the story started to take more focus, that's true. What the remake does for Issac is allow him more agency. He's the one to suggest the plan to break into medical, putting his skills as an engineer much more in the spotlight than before. I love Remake Issac. But the OG has his place too. Both can exist simultaneously.

Zach Hammond
Hammond's role in the Hydroponics level is completely cut. Swapped out for Elizabeth Cross, who now plays a major role in final act. It's a good addition and the twist is great. But sadly Hammond's contribution as a character is lessened because of it. As a result of Issac becoming a voice protag, some of his lines get repurposed for Issac. Leaving Hammond with not that much to do other than show up on the bridge and vanish for a significant portion of the game, Skype call-in from where he's spying on the Unitologists, then he joins Isaac on the Valor where he dies. He does have his defining character moments, yes. His calm and stoic demeanor is not only being chipped away bit by bit by the stress of the situation, but also by the effects the Marker. Playing on his guilt over his crew being massacred by monsters for what was supposed to be a routine job. Which factors into his death on the Valor where instead of being torn apart by a Brute, he's skewered by Neceomorph Chen, a crew-member whose death was haunting him throughout the story, and further played upon by the Marker's influence. Unfortunately, even that is weighed down by a mediocre performance from Hammond's new voice-actor. As I said on Twitter, Anthony Alabi isn't the worst. But OG Hammond had Peter Mensah. Every line out of his mouth carried weight to it. A man thrown into a hellish nightmare and he's barely able to maintain his cool. His take-charge attitude showing cracks in the facade at the realization that he and his crew may well and truly be fucked. Peter delivered it in such a way that he made Hammond sound like he's trying his damnedest to hold on. Alabi's take with Remake Hammond just has slightly better writing and a better death. I don't hate Alabi's performance, but I don't like it either.

My guess as to why Hammond's role is so lackluster is that in order for the new wrinkle in the twist at the end involving Elizabeth Cross to work, they had to establish her fairly early into the game by having her be the one to deliver exposition about Hydroponics in place of Hammond. She'll start chatting with Issac before the Leviathan encounter establishing a mutual respect between them because they're both trying to survive. We then get the twist that instead of "Nicole" being there it's actually Elizabeth. For Isaac he thought he was seeing Nicole but it in reality it was Elizabeth. For Elizabeth, Jacob Temple was in Isaac's place. This addition to the twist from the original game is a good one. It plays into the psychological effects the Red Marker has. Manipulating the humans without their knowledge into acting towards its end goal. It's a retcon I actually really like. It's just a shame that Hammond got the shaft in order for that to happen.

Kendra Daniels
Kendra's left largely untouched in the remake, other than randomly signaling she's a lesbian. Which is a bold choice for EA Motive because I thought the whole trope of killing the gays was a big no-no for some creatives. Still, kudos there.

Challus Mercer
Now I wanna say upfront that I love the new voice for Mercer. Faran Tahir gives a fantastic performance as the methodical, and cold-blooded religious zealot. The issue I take here is with the re-contextualizing of his character and subsequently his death. And the utter disappointment of it. In the original, when Issac has ruined Mercer's ultimate goal of taking the Marker to Earth to spread the infection and bring about Convergence, he resigns himself to be taken by an Infector and made into a Necromorph. Mercer is so committed to Unitology that he was willing to give his own life up to further its ends. Then the remake comes along and retcons it. Now he has delusions of grandeur and thinks he's in some position of power. And his only true fear is of death. No, that's not Mercer. You had me up until that moment. What's worse is that when it finally comes time for him to die, his death is so underwhelming. He doesn't get taken by the corruption and remade into a Necromorph, he just gets crushed. Now the defense for this I've seen is that it's his hubris getting the better of him in the end. That whatever influence he had over the spread of the Marker's influence was all part of his mad delusions. That man tampering with forces they can't even begin to comprehend is what sealed his fate. That's a fine trope in most stories as a method of the antagonists meeting their end, but that's not Challus Mercer. What made him compelling in the original was just how devoted to the cause he was. He had no delusions of grandeur, he knew what was going on and was even willing to kill himself to ensure that Isaac was stopped before he could interfere with the Marker's grand designs. Showing just how dangerous and extreme some Unitologists can be. I give all the credit in the world for the new voice. Faran Tahir is excellent in the role. I just dislike the new angle of the character.

Terrence Kyne
Let's just get this out of the way: the writing for Dr. Kyne is fine. Pretty much the same as the original. So nothing wrong there. However, the new voice is awful. And so is the character model. He looks like a 40 year-old dude dressed like an aged lesbain. What, is Remake Kyne a big fan of Kyle Kulinski and decided to model his appearance after him? And it's sucha downgrade too when you compare his original character model and voice actor. I'm sorry I have to keep harking back to this, but in the original, Dr. Kyne was much older, about mid-50s or so, and was a devout Unitologist. Not to the extent that Mercer was perhaps, but still a believer. He's one of the few who's skeptical of the events taking place on Aegis 7 and advises caution when the Marker is brought on board. Then when shit hits the fan, he realizes that the infection plaguing the Aegis 7 colony and the Red Marker are inexplicably linked. Suddenly his slowly building crisis of faith finally boils over and he desperately tries everything to stop the spread. Relieving Captain Mathius of duty, only for Mathius to go coo coo for Coco Puffs and lunge at Kyne, getting himself killed in the process. Kyne is then blamed for the Captain's death by the rest of the crew and flees. Taking matters into his own hands, he sabotages the ship to prevent it from returning to Earth. Stranding the crew of the Ishimura. Effectively dooming them. It's only when Isaac and Co. arrive that he finally sees a chance to return the Marker back to its pedestal on Aegis 7 in the hopes that it will reactivate the "dead space" on the planet. He acts with a manic intensity that bears resemblance to characters like his filmic predecessor Dr. Blair from John Carpenter's The Thing. Remake Kyne is a barista at Starbucks. Nothing works about this change. The new voice actor doesn't carry ANY of the manic energy. No offense to Pej Vahdat, but he's no Keith Szarabajka. Keith should've been brought back and I'm flabbergasted he wasn't.

Nicole Brennan
Now I don't have much to say about the writing for Nicole in this game. A lot of it's quite good. Especially the scene I referenced earlier with her and Issac's last conversation. Good stuff. So instead, I'm just gonna add my hat into the ring and say that I don't like her new character model. And before the peanut gallery starts shouting "Coomer! Touch grass!" I'll add that I don't like Issac's character model either. Yes, both are more in line with their voice actors' appearance. I get that. But I much preferred Issac looking like a weathered Aaron Paul and not like Adam Sandler. Or Nicole not looking like Sally Field from Mrs. Doubtfire for that matter. You can fashion whatever excuse you like to justify the change, doesn't mean I have to like it. And yes, this is more fuel on the fire of women in videogames being uglified to ward off the "male gaze". It doesn't ruin the game for me since she's barely in it for the most part anyway. So with that you may ask, "Well then why does it matter?" and my response is: If it didn't matter why change it? If it was fine in the original, leave it the hell alone. Like Dr. Kyne's original voice actor.

Overall, Dead Space (2023) is a good game. And I would recommend it. A great remake? Some might say yes, but Nightdive's remake of System Shock dropped during the writing of this review and I've been enjoying the hell out of that ever since. To me, it's no contest. The Dead Space remake doesn't even hold a candle to it. However, I'm a much bigger fan of System Shock anyway, so I admit my bias there. But I digress. If you're a fan of Dead Space, you'll like the remake. If you're a die-hard fan of Dead Space and you weeped at the death of Visceral Games at the hands of EA, you'll probably swear off this game and curse its very existence. And I wouldn't blame you. Personally, I didn't grow up with Visceral Games, so I don't have the same history with them that others may have. But I wouldn't call the remake a betrayal or anything. It's largely faithful to the original, with some tweaks both major and minuscule. I may disagree with some of the changes, but I will give credit where it's due. The remake is good. Not perfect, but good.

Dead Space (2023) gets a Peng statue out of ten. But no Peng herself, because she got left out of the remake altogether.