Dead Space Ignition is a DLC game for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network set in the Dead Space universe. It leads directly into the events of Dead Space 2.
An engineer named Franco is ordered to repair a computer mainframe deep in the Sprawl, and his girlfriend, an officer named Sarah, goes along with him to protect him. Once the mainframe is repaired the Necromorphs attack, and Franco and Sarah try to escape. The game gives the player options on what path to take.
Levels are made up of three Hacking Minigames; the player has to complete one, two, or three of them to proceed. One minigame is a race to get your computer program to the end before the other programs while avoiding walls that slow you down. The second is a reverse Tower Defense game; you send out unlimited computer bugs to destroy the computer defenses to reach the program before time runs out. The third is a Light and Mirrors Puzzle where you put down mirrors to bounce color-coded lasers so they hit their corresponding computer program thing.
Completing Ignition unlocked extra weapons and armor for Dead Space 2.
Dead Space: Ignition provides examples of:
- Apologetic Attacker: Depending on the path, Franco shoots Sarah from behind or leaves her to die by locking the door on her. He apologizes and hopes she can understand why he's doing this, but depending on the player's path choice, he can be remorseful or cold-hearted.
- Character Death: Sarah dies no matter what path the player chooses.
- Church of Happyology: One of the paths shows the first real glimpse of the Unitologists in action; a temple on the space station, and their huge cryo-stasis freezers.
- Devoured by the Horde: One of the ways Sarah can die. She gets slashed in the leg by a necromorph, slowing her down enough for the rest to overwhelm her. On another path, Franco leaves Sarah to die by locking the door on her to get torn apart.
- Doomed by Canon: If you played Dead Space 2 Franco is pretty much picked off as soon as he releases Isaac. A necromorph ambushes him and instantly turns him into a necromorph right before Isaac's eyes.
- Fair Cop: Sarah is too hot for law enforcement.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Sadly, there's no way to save Sarah as she dies no matter what path the player chooses. She either suffocates to death after her space suit loses air, gets ripped apart by Necromorphs at the hospital, or is shot in the head or left for dead by Franco.
- Gaiden Game: The events of Ignition happen right before Isaac gets out of Stasis in Dead Space 2. How the engineer of the story reaches Isaac is different.
- Guns Are Worthless: Sarah soon realizes that her pistol is worthless against the Necromorphs, but the plasma cutter works a lot better.
- Hacking Minigame: The entire game is just three different ones. One's really more like a race, and one's like the reverse of a Tower Defense game.
- Kill the Cutie: Sarah dies in all of the paths near the end, two of them by Franco's hands. The latter was because he didn't want her to realize that he was receiving orders to get Isaac out of Stasis. In the other two, he's devastated at her loss; apparently his loyalty is highly situational.
