Video Game / Dead Space (Remake)

Humanity Ends Here.

"Isaac, it's me. I wish I could talk to you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything. I just wish I could talk to someone. It's all falling apart here. I can't believe what's happening..."

— Nicole Brennan

Dead Space is a Science Fiction Survival Horror game in the Dead Space franchise developed by Electronic Arts' Motive studio, released on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC on January 27th, 2023. It is a Video Game Remake of the original game, released back in 2008.

Players once again step into the RIG of Isaac Clarke (yes, the name is still a reference) as he is brought aboard the USG Ishimura, where his girlfriend Nicole Brennan is stationed, following a distress signal being sent out alongside the crew of the USG Kellion.

Unfortunately, things have gone horrifically wrong on board the ship.

Most of the crew is either dead or has gone violently insane, and the ship is now crawling with violent, disfigured creatures known as Necromorphs. Stranded aboard the Ishimura, Isaac and the crew of the Kellion must now fight to keep themselves both alive and sane long enough to escape the ship.

Trailers

• Dead Space Official Teaser Trailer (2021)
• Dead Space - Early Development Livestream (2021)
• Dead Space - The Sound of Fear Reimagined (2022)
• Dead Space - Crafting the Tension (2022)
• Dead Space Official Gameplay Trailer (2022)
• Dead Space | Extended Gameplay Walkthrough (2022)
• Dead Space Official Launch Trailer (2023)
• Dead Space | Official Lullaby Trailer (2023 Remake) (2023)

MAKE US WHOLE, TROPER.

Tropes A-M

• Adaptational Badass:
  • The Ishimura crew itself. In the original game, they were all taken off guard by the outbreak aboard the ship in a matter of hours. Here, multiple logs and encounters in sidequests show whole sections of the ship held on substantially longer—presumably either whole days or even weeks—than was believed, with both Medical and the Mining Deck being the last to fall to the relentless infestation, and only because they allowed Mercer to run amok rather than failings on their part in fighting off the Necromorphs.
  • Mercer's a downplayed example. While he still avoids open combat, he's smart enough to create a modified Stasis module that can completely freeze a person in place for minutes at a time.
  • Jacob Temple is another downplayed example, being more proactive in the remake. Rather than desperately searching for an SOS beacon in the original game, he's responsible for creating it, as well as many of the traps Isaac finds in the Mining Deck. He's even packed with a Force Gun to brave the undead halls of the Ishimura. Unfortunately, it doesn't save him from Mercer's treachery, but at least he puts up a fight.
• Adaptational Context Change:
  • Chapter 5 as a whole was changed from a mission to mix a poison to kill The Leviathan where Isaac coincidentally meets, and is subsequently antagonized by Dr Mercer and The Hunter, to Isaac responding to a message seemingly sent by Nicole, which turns out to be a trap set up by Dr. Mercer in order to kill Isaac for getting in the way of his plans. Isaac doesn’t even learn about The Leviathan until encountering an Almost Dead Guy in Mercer’s office who tells him about it before dying.
  • Internal sections of the ship that are in a vacuum are changed from life supports failing to pockets of poison gas from The Leviathan.
• Adaptation Deviation: It deviates more and more as it goes on, but never too far for it to be a completely new story.
  • Mostly in the way of weapons. Unlike in the original title, where everything except for the Plasma Cutter had to be bought from the store, typically after uploading their schematics, weapons in the remake are found for free in various locations throughout the Ishimura's decks, and some of them have been changed around in order of appearance as well, such as the Line Gun being obtainable after Chapter 4 instead of purchasable immediately at the first shop location.
    • How most of the weapons behave have been changed as well. The SWS Pulse Rifle in the remake uses the Dead Space 2 version's grenade launcher as its alternate fire, with the Detonator's mine-laying function rolled in as well if not shot at an enemy, as opposed to the original's radial sweep mode. Likewise, the Contact Beam's primary fire now behaves more like a miniature Wave-Motion Gun than a charged kinetic blast, which has been relegated to secondary fire instead of the ground shockwave, the Line Gun now deploys a laser emitter, and the Force Gun's alt-fire shoots out a small singularity instead of a delayed explosive.
    • This change also affected how Isaac acquires his kinesis module. Whereas in the original it was given to him by a dying woman at the entrance to the Medical wing, he now finds it a bit earlier just lying on a crate, and the dying woman leaves behind her pulse rifle instead.
  • The Ishimura has had its layout changed in a variety of ways, most notably:
    • Engineering now shares a tram station with the Mining Deck, which has been shifted back towards the rear of the ship, whereas in the original it had a dedicated tram platform and sat below the Flight Deck.
    • The Communications Array is on the bottom of the ship underneath the Bridge, whereas it was found above and behind the bridge deck in the original game.
    • A variety of access areas and maintenance areas have been added that allow for on foot access of the various decks and alternate pathways through areas of the ship.
  • The ADS turret sections of the original game have been replaced with manual targeting while in Zero-G, where the guns are calibrated manually using Isaac's Kinesis module to shoot at mission targets instead of the player firing at incoming debris from a cannon pit.
  • How most of the Kellion crew died has also changed. While Chen is still killed by a Slasher like he was in the original, he is then turned into one and attacks Hammond on the Bridge, ultimately killing him later onboard the USM Valor instead of an Enhanced Brute. The lifepod that now contains the mutated Chen is also ejected as soon as Isaac linked up with Hammond instead of after they parted. Lastly, Corporal Johnston is killed when the Kellion blows up, instead of by any Necromorph's hands.
  • Unlike in the 2008 game, where the Wheezers only served as toxin generators that had to be killed in order to lift the food storage lockdown, the remake turned them into symbiotic extensions of the Leviathan instead, with Isaac injecting them with Elizabeth Cross' concoction to weaken the creature so that it can be jettisoned from the hold, with the boss fight ensuing when that plan failed. Likewise, the Slug Necromorph boss is completely excised; its role in impeding communications with the USM Valor is instead taken by the Leviathan which has latched on to the Communications Array blast doors after being spaced from Hydroponics Food Storage.
  • The Executive Shuttle in the Crew Deck no longer needs to have its three navigation cards located before it can be used; instead the objective is to clear Necromorph growth in the various crew areas (Standard, Deluxe, Executive and Chief Steward's areas) to gain access to the shuttle bay.
  • The "Nicole" that Isaac encountered in the original game was eventually revealed to be a hallucination generated under the Marker's influence, and she vanishes without a trace once Isaac places the Marker on the pedestal (the final Jump Scare notwithstanding). In the remake, this "Nicole" is actually Elizabeth Cross; the Marker manipulated them into working together by overlaying hallucinations of each other's loved ones over them (Cross saw Isaac as Jacob Temple). This illusion comes apart after Kendra reveals the truth to Isaac, and she subsequently kills Cross for refusing to surrender control of the Marker.
  • The USM Valor does not crash into the Ishimura's cargo towers like in the original; here it crashes directly outside the Ishimura's communications array, embedding itself into the hull just underneath the Bridge Deck.
  • Challus Mercer's M.O. seems to have changed retroactively since the original as well. Whereas his 2008 counterpart worshipped the Red Marker and revered the Hive Mind as a god, with his acts of murder aboard the Ishimura only serving to create more bodies for Infectors to use, his remake version bought fully into the idea of Convergence, and is strongly implied to be aware of the Brethren Moons' existence as well, both of which were concepts introduced in the sequels.
  • The Red Marker is shown to be located in the Crew Deck's Main Annex, instead of in the Cargo Bay where it was found in the original. The goal of that particular chapter (End of Days) is to clear multiple tendrils of Necromorph Corruption away from the control console, which allows the Marker to be transported to the Cargo Bay.
  • Power node doors have been entirely replaced with the clearance system, where by collecting the RIG of deceased ship officers, the player will be able to progressively open up more parts of the Ishimura that are initially locked. Up to clearance level 3 can be unlocked simply by advancing through the plot, while the Master-level authorization requires a small Collection Sidequest to attain.
  • The Peng treasure has been relocated to the Ishimura's cargo hold instead of the shuttle bay, with a text log found in its original spot left by the greedy crew member who hid it.
  • The entire reason for the USM Valor being at Aegis VII is changed; originally, it was intended to assist in the Marker's recovery, but in the remake, in a text log aboard the ship, it was revealed that the Valor had been sent to Aegis VII to make sure that nobody found the Marker, even having a nuke onboard, and its mission was to destroy the Ishimura, nuke the site where the Marker was, and Leave No Witnesses.
• Adaptational Dye-Job:
  • Brant Harris was depicted as a blonde or at least light-haired man in the companion comic of the original game, whereas his remake counterpart shown through pre-recorded video logs has dark brown hair instead.
  • Isaac himself, compared to his appearance in the original games. Originally black-haired and blue-eyed, he now has brown hair and brown eyes in order to better match his voice actor Gunner Wright.
  • Enhanced Necromorphs were a necrotic black in previous games, but now they're a putrid green. That's because the black coloration is reserved for the Phantom Necromorphs in New Game Plus.
• Adaptation Expansion: As shown in the extended gameplay reveal, many major changes have been made to the way players would explore the Ishimura throughout the course of their mission, mostly through reincorporation of cut content, completely new additions, as well as the inclusion of mechanics that were introduced to the series in the sequels.
  • Due to the implementation of the flight system introduced in Dead Space 2, most of the original Zero-G areas of the Ishimura have been greatly expanded to accommodate this change, with more areas to explore as well as completely new puzzle elements. The most notable change featured in the extended gameplay reveal is the ability to fly out of the ruined Flight deck and explore the exterior of the Ishimura, similar to the semi-free roaming segment of the first act of Dead Space 3.
  • Additionally, the Ishimura has also been expanded considerably due to The Oner nature of the game. Whereas the original title was largely segmented in its narrative, and the tram system was put in place as little more than a glorified loading screen, the remake allows the player to fast travel back and forth across the Ishimura's various decks via said tram system, thus facilitating a Metroidvania-esque playstyle complete with Backtracking to access parts of the ship that were previously inaccessible.
  • Many of the original game's objectives have also been expanded upon to provide more context to the player's actions, such as refueling the Ishimura during chapter 3 now requires Isaac to access a control room and fiddle with a power board to turn on the pumps, but either turning off life support or the lights in so doing, thus adding another layer of challenge on top of the main path.
  • Taking a page from the book of Dead Space 3, various sidequests have also been added to the game to encourage exploration, with them providing more insight into how key figures like Nicole or Challus Mercer dealt with the gradual downfall of both the Ishimura and the Aegis VII colony.
  • Upgrading Isaac's equipment now require specific part kits (or higher tier suits for RIG upgrades) in addition to the standard power nodes. This system is a two-fer, with initial node graphs being rather limited before being expanded by the parts, and the kits unlock additional functionalities for a given weapon in their respective branches.
  • Certain characters that were only heard from and never seen in the original game now have significant screentime. Specifically, Elizabeth Cross and Jacob Temple. Elizabeth is elevated to an extremely prominent character who survives until the last chapter, whilst Jacob now has a slightly more prominent role and even dies onscreen, whereas he was originally only heard via audio logs and remained unseen until the very brief moment where Mercer murdered him in Chapter 10. Likewise, Brant Harris is given quite a lot of attention in the way of logs and videos detailing his descent into madness and manipulation by Mercer into sabotaging the ship's many decks, before being transformed into the Hunter, whereas his original counterpart was only heard in an audio file and wasn't even named in-game.
• Adaptational Diversity: Corporal Johnston, who was originally a Caucasian man, is now a black woman, and she even survives longer than him.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Nicole is perhaps the most prominent example of this in the remake. Whereas her original counterpart was merely a medical officer who did her best to help the survivors of the Ishimura amidst the Necromorph outbreak before committing suicide out of desperation, Remake!Nicole actually managed to psychologically convince the Red Marker itself to halt the Convergence process altogether before her demise, despite Mercer's best efforts to kickstart it.
  • Doctor Terrence Kyne is depicted likewise as well. Where the original Kyne merely intended to return the Red Marker to Aegis VII to calm the Hive Mind, his remake counterpart wanted to do so in order to quarantine the outbreak to the planet itself and prevent it from threatening mankind at large, with him being much more sane and level-headed this time around unlike his 2008 version who's on the brink of total insanity and was actually responsible for a significant level of sabotage of ship systems prior to Isaac's arrival.
  • Kendra Daniels of all people also received this treatment. In a similar vein to Remake!Kyne, Kendra also intends to remove the Red Marker as a threat to humanity by all means necessary, even willing to go against her orders from EarthGov command to ensure it can never be misused by anyone again. This paints her as more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist instead of the outright antagonistic mole she was in the original game.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Due to his traumatic experiences regarding Unitology, not helped by Doctor Mercer's shenanigans on the Ishimura, Isaac is very hostile and rude towards Unitologists in the remake. Whereas his original Heroic Mime counterpart willingly cooperated with Doctor Kyne in retrieving and returning the Red Marker to Aegis VII, he's much more dismissive in the remake simply by virtue of the latter being a Unitologist, and only reluctantly agreed to work with him during the climax chapters because there's no other option.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Both Hammond and Kendra are considerably less hostile towards each other and more willing to work together, with Kendra especially being a lot more clinically minded instead of her emotionally charged and intentionally "bitchy" portrayal in the original. And though she still betrays Isaac like in the original, Kendra is far less derisive to Isaac when coming clean about her actual job, points out Isaac's fragile mental state from the Marker's influence when explaining why she has to leave him behind, and expresses her belief Isaac will eventually find another way off of the Ishimura. It's only after he interferes in her plans and tries to place the Marker on the pedestal that she actually leaves him to die.
  • Isaac is a downplayed example. While he was always a Nice Guy, him being a Heroic Mime in the original made him come across as uncaring when his crewmates died around him. Here he has much more grief-stricken reactions to people dying around him. He even tries to save Kendra despite her leaving him to die, though it helps that she's more of an Anti-Villain here.
  • Dr. Terrence Kyne in the original game was clearly unstable, who threatened to kill a miner for not having codes to the Cargo Bay and held the executive shuttle hostage unless Isaac helped him return the Marker. Kyne in the remake, while still not entirely sane, is much more cordial to Isaac and his incident with the miner much more regretful.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • The Red Marker itself in comparison to its more Ambiguously Evil portrayal in the original is more overtly manipulative and self-serving as it is deliberately utilizing Mercer to its own ends and, later tricks both Isaac and Cross into believing they are their Lost Lenore to bring it back to Aegis VII to try and enact Convergence. However, this seems less to do with it being any more evil than it already was, but more directly connecting the intent of the Markers in creating Brethen Moons. Further, the message from Nicole indicates that even this villainy is questionable, as she states that she found a means by which to communicate with the Marker, and asked it to stop what it was doing. This largely explains why a Convergence event never happened, and why the Red Marker is manipulating everyone into returning it to where it was. While still manipulative and uncaring towards human life, it paints the Red Marker's actions in a somewhat less malevolent light, as it was fulfilling the request of the one person who could successfully speak with it, and instead of treating it like an object or a resource, treated it like a person.
  • Brant Harris is depicted as Mercer's completely willing minion in the remake after having his sanity damaged by the Marker, with him being revealed to be the person responsible for various killings and acts of sabotage around the ship under the mad doctor's orders, before turning fully into the Hunter, whereas his original counterpart was merely a hapless test subject who was transformed against his will.
  • In the original, the Unitologists aboard the Ishimura were significantly more conflicted about the Zombie Apocalypse unfolding, not only being subdued and moderate in their religious practices enough to make Mercer and his actions come across as unusually fanatical even to them, but a fair few of their number can be seen in a recording visibly disapproving of Mercer’s religious acclimation to the horrors of the Necromorphs. Here, the Unitologists still alive on the Ishimura by the time the Kellion arrives have degenerated into Ax-Crazy doomsday cultists, slaughtering each other on the Crew Deck to help the Necromorph plague spread, and are so rabid in their devotion that they make Mercer of all people almost seem like a well-rounded human being in comparison. Out of their number, only Kyne is sane enough to try and put an end to the outbreak. However, given the added-on references to the expanded universe in the remake, its quite possible that the Unitologists who survived this long are the most zealous and extreme, compared to the more moderate believers who either parted ways with their religion during the outbreak or were killed in the chaos.
• Adaptational Wimp: Zach Hammond unfortunately got the short end of the stick in this regard. Whereas his original counterpart was a headstrong and determined leader who did his best to assist Isaac in his quest while defending himself from Kendra's accusations, and was remarkably resistant to the Red Marker's influences, the remake instead depicts him as a more deferential and passive officer who puts up a rather limp attempt at proving his innocence, all while suffering from an increasingly worsening onset of dementia that became borderline delirium by the time the Valor arrived on the scene and directly contributed to his demise.
• Adapted Out:
  • The Ore Storage deck, which only existed as a glorified Tram hub for the USM Valor, has been completely removed. The Valor instead crashes right next to where the Leviathan Remnant is fought. This does remove the puzzle that opens up the Valor though.
  • The shooting gallery minigame on the Valor is completely removed. Instead, starting it causes a Quarantine and clearing it causes all of the reward lockers to open due to the shooting range malfunctioning.
• Age Lift: Nearly every returning character has been given this treatment, but most evidently done for Isaac and Nicole due to them being modeled after their respective voice actors, where the former looks distinctly younger than he did in the original, even lacking his Perma-Stubble, while the latter is now visually much older and closer in age range to her depiction in Dead Space 2. Doctor Kyne also seems to have aged backwards about twenty years as well, though Captain Mathius somehow looks even older than his 2008 self.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Kendra's death is treated more tragically in the remake, as she didn't act out of maliciousness like she did in the original, wanting to save the human race from the madness of the Marker and only opposing Isaac under the (not entirely incorrect) belief that he was under its control. Her final moments have her trying to reach out to Isaac only to be reduced to a smear by the Hive Mind.
• Alone with the Psycho
  • Isaac's first face-to-face meeting with Dr. Mercer becomes this, as the latter stuns him with a Stasis module and engages in a Circling Monologue while making it clear he could kill the helpless Isaac at any time. Thankfully for our hero, Dr. Mercer decides to leave and let the Hunter loose, instead.
  • Nicole's final log that Isaac finds during her sidequest has her discovering just what Mercer has been doing and how incredibly sadistic and insane he truly is. As she does, however, Mercer walks in, ready to put her in Stasis before she lies through her teeth, saying that she's been convinced of Mercer's cause. He's convinced, and Nicole ends up getting away from him unscathed.
• Alternate Reality Game: Similar to the original game's No Known Survivors, The Bench was created to promote the game ahead of its full gameplay reveal. The premise is that the players take on the role of the Ishimura's Comms Relay Crew, solving puzzles that are sent to them by the chief engineer aboard the ship, Ariel Rousseau. A variety of different rewards were offered to players who followed the game's progress and helped solve puzzles, such as full high-quality scans of Dead Space comics that had been rather difficult to find for nearly a decade, a cosplay guide for fans to create an accurate version of Isaac's outfit, additional lore information, gameplay reveals, and other digital goodies.
• An Arm and a Leg: As is tradition with this series, the only effective way to kill a Necromorph is by cutting their limbs off. The Peeling system means that there is now more precision required in order to successfully cut a limb off of a Necromorph. When Isaac finds the Plasma Cutter in the first area, there's a message written in blood on the wall that says "CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS", and a call between Isaac and Hammond shortly thereafter explicitly says that cutting off their limbs is the best way to slow the Necromorphs down.
• Anti-Frustration Feature:
  • There is now an option to automatically complete any button mashing sequence by pressing the required input once, so that Isaac can instantly break out of an enemy's grapple without having to go through the entire sequence. This is entirely optional and will not void any difficulty-related achievements.
  • Weapons stashed at the store can be upgraded at benches to your heart's content. This allows the player to tune their equipment at their leisure without having to actually trek to a store and swap their gear out should they want to upgrade a weapon that's not in their inventory.
  • A late-game annoyance from the original game is changed to be less frustrating in the remake. The Red Marker no longer needs to be manually pushed by Kinesis in the Cargo Bay and on Aegis VII; the autoloader will carry it to where it needs to go and only input the player needs to do is to activate turntables and raise bridges that impede its progress.
  • There are more stores on the Ishimura than in the original, so players are able to stock up and drop off items in the safe without having to back track to the beginning of each level as it were.
  • A few of the more lethal environmental hazards from the original game have been adjusted, such as replacing the instantly lethal and tedious to navigate broken gravity plating with significantly less lethal exposed electrical cables that are also easier to use against the Necromorphs which would've just pathed around the original's gravity plating, and certain pieces of heavy equipment that one would need to slow down with stasis in order to navigate safely around are completely disabled for the duration of stasis or simply aren't in the remake period.
  • Players only have to go through the shooting range once and then survive the wave of enemies that spawn to get all of the shooting range's rewards. The range even breaks after the enemies are defeated as a nod to how tedious the original game's version was.
  • Any location that requires you to shoot something to progress generally has a plasma energy pickup somewhere in the immediate vicinity.
  • Kinesis impalement no longer requires precision like in previous games, automatically targeting a Necromorph's body so long as the player aims in its general direction.
  • Enemies killed by impalement or in zero-g environments drop their loot instantly upon death, preventing it from going out-of-bounds and becoming unobtainable.
  • Assuming you've already obtained it in your first playthrough, Master-level clearance is retained in New Game Plus, allowing you to access specific locked rooms early without having to go through the whole Collection Sidequest again.
  • The new weapon upgrades that unlock more segments of their upgrade charts are often bought at the store, but do you spend your hard earned cash on a shiny new Power Node, or the upgrade? Not a problem, because purchasing the upgrade and taking it to the bench gives you a free power node for your troubles! As a result, it's typically far better to just go ahead and purchase new upgrades as, while they're a bit more expensive than power nodes, you still get a packaged power node so you don't have to feel like you have to choose between weapon upgrades or a power node to use on anything you wish.
• Anti-Villain: Kendra is turned into this in the remake. She was still sent to claim the Marker for EarthGov, but she goes rogue upon realizing just what the Marker is capable of, deciding to send it further into space to keep it driving any more humans insane. She only remains an antagonist because her plan would only stifle the current Necromorph outbreak rather than end it, and because even though she assumes Isaac will find another way off of the Ishimura, Kendra essentially left him there to die since there was no other obvious means of escape.
• And I Must Scream: Doctor Mercer seems to be the prime dispenser of this trope in the remake.
  • Unlike the original game where the victims of Challus Mercer were simply murdered by being stabbed in the head, the good doctor left many of them alive in the remake that Isaac can come across, helplessly bound and gagged so that an Infector can find easy prey to transform.
  • His prototype Stasis device does one over the regular model, where the subject is all but completely immobilized for minutes at a time rather than just a few seconds, while still fully aware of their surroundings, just at a significantly reduced rate. The few audio logs between him and Brant Harris give several glimpses into how harrowing of an experience this can be, and if an immobilized person is killed in that state, as demonstrated on chief engineer Jacob Temple, their death is noted by Mercer to be an extremely drawn-out and painful sensation.
• Arc Number: One.
  • The notion of Convergence is described as humanity being made whole, or being made "one".
  • Each of the Marker fragments in New Game Plus have descriptions that each emphasize how one small action or inaction can result in a radically different outcome.
  One new starting point alters fate. One word changed inverts all meaning. One fear, indulged, reshapes a man. One secret unearthed dooms all the world. One man can wake what sleeps in the ice. One cell, corrupted, infects a whole body. Poison and cure grow from one seed. A vast machine pivots around one cog. One uncorrected failure collapses a whole system. One fragment shapes the greater whole. One push takes you over the precipice. What difference will one death make?
• Arc Words: "Make us whole." Several characters will make reference to this phrase as they undergo their Sanity Slippage, referring to a Convergence event.
  • Near the end of the game, the "USM Ishimura" sign in the hangar bay has deteriorated to the point that the last letters glowing are "US IS U", which could be interpreted as meaning the same thing in a kinda roundabout way.
• Art Evolution: Several small changes have been made to a variety of elements to the game's UI that helps bring the comparatively lower-tech original game closer to its higher-tech sequels. For example, the health bar and Stasis meter on the back of Isaac's RIG now have a more holographic look to them, bringing them more in line with Dead Space 2 and 3's designs for the RIG while still keeping the tube-like design of the original.
  • Isaac's starting RIG also has a more detailed design, with the otherwise featureless chest area now having what looks like a vest and padded shoulders, and clamps or mounts on said shoulders where his Zero-G thrusters are located. His helmet now has a slit view design to protect his visored face as well.
  • One of the things that the hardware jump allows is an overhaul to the game's lighting effects. While there was some element of this in the original, the Ishimura is much darker than it was in 2008.
• Artistic License – Chemistry: As with the original 2008 game, the Flamethrower is also not usable in a vacuum in the remake, despite hydrazine being hypergolic, meaning that it's used alongside a separate oxidizer chemical during the burning process, which allows it to function in a vacuum or other non-oxygenated environments. Weirdly enough, the sequels actually got this correct, as was the case with Dead Space 2, and the flamethrower equivalent in 3.
  • Averted in regards to the bomb Isaac makes in the Medical Wing - here, instead of thermite (which would in actuality just burn down to the floor), he uses hydrazine fuel. Also, instead of just standing there unharmed when it goes off, he's not allowed to detonate it unless he takes cover behind a security booth with reinforced windows first.
• Artistic License – Engineering: Losing life support in a section of the Ishimura leads to a near-instant loss of atmosphere down to hard vacuum. In reality, assuming no exterior walls were breached, this would merely result in the atmosphere no longer being regenerated by the system, so it would remain breathable for quite some time. Depending on the size of the room, you might well have several hours or even days of air left before carbon dioxide and oxygen saturation approached critical levels.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: When first arriving aboard Ishimura, Hammond points his gun in Daniels's direction as they walk abreast of one other. That weapon should either be facing upwards or downwards, and definitely not be pointed at someone. Strangely, Chen does hold his rifle correctly.
• Ascended Extra:
  • The remake upgrades Elizabeth Cross from a generic crewmember and basically Jacob Temple's equivalent of Nicole in the original game to a major supporting character. The remade version of Cross initially plays a key role in helping Isaac defeat the Leviathan by giving him instructions throughout the Hydroponics deck instead of the player having to figure everything out on their own, and at the eleventh hour was revealed to be the "Nicole" whom Isaac kept running into on the Ishimura, with the Red Marker altering both of their minds to seeing the other person as their own loved ones.
  • Corporal Chen also went from a Red Shirt who died in the first ten minutes of the game to a recurring threat in the form of a unique Slasher, who's partly responsible for the loss of the USM Valor and Hammond's death in the remake.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Aside from the classic series-wide implementations of this trope, this remake has an original case. Eagle-eyed players will notice a glowing blue spot on the chests of Twitchers; this is their Stasis module. Hitting it will not only strip the Twitcher of its Bullet Time abilities, but also cause a burst of Stasis energy that can freeze nearby Necromorphs.
• Backtracking: The much more open nature of the Ishimura means you'll be doing a lot of this, far more so than in the original game. Most areas are revisited at least once over the course of the story, but you'll also need to return to more out-of-the-way locations on your own volition once you have sufficient clearance to enter locked rooms you couldn't access the first time around. Most of these rooms contain schematics or weapon components necessary to ensure your continued survival, usually along with a log or two and a whole bunch of resources. You can finish the game without all this stuff, but it isn't recommended.
• Balance Buff: Some of the more underwhelming weapons in the original received buffs in the remake.
  • The Flamethrower was by far the biggest recipient of buffs, owing to its status as being by far the worst weapon. It does much more damage, is significantly more ammo efficient (though its maximum ammo capacity can only be upgraded by 5 units of fuel per node), and its secondary fire is excellent for its high AOE/Area Denial damage. What's more, the new "peeling" system for enemy damage makes it a great tool for softening enemies up before dismembering them with one of Isaac's many cutting weapons. The one mark remaining against it is its inability to be used in a vacuum, but that's a minor grievance in the grand scheme of things.
  • The Ripper and the Force Gun's originally mediocre damage output was buffed for both weapons and both received reworked secondaries that are much more useful. Launched Ripper blades now ricochet while the Force Gun fires a singularity that draws in enemies.
  • The Pulse Rifle's alternate fire in the original game had it firing rounds in a radial pattern, which, in theory, gave the player some breathing room. While cool, it was barely ever usable. The remake's version replaces it with a far more practical proximity mine/grenade launcher hybrid.
  • While not a traditional weapon, Kinesis got this treatment, as well. Kinesis is now far, far more responsive and snappy in combat situations, and the environments have been littered with objects for players to use, such as pipes, poles, Stasis tanks, fire extinguishers, fan blades, and so on. In addition to this, Dead Space 2's use of impaling Necromorphs to walls has been implemented here. All of this makes Kinesis not just a viable part of the combat, but downright essential for preserving ammo and dealing damage effectively.
• Black Dude Dies First: Subverted. While players of the 2008 game might be led to believe that the now-African-American Corporal Johnston would be the first to go like in the original, it's actually Corporal Chen who gets killed during the initial quarantine, while his co-pilot would die later on when the Kellion explodes.
• Bittersweet Ending: Even more so than in the original due to Isaac’s greater characterization. Isaac stops the Necromorph outbreak by killing the Hive Mind and leaving the Red Marker to be destroyed when a large chunk of Aegis VII falls back down to the planet. This comes at the cost of Isaac being the Sole Survivor of the game’s cast, finding out Nicole died before he even arrived, and losing his sanity. Oh and he can’t even enjoy his victory since anyone who has played Dead Space 2 knows what happens to him shortly after the ending.
• Blackout Basement: Many areas of the Ishimura have been given this treatment in the remake, such as the Engineering deck's machine shop, with the only sources of persistent lighting being the small signage on the walls and doors, as well as Isaac's flashlight when he's aiming his gun. Certain power panels will also create this effect by forcing the player to reroute power away from the lighting system in order to unseal a door, thus forcing them to navigate the following segment in total darkness.
• Blaming the Tools: When completely empty of ammunition and trying to fire an empty weapon, Isaac will curse the CEC for apparently having shoddy equipment.
• Bloodier and Gorier:
  • The original game is known for being one of the most gruesome games ever made, and yet this remake takes things up to eleven. It says something about just how violent this game is that even the dev diaries have content warnings about how graphic they are.
  • There is a new system in place called "Peeling". This system makes it possible for you to tear away layers of skin, muscle, and fat from the bones of a necromorph, exposing the inner organs and bones within and requiring more precision for successful dismemberment. This system is so detailed that it is possible to actually slice a Necromorph's limb off, but have it still dangling uselessly by a piece of skin tissue that was not fully cut (there is even an achievement for ripping this dangling limb off with Kinesis). This system also allows for fire to realistically melt and char skin to a blackened crisp should one use their Flamethrower on them.
  • To top off all of this insane carnage, blood decals are now far, far, far more detailed than they were in the original game, splattering all across the walls and floors and even onto Isaac himself. There is even a new system that creates dynamic blood pools on the ground, akin to the kind seen in The Last of Us Part II.
• Body Horror: The Dead Space series is known for this kind of thing, so it's natural that this would be prevalent. With the updated graphics, the Necromorphs have been given much more detail into what the mutations did to their bodies, with open sores and oozing wounds seen across their models. And that's before they're shot at, as the remake further kicks it up a notch with the "Peeling" system, where damage done to the body of Necromorphs will cause tissue to visibly deteriorate, layer by layer, before literally stripping right off the bone, resulting in carnage that's significantly Bloodier and Gorier than the original.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Instead of killing Isaac after trapping him via a Stasis module, Dr. Mercer leaves the room and lets the Hunter loose. He learns from this mistake, as he later decides to shoot Temple in the head after freezing the latter with Stasis. Isaac can't stop him, as the window he sees this through is impenetrable, and he's only able to follow after Mercer when the Hunter comes after him again.
• Bragging Rights Reward: As is the norm for the series, beating the game on its hardest difficulty setting unlocks several exclusive rewards, such as the Burnished skin for Isaac's suit, and, the Hand Cannon foam finger from Dead Space 2. If you've beaten Impossible mode, you clearly aren't going to need the foam finger and its ridiculous firepower. It's only there if you feel like trivializing the game on subsequent runs.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Averted. It only bears mentioning here because, unlike every other mainline entry in the series, this game features absolutely no microtransactions whatsoever. While there are some additional suits you can get by getting the collector's edition, none of them provide any sort of stat bonuses and are purely cosmetic.
• Bring It: Isaac screams at the Hive Mind after Kendra's death and makes it clear he's completely run out of patience after dealing with the Necromorphs for this long.
  Isaac: Come on then! Cause this is all I got left!
• Call-Forward:
  • The store description for the Sanctified RIG skin makes a cheeky nod to the Brethren Moons introduced in 3, but also masking it as if it's an actual part of Unitologist scripture.
    Give yourself to the Marker, be armored in its words, and make the brethren whole again.
  • Isaac and Nicole's call from the beginning of Dead Space 2 can be found as an audio log.
  • During the section in which you must defend Nicole, her and Isaac promise to meet up again. She says, "Cross my heart". In Dead Space 2, "Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in your eye" is a prominent recurring phrase.
  • When Dr. Mercer injects Brant Harris with necromorph tissue in order to turn him into the Hunter, Harris says this which is referencing the Brethren Moons Madness Mantra in Dead Space 3's Awakened DLC.
    Brant Harris: Oh god I can see the Marker's codes! It's been trying to show me... they are hungry. They are coming. They will make us whole.
  • An entry log reveals Jacob Danik, the Big Bad Wannabe of Dead Space 3, signed off on Isaac's mother's will, and is heavily implied to have influenced her murder-suicide.
  • The altered conditions under which you get Captain Mathius' RIG in this game by trying to get it off of his body before an Infector jumps down from the ceiling and infects the corpse, causing it to graphically transform into a Slasher right in Isaac's face calls to mind the opening scene with Franco in Dead Space 2. At least Mathius' face didn't avulse off of his skull.
  • When told by Hammond to handle the USM Valor's nuclear warhead, Isaac tells him that he is not a "nuclear" engineer, much like how in Dead Space 3 he often tells John Carver he specializes in spaceships, not whatever they are facing at the time.
  • When Daniels informs Isaac about the USM Valor looking for their distress beacon, Isaac wonders why a military ship like that was out there before Daniels said she didn't know and would even take rescue from a magpie. Later, a crew of magpies are responsible for retrieving the USG Ishimura following the events of the game in the novel "Dead Space: Salvage".
  • Cross tells Isaac that fighting the Leviathan head-on is a bad idea but the latter proceeds anyway since he, in his own words, is out of good ideas. In Dead Space 2, he has a similar exchange with Ellie.
  • Isaac's above-mentioned Bring It line against the Hive Mind is similar to lines he has against the final bosses of Dead Space 2 and 3.
• The Cavalry: The Valor was supposed to be this for Kendra, but the infected Chen being brought aboard allowed the infection to rapidly take hold of the ship and bring it down before it could fulfill its purpose.
• Central Theme: The inability to accept death or natural mortality, and the tragic consequences that result from this.
  • Unitology as a religion was born from the desire to conquer mortality, aiming to create a future where all humanity is reborn via Convergence into a divine, immortal form.
  • Human civilization is overpopulated and entering a decline due to a critical lack of resources. Not only did this drive EarthGov to create the Red Marker in the first place, it is the reasoning behind the Ishimura's existence; she cracks open and "kills" planets to extract ore. A brochure found in-game suggests that this has the potential to wipe out entire solar systems from gravity disruptions. The obsessive desire for resources led CEC to start an illegal mining colony on Aegis IV and unearth the Marker.
  • Kyne notes that it is Mercer's fear of death that drives him to force the Convergence and create immortal beings like the Hunter.
  • Hammond is haunted by Chen's death throughout the entire game, making him passive and less than effective as a leader. He is ultimately killed as his Marker-induced madness has him hallucinate that Chen is still alive and savable, yet in his last moments he finally comes to terms with it and is able to throw Chen into the singularity core.
  • Kyne, Cross, and Isaac are all unable to process the deaths of their loved ones, making them easy prey for the Marker's manipulations.
• Chainsaw Good: In the Engineering Deck, Isaac can find the RC-DS Remote Control Disc Ripper, or Ripper for short. It is a small handheld gravity tether which can control and constantly rotate a circular sawblade in front of Isaac, dealing heavy damage in a cost-efficient manner at short range. The Ripper's secondary fire launches the sawblade, dealing heavy damage at range at the cost of losing the sawblade.
• Checkpoint Starvation: The whole point of the now-much harder "Impossible" difficulty. While the combat difficulty is the same as on Hard, autosaves have been entirely disabled, and the game gives you one manual save slot (which you can save over repeatedly; it is not one save that you have to be selective with) for your entire run. Dying on Impossible means starting over from scratch, or converting your save file to Hard mode and continuing it as you would on that difficulty with the usual accommodations being enabled again.
• Church of Happyology: The Church of Unitology is an alien-worshiping religion that demands its followers donate large sums of money in order to advance through the religion and learn the full extent of its beliefs while screwing with their mental health and personal lives.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Just like in Dead Space 2, mashing the stomp button for long enough will result in Isaac letting loose for as long as the player cares to keep hitting the button. As always, it's a great way to release the tension after a particularly harrowing moment.
• Combat Pragmatist: Isaac is not using traditional weaponry to survive, he is using repurposed mining and engineering equipment, with only one actual military-grade weapon present among his arsenal. Likewise, Jacob Temple and his engineering staff also got the same idea this time around, with Line Gun laser traps being set at various points down in the Mining Deck, and Temple himself wielding a modified Force Gun as his weapon of choice.
• Composite Character:
  • Elizabeth Cross was just Jacob's girlfriend in the original game, essentially someone he talked about wanting to find in his logs, but didn't play much of a role beyond him finding her and then she gets killed offscreen. In the remake Cross outlives him, and the "Nicole" Isaac has been interacting with all along was actually her, but the Red Marker messed with his mind so Isaac sees her as Nicole. Interestingly this also happens with Isaac from her point of view, as she sees him as Jacob.
  • In a case of composite weapon, the remake's Contact Beam has its usual single hit beam, and it has a new firing mode, the replaces the single hit beam as the primary one (The single hit is still there but it's secondary and [[Nerf consumes 3 ammo instead of just one]] where it shoots a powerful multi hitting energy beam that does damage for a few seconds and it quickly kills Necromorphs. This alternate firing mode is basically the Core Extractor from Dead Space Mobile.
• Content Warnings: A new accessibility option will give warnings to players who may be sensitive to some of the more intense scenes of the game, such as the scenes with self-inflicted wounds, suicides, and other disturbing content. The player can take this a step further and fully censor these things if it's truly too much for them to see, as well.
• Continuity Nod: The game contains numerous references to Dead Space: Downfall and Dead Space: Extraction, with audio logs calling for help from Ishimura Security Chief Vincent and Captain Mathius referencing Warren Eckhardt's mission and the vital role Eckhardt played in seeding the Ishimura crew with Unitologists. Naturally, this heavily spoils the twist of Extraction that Eckhardt was a Unitologist mole.
• Corrupt Church: Unitology. In logs that can be found throughout the game the religion is described as a cult of personality that took on a life of its own after the death of its first adherent, who discovered the first Marker and accused EarthGov of covering it up. Over time the religion grew to become mainstream, but still maintained its cult hierarchy so that only the most elevated members knew its true purpose. The corruption comes into play with the fact that the cult grants access to its higher tiers based solely on how much money and power its members grant it - meaning the ones at the top are the CEOs of large corporations, highly ranked officers and government officials, and wealthy financiers.
• Couldn't Find a Pen: Just like in the original, when you obtain the Plasma Cutter, you also stumble upon the infamous message in blood that tells you the most effective way to deal with Necromorphs. Complete with Bloody Handprint.
  CUT OFF
  THEIR LIMBS
• Covered in Gunge: Isaac can and will be absolutely coated in blood and gore after a particularly bloody fight. This is best shown in the first chapter where he reaches an elevator and a Necromorph tries to attack him, only to be abruptly diced by the doors and drenching him in the monster's viscera. Some of his pre-order bonus suits are literally covered from head to toe in gore as well, such as the aptly-named Bloodied RIG, or the Infested if you're also up for some Body Horror.
• Creepy Souvenir: One of the pre-order bonus suits is the Lone Survivor, which is festooned with parts taken from slain Necromorphs as some kind of grim Battle Trophy, notably with two severed hands grafted onto the helmet as if they're some sort of antlers.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Even for a Dead Space game, there are a couple of doozies in here.
  • A text log mentions that the humans who ended up transformed into the toxin-breathing "Wheezers" vomited up their own lungs during the mutation process.
  • There's a broken store kiosk on the mining deck that's liberally caked in blood and tissue. If you pursue the "Voluntary Malpractice" side mission, you can find out what happened: Mercer's test subject Harris threw an unnamed miner into the kiosk and engaged the same armor system that Isaac uses to upgrade his suit. The result got messy.
  • And of course, the numerous ways Isaac himself can get killed, from simply being torn to pieces to getting his throat bitten out to being impaled then diced apart.
• Cutscene Incompetence: Averted. In cutscenes where Isaac is in immediate danger, he's usually quick to aim his weapon or find a solution to the problem he's in. For example, when Isaac is pinned beneath the newly-transformed corpse in the morgue, unable to get to his weapon, he grabs a nearby fire extinguisher with kinesis and slams it into the Necromorph to give himself time to grab his weapon.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The default control scheme is very different compared to the original game. Sprinting is no longer bound to a shoulder button, it's instead done by clicking in the left stick. Melee and stomping have had their buttons inverted; stomping is done with the trigger and punching with the bumper. Reloading is now bound to X or the Square button rather than A or the Cross button. That said, there is a control scheme available that recreates the original game's, right down to needing to aim in order to reload.
• Death by Adaptation: Both of Isaac's parents were given this treatment. Whereas Poul Clarke might have died while on an off-world shipbuilding assignment in the original canon, and Octavia was simply a devout Unitologist who spent all of her son's college tuition on church tithing, the remake has the latter killing the former before offing herself as well in an act of murder-suicide, which further exacerbates Isaac's hatred for the religion.
• Deadpan Snarker: Compared to the original game where he was a Heroic Mime who at worst grunted in pain, Isaac in the remake tends to come off as this as the situation turns from bad to worse.
  Dr. Cross: The Leviathan has a 10 kiloton mass. Do you really need me to tell you this is a bad idea?
  Isaac: Well, I'm all out of good ideas, so guess what's left.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • If Isaac is wounded or exhausted when dialogue is triggered, his lines will be spoken either while he is out of breath, or through gritted teeth as he cringes in pain.
  • If the player has finished the Hunter's sidequest, then Isaac will have unique dialogue upon finishing it off.
  Isaac: You're done, Harris. He can't hurt you anymore.
  • Similarly, if you finish Nicole's sidequest, Isaac has unique dialogue when speaking with her in the Flight Control room about how he's seen what she's been through.
  • On New Game+, if you've collected all 12 Marker Fragments and triggered the conditions for the alternate ending, much of Isaac's dialogue changes throughout Chapter 12. He's also significantly less disoriented by standing next to the Marker, which is reflected in-game by the visual filter being much less jarring.
• Diegetic Interface: There is no traditional HUD in this game, keeping with series tradition. Every aspect of a HUD is instead presented either as something built into someone's outfit, or is part of the game world as a hologram. For example, Isaac's health bar is the light running down his spine, his Stasis counter is next to it, and his ammo count for his weapon is shown when he aims as a holographic projection from the weapon itself. The inventory screen, map, waypoint locator, video calls, and more are all presented in the game's world, all In-Universe. The only things that aren't diegetic are subtitles if turned on and the pause menu.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation:
  • In the original Dead Space, Hammond died by an enhanced brute pulling his leg off then pummeling him into pulp. In the remake, he's mortally wounded by the infected Chen he sent out in an escape pod earlier, and kills both of them by tackling his former crewmate into the USM Valor's singularity core containment field and vaporizing them instantly.
  • Unlike her original counterpart, Corporal Johnston is killed in an explosion when the Kellion was destroyed by Necromorphs.
  • Instead of offering himself up to an Infector, Dr. Mercer's last scene has him approaching the Marker and begging it to unleash Convergence. Instead, a Necromorph tentacle emerges from the lower decks and coils around both him and the Marker, dragging him into the abyss as he's left screaming about how this wasn't what he was promised.
• Dissonant Serenity: As in the original, Nicole is extremely calm given the dangers on the ship, even in situations when she's in danger of being attacked or being held at gunpoint by Kendra in the final chapter. This is because "Nicole" is actually Elizabeth Cross, who has been lulled by the Marker into believing Isaac is Jacob Temple.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Unitology cult grew its influence by appealing to the wealthy and the powerful with promises of secret knowledge pertaining to the Markers, and once one has become a member they find it nearly impossible to leave. It's basically Scientology on steroids.
• Downer Ending: Collecting all of the Marker Pieces in New Game Plus leads to Isaac falling completely under its control and setting out to create more Markers. At least Isaac is happy and reunited with Nicole, even if she only exists as a figment of his imagination.
• Dull Surprise: Some of the characters don't have as severe of a reaction as one might expect, even when everything is going to hell around them and you would expect them to be freaked out. Johnston is a perfect example. Even though her ankle is broken when the Kellion crashes, she makes no sound - the other characters only find out when she says so, as calmly as if she were reading a paper. Should Isaac stick around and talk to her before leaving the Kellion, she'll say that she's been through worse, providing a bit of an explanation.
• Dwindling Party: People start dropping in the first fifteen minutes. and it only gets worse from there. Chen gets murdered first by a Necromorph, then Johnston when she gets caught up in the USG Kellion exploding when it has a core meltdown. Hammond gets killed by Necromorph Chen but makes it a Mutual Kill. Jacob Temple is murdered by Challus Mercer, who is in turn crushed to death by a necromorph tentacle. Kendra murders Doctor Kyne and Elizabeth Cross and is then killed by the Hive Mind. Nicole committed suicide before the game began, and in the end, Isaac is the only one left.
• Dynamic Difficulty: An "Intensity system" is in place that makes sure that even though you can backtrack through most of the Ishimura, it's never completely emptied; more Necromorphs can spawn in revisited locations, and even to a randomized and dynamic degree, so you're always acquiring and then expending resources as you go. The harder the chosen difficulty, the more nasty the spawns inherently get, too. This also spreads to general playthroughs, as resources, enemies and even certain elements of the environment change per run.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: The New Game Plus mode includes collectible Marker Fragments hidden across the Ishimura. By collecting them all, a new alternate, more terrifying ending is reached: rather than being attacked by a hallucinatory Nicole, Isaac happily chats with her, before saying that he has to "build something", showing that he's fallen under the sway of the Marker and its compulsion to spread its signal.
• Easter Egg:
  • In the teaser trailer, the light on the Ishimura is flashing Morse code that spells out "MAKE US WHOLE".
  • The remake retains an infamous Easter Egg from the original game: NICOLE IS DEAD.
  • In the break room, a circle can be found in front of the Marker video screen. Within it, there is a sequence of footprints and handprints, each footprint being a stomp, a handprint being a punch. Doing this sequence will reveal a hidden text log about the Marker that contains references to Dead Space lore. Other codes can be found across the Ishimura as well, which gives the player two Power Nodes and an audio log of Ishimura crew members singing a shanty about how the Kellion team will come and save them. Despite the fact they likely had no way of knowing that they were coming.
• Effortless Achievement: You unlock an achievement simply by putting any 25 items in your storage. And if you purchased the Deluxe Edition, almost half of these are already covered by the various RIG skins that come with it.
• Enemy Civil War: The remake goes into more detail about the Red Marker and the Hive Mind working at cross purposes:
  • The Hive Mind is simply trying to kill and assimilate every living being it comes across indiscriminately. Its motivations are not explained, so it's unknown if it's just following its 'programming,' or attempting to force its transformation into a Brother Moon through sheer biomass accumulation, or some other reason.
  • The Red Marker, on the other hand, has realized that, with its original makers absent for one reason or another, it triggering a Convergence event is impossible, and so is instead focusing on corrupting one or more of the surviving humans into an Architect and allowing them to escape to build more Markers.
  • This leads to the Red Marker using hallucinations to control its pawns into protecting each other from the necromorphs and exposing themselves to the Marker signal, eventually getting them to take it to the surface of Aegis VII and replace it on its pedestal, so it can exert direct control over the Hive Mind and get them off the planet safely. Meanwhile, the Hive Mind is trying to kill the survivors with the necromorphs and later escalates to working directly against the Red Marker, trying to keep the humans from it and stop them from placing it on its pedestal.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: The remake ends the same way the original did: Isaac is the only member of the cast to make it out alive. In addition, the USS Valor appears to go down with all hands, and only one member of the Ishimura's crew of 1330+ makes it off the ship alive. (Possibly two, if Extraction is still canon in the remake's continuity.)
• Energy Weapon:
  • The Plasma Cutter is Isaac's first and primary weapon against the Necromorphs. It projects a linear burst of plasma either vertically or horizontally, which makes it easier for Isaac to cut off Necromorph limbs.
  • The IM-822 Handheld Ore Cutter Line Gun, or Line Gun for short, is a heavy-duty version of the Plasma Cutter which is more powerful and fires a large linear burst of plasma but has a slower fire rate. The Line Gun is more unwieldy but has the ability to cut through several limbs with one shot, making it great at dealing with waves of Necromorphs. Moreover, its secondary fire can launch a mine, making the weapon also useful during siege sections to guard Isaac's flanks.
  • The C99 Supercollider Contact Beam is a heavy engineering tool that delivers a continuous high damage energy beam, which is great against the tougher enemies and in conjunction with a stasis charge. Its secondary fire shoots a huge kinetic blasts dealing heavy damage in front of Isaac, but it needs to be charged.
• Eye Scream
  • Just like the original game, Captain Benjamin Mathius was already dead by the time the game began, having been impaled through the eye by a syringe that pushed into his brain.
  • One of the many whispers that can be heard throughout the game says, "Self-inflicted ocular injury."
  • During the Hunter's sidequest, Mercer uses a rivet gun to inject some infected tissue into Harris's brain through his eye.
• Facial Horror: Every single Necromorph has a big case of this. More often than not, their faces have had their jaws somehow removed or distended, their eyes are blank, and their skin is covered in bloody wounds and heavily discolored due to palor mortis. Special mention goes to the Hunter, who even has some disgusting fleshy tentacles protruding from out of where his missing lower jaw should be.
  • The Peeling system allows for this to be done to just about every single Necromorph and corpse, as well. You're able to blow apart their faces until only a skull is staring back, and many bodies have already had their faces damaged. Special mention goes to a particular survivor who can be found smashing his face against a wall, over and over again, until he finally keels over and reveals that his face is gone.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: The PFM-100 Hydrazine Torch Flamethrower is a repurposed flamethrower originally use to defrost asteroids but which Isaac uses to burn Necromorphs on the Ishimura. It deals fire damage in a cone in front of him, making it ideal against swarms of lesser enemies although it is weaker than the Plasma Cutter.
• Fire Keeps It Dead: As told in a text log found on the Mining Deck, some of the survivors holding out there would use the nearby smelters to cremate any infected they put down, just to be certain that they're gone for good. This is also how the Hunter is finally put down for good, being roasted in the fire of the Executive Shuttle's thrusters until only cinders are left.
• Foreshadowing:
  • To Nicole being Dead All Along and part of a Marker-induced hallucination:
    • Just like in the original game, the first letter of every chapter's title spells out NICOLEISDEAD.
    • When Isaac informs Kendra that Nicole (or rather, Elizabeth Cross being portrayed in Isaac's Marker-corrupted mind as Nicole) helped him retrieve the SOS beacon in Chapter 7, Kendra noticeably hesitates before remarking Nicole's a trooper. To drive the point home, a nearby security recording has a confused Elizabeth Cross remarking that the ship is getting to Isaac.
    • During your first visit to the Medical Deck, you can find Nicole's secret room which she used to help deprogram Unitologists aboard the ship. Inside the room is a uncovered needle lying in a dish next to a chair, foreshadowing this is the room Nicole sent her final message to Isaac from, and its ending.
    • The hallucinatory Nicole speaks in much more religious terms than the real Nicole shown in audiovisual logs, especially towards the Marker.
    • While walking to the Mess Hall on the Crew Deck, Isaac starts hallucinating the voices of the deceased Johnston and Chen speaking to him. In the Mess Hall proper, the corpses inside repeat lines from Nicole's final message.
    • The sidequest that involves tracking Nicole's trail across the Ishimura ends with the computer stating that no further RIG activity was found.
    • In chapter 12, when taken hostage by Kendra just before The Reveal, "Nicole's" facial expression and body language are unnaturally serene for someone being held with a gun to her head.
  • During the flight in the intro, Isaac talks to Kendra about his long-distance relationship with Nicole. He highlights how he and she talk to each other primarily over video calls, which can be difficult and can lead to a lot of anxiety over "saying the right thing". This foreshadows the endgame reveal that Isaac and Nicole has a seriously bad falling out over the murder-suicide of Isaac's parents, wherein Isaac said "the wrong thing" by blaming Nicole for his trauma. Much of his desire to find Nicole is to not only apologize for the way he acted, but out of desperation that their awful last call won't be the last time he talks to her.
• Found Footage: As part of the Alternate Reality Game The Bench, one of the links uncovered lead to an unlisted video featuring security footage of the Ishimura with Marker symbols appearing throughout as Freeze Frame Bonuses.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: During Chapter 10, Isaac's RIG will be subject to Interface Screw, and an objective will be added that's written in Marker glyphs for a split second. If you go to check your objective afterward, it will be written normally. If you're curious, the glyphs spell out "TURN IT OFF".
• Fun with Acronyms: The chapter titles still spell out "NICOLE IS DEAD".
• Game-Breaking Bug: As relatively polished as it is, the remake does have several hiccups that range from mildly funny (e.g. the Hunter getting stuck in things) to completely halting progress for many players, with the most prominent being failure to load important map objects like power cells and keycards that are needed to advance, or that a power socket will just straight up eat the cell when trying to eject one, resulting in a softlock. While the items can sometimes be forced to spawn by reloading the map, or failing that the whole chapter, several instances have proven to be more stubborn than most, such as the infirmary in Chapter 5, or the gravity tether chamber in Chapter 12, doubly so if this happens on an Impossible mode file, as there is simply no option to reload from any further point than the nearest save.
  • Speaking of the Hunter, one particularly aggravating bug that affects many players is it getting stuck in a door on the way to Cryogenics. You can open the door, and even shoot, punch, and stomp him as much as you like, but not only will he not budge, he won't even have his limbs be severed. He's effectively invincible. He ends up completely softlocking your playthrough. Testing has shown that the bug is triggered by using Stasis on the Hunter in the room you encounter it first, so it can be avoided by either luring it out of that room before freezing it, or not using Stasis at all.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Unlike the original game, being near the Marker has an effect on both Isaac and the Necromorphs with the former getting distorted vision and the latter being slowed down.
  • Aiming weapons at alive humans will cause the reticle to turn from blue to green, indicating Isaac's refusal to attack human targets.
  • Scenes where Isaac speaks to another character (either in person or via comms) will alter Isaac's tone of voice depending on his health status. Full health (blue) has him talking normally. Half health (yellow) makes him sound tired. Critical (red) has him sound like he's in pain and straining to stay focused.
  • The stores and upgrade benches aboard the Ishimura are all owned and operated by the CEC, the company that owns and operates the ship itself. Consequently, Chapter 9 is devoid of either because the USM Valor isn't a CEC ship, making it impossible to restock or upgrade gear until you're back on the Ishimura.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • The spinal health meters of many NPCs Isaac can encounter do not lower to reflect their level of injury, such as the dying security officer in front of Medical in Chapter 2, or the Almost Dead Guy engineer en route to the Ishimura's engine controls in Chapter 3. Despite these characters being horribly wounded and are visibly dying, their health indicators remain full, and simply emptying the moment they actually expire.
  • Captain Mathius' RIG somehow only has enough clearance to open level 2 locks, despite him being the highest ranking officer aboard the Ishimura. The Chief Mining Supervisor has a higher access than him, having level 3 credentials.
    • It's not Mathius' RIG itself that has a level 2 clearance, it's the authorization Hammond got from using it that gives level 2 credentials, as he mentions this a few times, and a file in the Captain's room explains it more clearly that it's just the clearance Mathius gave to Eckhardt. Regardless there's still issues with this, as no in-universe reason is given for why Hammond didn't get Mathius' clearance level, even with Mathius being dead, his RIG was still useable.
  • The Force Gun is a mining tool designed to blast rock with all the power and more of conventional explosives, as shown through its ability to instantly blast the flesh off of everything, living and (un)dead a meter in front of it. Which makes it all the more strange when despite Jacob Temple having Mercer at point blank range with his own Force Gun, Mercer simply sidesteps the blast and gets away with a sore shoulder instead of immediately being reduced to paste. That said, it could be justified due to how Mercer took away some of the components for Temple's Force Gun, which could've weakened it enough for him to survive it.
  • The in-game cutscenes that have Isaac putting his weapon away are always treated as if he's using the Plasma Cutter, with its model being shown clipped to his belt despite him holstering a different gun beforehand. The holstering animation is the same regardless of if Isaac was holding a small Plasma Cutter, or the massive Contact Beam, even if he doesn't actually have the former in his inventory at all.
  • The USM Valor is a military ship that doesn't participate in mining operations, yet it is carrying a fair amount of energy and ammunition for specialized mining gear in lockers and cabinets. That said, the majority of ammo drops will be for the army-issue pulse rifle regardless of what you're packing, strongly encouraging the use of the pulse rifle by Isaac himself.
  • Save stations are supposed to represent direct links between employee RIGs and CEC databanks meant to keep track of each employee's status and whereabouts. Unlike stores and upgrade benches, these stations can be found aboard the USM Valor despite that vessel not being under CEC jurisdiction.
• The Ghost:
  • The infamous Brethren Moons, the Greater-Scope Villain of the entire series introduced in 3, are directly alluded to several times, but they make no physical appearance. It remains to be seen if they'll play a part in this continuity.
  • Several characters from the spin-off entries of the series, such as Nathan McNeil, Gabe Weller, Lexine Murdoch, and Warren Eckhardt from Dead Space: Extraction, and Alissa Vincent from Dead Space: Downfall, are mentioned in audio and text logs, but not seen.
• Gorn: Woah.
  • As mentioned above under An Arm and a Leg, the only way to kill Necromorphs is to cut off their appendages. Naturally, this leads to a lot of bloody carnage right off the bat even before getting into the specifics of the bloody details.
  • The Peeling system allows for every single enemy Necromoph, as well as every long-dead corpse you find throughout the Ishimura, to be ripped apart, burned to a crisp, skinned, have their muscles torn away, and so on and so forth until only the skeleton remains.
  • Dead bodies and bloodstains are everywhere all across the Ishimura. Frequently, said bodies have long since been mutilated.
  • The Necromorphs themselves are basically defined by this trope. They're dead corpses that have been mangled until they've been distorted into killing machines, with bodily organs being repurposed into deadly weaponry. Bones are made into blades, intestines become tentacles or second arms, muscles are ripped apart and reconfigured, jaws are pulled apart to be turned into mandibles, and so on and so forth. Every single Necromorph is a shining example of gorn.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Much like in 2, you can pluck the blades off of dead Necromorphs and fling them at living ones, dealing a lot of damage and even pinning them to the walls if done at low health.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • Unlocking the Backbreaker achievement requires killing ten enemies with Isaac's mighty boot of DOOM. It fails to mention that this actually means one-shotting these enemies by stomping on them, rather than finishing off wounded ones with your boot, and only a few specific enemy types count (e.g. Pods, Swarmers). This can lead to a lot of unnecessary damage taken by players who tried to unlock it by stomping on kneecapped Slashers or worse.
  • With most weapon upgrades now being locked behind special modules you must find in the game world, maxing out your gear can be a bit of a pain since most of these upgrades require a lot of backtracking, and figuring out where to even look for them can be anything but trivial, despite the game marking clearance-locked doors on the map when you pass them the first time. About a third of these upgrades require Master Clearance, which adds another moderately obscure Fetch Quest on top of this one.
  • The peeling system itself. The skin and muscles being damaged isn't just a visual indicator of how damaged that specific area of a necromorph's body is, it's a system where necromorphs will only be dismembered once the skin and muscles are gone, and the Prototype Stasis, and weapons like Flamethrower, Force Gun, are much better at peeling off the skin and muscles than other weapons. Realizing that such a system even exists enhances the utility of other weapons, but most noticeably Pulse Rifle, which is bad at peeling off skin and muscles but if you do it with another weapon then use Pulse Rifle it'll become extremely ammo efficient since by that point it'll easily cut off the necromorph's limbs, and doing that is ammo efficient with any weapon. Despite having such a different system when compared to previous games, the producers only talked about this system before the game's release, but the game itself never even implies its existence, despite still having multiple dialogues and files talking about how important dismemberment is, but never the peeling system, which, while not as important is still a huge deal.
• Hammerspace: Just like in the original version, all of Isaac's equipped weapons are not shown on his person, but simply materialize into his hands when selected. Becomes even more noticeable with the Plasma Cutter, which is always shown stowed onto his belt in cutscenes, whereupon it immediately vanishes into thin air and reappears when the player can control Isaac again.
• Heroic Resolve: Implied by the store description for the Infested RIG, where it's stated that not even death and his body being overtaken by the Corruption is enough to stop Isaac from finding Nicole. Subverted in actual gameplay if Isaac does run out of health, however.
• High-Voltage Death: Somewhat downplayed. The broken gravity panels of the original are replaced with exposed electrical wiring here, which launch highly damaging electric arcs between the floor and ceiling. It's not an instant kill if you step on them, but it will drain your health very quickly if you linger, encouraging you to keep off. Necromorphs are also vulnerable to being zapped to death, with the plus of being momentarily stopped, and this time they do risk dying by walking onto the wiring and electrocuting themselves, letting you save on ammo.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • The corrupted Stasis units absorbed into the Twitchers' bodies give them the ability to move at inhuman speeds, but are also highly unstable, such that dealing enough damage to them will cause a temporary malfunction that slows them down instead. In practice this has roughly the same effect as an unmodified Stasis shot.
  • Depending on its trajectory, an upgraded alt-fire Ripper blade can bounce back towards Isaac and hurt him as well. While the damage done is negligible, it does cause him to violently stagger, which can be life-threatening when surrounded by dangerous enemies or when you're already low on health.
• Idiot Ball: The moment he receives a possible transmission from Nicole informing all survivors to seek shelter at Medical, Isaac races back to the area he had visited earlier despite there are no signs of any other survivors during his previous visit. As a result, he becomes a victim of Mercer, who made the transmission to draw any survivors to their doom. Justified since Isaac was very desperate for any signs of Nicole being alive.
• Infinity -1 Sword:
  • The Contact Beam is once again the most damaging weapon in the game and can take out elite enemies even with just a couple of seconds of sustained fire. It's actually one of the earliest weapons Isaac can come across, with the only factor limiting its destructive power being the relative scarcity of ammunition during the first half of the game before the associated schematic is found.
  • The Force Gun, of all things. It's the final weapon to be found and is appropriately powerful if used right, but requires a decent amount of upgrades to reach full potential, not helped by how most of its unique upgrades are hidden behind Master Clearance locks, ensuring that by the time it's brought to full specs, the game will have almost already ended.
  • Even with the weapons rework in the remake, the Plasma Cutter is still no slouch. Not only does it inherit the fire upgrade introduced in Dead Space 2, the new Weighted Blades upgrade lets you knock down Necromorphs with just one or two melee strikes, giving you time to aim or run. The Hunter segments in particular can be trivialized by just constantly knocking it on its ass. What more, the Plasma Cutter's upgrades are easily found by progressing the story, whereas other weapons require higher security clearances and some backtracking.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Hand Cannon returns from the previous games and is still the spectacularly lethal foam finger it’s always been. You need to beat the game on Impossible to obtain it however.
• Interface Screw: As the Marker's influence gets to Isaac more and more, his RIG holograms will have their words replaced by Marker script.
• Immune to Flinching: In addition to simply being beefier, the Enhanced Necromorphs also boast very high resistance to staggering, which makes stunning them more difficult, and meleeing them a substantially riskier endeavor even with the help of Stasis.
• Ironic Nursery Tune: As with the original game, the remake uses a creepy rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star in its trailer.
• Jump Scare: Several moments do this throughout the game.
  • Pretty much every time a video comm is opened there is a very loud burst of static that sounds suspiciously like growling, which is guaranteed to startle players at least once - especially because they almost always come during tense moments.
  • The first time Isaac moves through the Medical deck he is briefly stopped by a sudden burst of steam in a utility corridor.
  • When Isaac first enters the Hydroponics deck a set of sprinklers will come online in front of him. The water spray is incredibly loud and sounds like screaming. This happens again when Isaac is exploring the gym locker room on the Crew deck.
  • At one point in Chapter 6, Issac enters what is recognizably a Drag Tentacle room. Genre Savvy players will expect it to attack you either a few steps in or on your return journey. It actually attacks you after you open the exit door on your first visit, by which point most players will have lowered their guard.
• Laser Hallway: The updated Line Gun lets the player create a downscaled one with its alt-fire, where the weapon shoots out a laser emitter that sticks to any flat surface, before deploying into three long beams that deal heavy damage to anything crossing them. This can also be witnessed in action down in the Mining deck, where the same kind of trap was set up by Jacob Temple's group to defend themselves from Necromorphs before they were forced to move on from the area. The USM Valor's infirmary also became one due to the surgical unit going haywire after the ship collided with the Ishimura.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Some of the tie-in material and spin-off games, specifically the animated film Dead Space: Downfall and the rail shooter Dead Space: Extraction, have some of their biggest twists spoiled through audio and text logs. Specifically, Alissa Vincent and her team are explicitly confirmed dead from Downfall, and Warren Eckhardt is a Unitologist that played a major role in the crisis from Extraction.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: If Isaac is idle for a while, the Marker's whispers will ask, "Isaac, are you still there?"
• Losing Your Head: Played entirely straight with the Infested RIG skin, where Isaac is revealed to be headless in the scenes where he takes his helmet off (or rather, his head is contained inside the now-removed helmet), with a bloody stump and the remainder of his lower jaw where his neck should end. Surprisingly enough, he can still talk and breathe despite having no head, and is still vulnerable to decapitation attacks during gameplay.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Naturally, plenty. Necromorphs will be reduced to a bloody pile of vaguely recognizable if given enough punishment, such as from an explosive canister or the Contact Beam's alt fire. This also extends to Isaac's death animations, such as if Isaac is electrocuted to death, where he'll violently convulse before exploding. This also happens to Hammond and the infected Chen aboard the Valor, when Hammond pulls Chen into the singularity core and reduces the two to a bloody red mess all across the walls, floor, and ceiling of its chamber.
• Made of Iron:
  • The newly introduced "Peeling" system actually makes many Necromorphs considerably sturdier in the remake, owing to the increased amount of tissue layers Isaac has to cut through before they can be put down for good. On most enemies, a given limb is considered removed only when its associated bone structure has been destroyed, so a wounded Slasher will keep going at you even if its arms have been stripped of all flesh but not fully snapped off yet, and depending on difficulty, blasting a Necromorph with the Force Gun will skeletonize it, but unless the damage dealt was fatal, it will still attempt to attack you all the same.
  • Due to the heavily altered context of its nature, the Leviathan takes a lot more punishment in the remake than it did before it finally becomes a non-issue. First, it's so heavily anchored into the Hydroponics food storage that Isaac has to pump it with enough enzyme to "dissolve a whole freighter" to try and weaken it so that Elizabeth Cross can flush it into space, which fails, and necessitates the actual boss fight to dislodge it from the bulkhead. And even then it's still not all done yet, as it then manages to latch itself onto the Ishimura's communications array for a second fight in Chapter 8, and only after being blasted to mush with Isaac and the ship's ADS cannons' combined firepower does it finally give up the ghost and drift off into space.
  • Of course, just like the original game, the Hunter is a persistent threat all throughout the journey. In addition to being able to regenerate its limbs, as to be expected, said limbs also take a lot more punishment to finally be hacked off. It's not until very, very late in the game that the Hunter is taken care of.
• Manipulative Editing: Chapter 5 begins when Kendra intercepts a transmission from Nicole informing all survivors to seek sanctuary at Medical which turns out to be a trap by Mercer. Following the sidequests will reveal that Mercer uses recordings made by Nicole to create the fake transmission. Notably, the line "Medical is a sanctuary" is taken during a conversation between her and the captain.
• The Many Deaths of You: It wouldn't be Dead Space otherwise, of course. Staying true to the original, the game features lots of ways Isaac can be gruesomely killed, but goes even further than that by making these deaths more brutal than ever before. To wit, Isaac can have his head squeezed or ripped off, be impaled multiple times, asphyxiate due to lack of oxygen, burn to death, have his limbs ripped off, get bisected at the waist, get blown into Ludicrous Gibs, and so on and so forth. Poor guy.
• Meat Moss: Just like in the original, The Corruption is a byproduct of the Necromorph infestation. Any bodies or organic material that are too damaged/small to use are converted into a fleshy growth that covers the ground, walls, and ceiling. Isaac even gets a close up with a Dead Guy on Display stuck inside it when obtaining the flamethrower, and a Premature Guardian shortly after.
• Morton's Fork: Certain objectives have been changed from the original to force the player to make difficult choices that would enhance the challenge factor of the upcoming segments, without letting the player Take a Third Option. For example, to power the Ishimura's fuel pumps in chapter 3, you may have to reroute the power away from life support or the lights, meaning that you will either be playing the section as you rapidly run out of oxygen, or you will play it only guided by your flashlight.
• Mundane Utility: One of the special upgrades for the Plasma Cutter in this game adds a damage over time effect to hitting a Necromorph. While this does do appreciable damage, many players will find that it is far more useful when the Necromorph is dead, as the persistent damage continues even after the Necromorph dies and will cause them to drop the loot that one would normally have to stomp the corpse for, saving precious seconds in a pitched battle and ensuring that you don't lose out on items from bodies de-spawning.
• Mythology Gag: Several nods to the series' other entries and lore are found through environmental details and minor moments that players may miss.
  • During the Hunter's sidequest, Mercer uses a rivet gun as a makeshift needle to inject necromorph tissue into Brant Harris's eyeball in order to help him understand the Marker's codes. In Dead Space 2, Isaac comes across a machine that serves an almost identical purpose, with a nearly identical method.
  • Several electronic posters throughout the Ishimura have nods to prominent locations through the series, such as Titan Station and the Chicxulub Crater.
  • As a reward for completing Impossible difficulty, the player is given the Hand Cannon, from Dead Space 2.

Tropes N-Z

• Nail 'Em: Mercer's weapon of choice is an industrial nailgun, with him having apparently ditched the metal spike he used in the original game for a device that makes better holes in human skulls for the Infectors to utilize.
• Nerf:
  • Large Health Packs only heal half of your health instead of being a full health restore. To compensate for this, they are more common and can even randomly drop from Necromorphs.
  • The Hand Cannon, believe it or not. While it's still a hilariously broken one-hit killing machine, its rate of fire and "bullet" size have been drastically reduced, meaning you'll have to actually aim with it somewhat instead of spamming the trigger in a Necromorph's general direction. Fortunately, it now comes with a laser pointer to aid with the necessary precision.
• New Game Plus:
  • After completing the game once, players can start a new run with all the upgrades carried over. Not only does a new run help fully upgrade all weapons, but it is the only way to unlock the Level 6 Suit, and also a new alternate ending.
  • While the Security Clearance level will reset on a New Game Plus run, the "Master Override" clearance (awarded by completing the "You Are Not Authorized" side mission) will carry over, allowing the player to get access to additional resources from Master-level containers (or unique weapon upgrades, if you didn't already locate them) in a subsequent run.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When the Kellion crew boards the Ishimura, one of the first things Kendra does is unseal the ship's vent system, which directly leads to a Necromorph breaching the room they are in and killing Chen. Later on, it becomes increasingly clear that there were actually a number of survivors still alive on the Ishimura when the Kellion landed, but Kendra's act of unsealing the vents allowed Necromorphs to breach their safe havens and kill them.
• No OSHA Compliance: Par for the course in the Dead Space universe, but the Centrifuge doesn't seem to have any consideration of safety in its design. To start, its control panel is located in the same chamber as the centrifuge itself, which, when activated opens a hatch to the outside of the ship that depressurizes the room with the operators are still inside. Exiting the chamber then requires going down an elevator and traversing a walkway that runs along the side of the chamber that the centrifuge regularly sweeps across requiring people to take cover in small alcoves along the side when the centrifuge passes near to them. Granted, there is a single pathway that doesn't require getting in harm's way, but it's blocked by Corruption and could easily be obstructed even without it. Really, a much simpler and safer solution would be to have the controls a separate room doesn't get depressurized or force people to walk through the path of the machine while it's operational.
• Non-Standard Game Over:
  • The USM Valor carries a large nuclear warhead as part of its arsenal, and the containment systems are a hair away from catastrophic failure, where if the missile is shot at or damaged by an explosive, it will detonate and vaporize Isaac instantly. Three guesses which kind of enemy will be swinging by for a chat once you're there, and the first two don't count.
  • Earlier on in Chapter 7, Isaac meets up with Nicole in the Mining Deck (actually Elizabeth Cross whom the Marker is making him see as Nicole). Shortly after this meeting, Necromorphs attack them in the next room while Nicole is trying to open the door to the workshop containing the SOS beacon. Fail to protect Nicole here and Isaac will let out a Big "NO!" as the screen fades to black and the sound of a flatline rings out before you're thrown back to your last checkpoint.
• Not His Sled: There are a few changes from the original version.
  • The remake throws a slight curveball at those who already know the original's twist of Nicole being Dead All Along, by having it be revealed that in this version, it was Ascended Extra Elizabeth Cross, being twisted to look like Nicole in Isaac's mind by the Red Marker, that he saw whenever "Nicole" physically helped him.
  • Originally, The Hunter only ever appeared in Chapters 5 and 10. Here it attacks you in Chapter 7 as well.
• Not the Intended Use:
  • The Line Gun's deployed laser emitters are meant to be used as a static defense. However, some players have figured out that you could attach the emitters to a crate or piece of furniture, and then use the Kinesis module to pick it up, giving Isaac what is essentially an infinite duration laser weapon that he can carry around.
  • This still applies in-story to every weapon except the Pulse Rifle, as they're all engineering and/or mining tools that are designed for applications that aren't eviscerating monsters.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The initial reveal teaser does not show the Necromorph in detail, only revealing their silhouette.
  • A notable example with the tram system; later in the game, using the tram to travel between decks on the Ishimura will randomly result in the tram suddenly coming to a dead stop in the middle of transit due to a power malfunction. Suddenly a loud guttural sound emanates from the roof of the tram car, suggesting something (likely the Hunter) is about to break in and attack. After a few tense panic-inducing minutes with barely any light to illuminate the darkened tram car, the power restores itself and the tram continues on to its destination.
  • Some areas have the lighting malfunctioning resulting in them being almost completely pitch black, with only your flashlight showing the way. Meaning that it'll be that much harder to anticipate whatever's lurking nearby until it's likely right on top of you and shanking you with a massive arm blade.
• Notice This: Comes in a few forms
  • Objectives and key items are marked with bright purple lights so as to make them really stand out from the scenery. Schematics and weapon parts glow a relatively bright yellow. Standard items and stuff you can weaponize with Kinesis have a far more subtle white glow that's much easier to overlook, unless the surroundings are completely dark.
  • Destructible Corruption tentacles tend to sport highly visible, pulsating yellow nodes that can be shot to blow up the entire tendril and clear the way.
• Off the Rails: Should you recover and use all twelve Marker Fragments in a New Game Plus run, the game plays out exactly as it did before... Until you hit the end of Chapter 11. Suddenly, Isaac and Nicole's dialogue is far more unhinged and ominous. Isaac is more calm and more fanatical over the Marker, and Nicole is constantly speaking about death with strange, almost child-like wonder. It all culminates in an alternate ending that has Isaac happily talking to the bloodied hallucination of Nicole as if she were completely normal, promising to build something for her as he pilots the escape shuttle away. Said shuttle is also filled to the brim with scrawlings of the Marker's codes written on the walls in blood.
• Oh, Crap!: Due to him receiving dynamic dialogue in the remake, Isaac tends to have this reaction whenever something goes catastrophically wrong, most commonly when he runs out of ammo in the middle of combat.
  Isaac: Oh no! No! Not now!
• Ominous Fog: A thick layer of fog that is almost completely impossible to see through is made by the decontamination chamber this time around, making it extremely difficult to see the Lurkers that spawn in, as well as within the morgue that can obscure the Infector within. The fog can also be randomly generated in any room that you visit, meaning that it's possible for you to enter a section that was once completely clear, only to be met with complete and utter white-out.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Defied. After learning that the USM Valor is carrying an unstable nuclear missile, Hammond sends Isaac to "handle it". Issac immediately protests he isn't a nuclear engineer. Hammond counters that "no one trained you to dismember monsters with a plasma cutter either". In any case, all you really have to do is release the clamps holding it, allowing you to safely eject it.
• The Oner: Taking a page from Dead Space 2, this remake has zero camera cuts from the moment you start the game all the way to the end credits. The only exception is when you reload a checkpoint or are killed.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Played for Drama and Horror. The Nicole that Isaac (and the player) sees is extremely inconsistent with the one seen in logs, constantly smiling and speaking in irreverent religious terms in stark contrast to the science driven and Unitology critical woman Nicole was in life. The Red Marker's lack of effort in accurately portraying her in the hallucination, and Isaac going along with it anyway, is used to show just how badly his grief towards Nicole has messed with his mind.
• Parting-Words Regret: The last time Isaac and Nicole actually spoke, Isaac had blamed Nicole for not preventing his mother from committing murder-suicide in the name of Unitology, with Nicole telling him to go to hell in a clearly hurt tone.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • The locations explored in Chapter 9 are the only ones in the game you can't return to afterwards. If you miss the schematic hidden in the level, you'll have to make do without it and potentially void the Merchant achievement/trophy for this playthrough.
  • Everything aboard the Ishimura becomes this once you pass the Point of No Return at the end of Chapter 11. If you aren't fully kitted out by that point, you'd better go back and find what you're missing before you proceed.
• Pinball Projectile: The Ripper's alt-fire can be upgraded to do this, with a unique modification giving the fired blades the ability to ricochet off of hard surfaces several times before stopping. They also have a slight but noticeable homing capability to them, so firing one close to a Necromorph will most likely hit home instead of whiffing like the original's dumb-fire mode.
• Point of No Return: Once the Red Marker is loaded on board the USG-09 shuttle, the game will display a prompt warning players that if they launch, they will not be able to return to Ishimura for the rest of the playthrough.
• Psychological Horror: The Ishimura is filled with people who have lost their minds to the madness that has unfolded, and Isaac and the crew of the Kellion are all at risk of snapping as well. Several characters are rendered insane by vivid hallucinations of their deceased loved ones and associates, such as Isaac seeing Nicole.
• Punched Across the Room: Upgrading the Plasma Cutter with the Weighted Blades mod allows Isaac to sock a Necromorph across the room with melee attacks, provided that it's smaller than a Pregnant.
• Revenant Zombie: The pre-ordered Infested suit turns Isaac into a Necromorph, complete with all the copious amounts of Body Horror that implies. However, Isaac is completely unaffected whatsoever mentally, and his physical prowess isn’t hampered either despite his now severely mutilated and deformed body.
• Race Lift: Most evidently with Corporal Johnston, who is now a Gender Swapped African-American soldier instead of the original version's Caucasian male. Seemingly done to Kendra Daniels as well, who was modeled after (and voiced by) a Native American actress in the 2008 game, while her counterpart in the remake is Hispanic.
• Respawning Enemies: In keeping with the new Metroidvania-esque approach to level design, players backtracking to previously-cleared areas may find themselves attacked by newly-spawned enemies. This is both a blessing and a curse, since an unaware player can be caught off guard, but if those same enemies are defeated, they will also be dropping money and resources that can be made use of. Enemy respawns are mostly random, to the extent that simply reloading a checkpoint may produce a different encounter, or none at all.
• The Reveal: Three big ones, two of which are reveals from the original game given some small twists.
  • Kendra is an EarthGov agent sent to retrieve the Marker on their behalf; the Valor was meant to back her up. While she still betrays Isaac, she intends to make sure the Marker is hidden away for good, rendering it a non-threat and keeping humanity safe from it.
  • Nicole is dead. She's been dead since before Isaac arrived, having committed suicide prior to his arrival after speaking with the Marker and succeeding in getting it to halt the Convergence process. The "Nicole" that Isaac has been seeing throughout the game is actually Elizabeth Cross, who saw Isaac as her own lost love, Jacob Temple.
  • For a reveal new to the remake, we finally find out just what Nicole was apologizing to Isaac about in her opening video log. She's apologizing for failing to save Isaac's family from the Church of Unitology and the ensuing tension between her and Isaac as a result. Despite her best efforts, Isaac's mother committed a murder-suicide, taking Isaac's father with her. Despite this, and despite Isaac's initially hurtful response, Nicole never did stop loving Isaac.
• Rewatch Bonus: As in the original, subsequent playthroughs and viewings can make more sense of what is actually happening.
  • When Isaac gets a distress call from medical Daniels cryptically remarks that it makes sense when Isaac says that he is going there and is suspicious about Hammond going to the crew deck. She also noticeably hesitates during moments when Isaac discusses Nicole. She knows that they are seeing what they want to see and is discussing them in a way that won't be filtered out by hallucinations.
  • When you first play through the game, there's a good chance you won't know why the Hunter doesn't attack Mercer when it's in the same vicinity as him. Completing the Hunter's sidequest reveals that this is intentional; he's been groomed into the Hunter and intentionally leaves Mercer and those he's holding captive unharmed.
• Room Full of Crazy: All over the place, but special mention goes to Dr. Kyne, who scribbles his wife's name Amelia in every room he's holed out in.
  • The secret ending shows that Isaac has covered the walls and floor of his shuttle with Marker symbols and schematics, showing that he has completely given in to its influence.
• Sanity Slippage: As per usual, being in close proximity to a marker starts to drive anyone nearby insane over time. Prominently, Hammond is depicted as being progressively shaken in the chapters leading up to the USM Valor's crash, with him seeing and hearing things after being indirectly exposed to the Red Marker. By the time of Chapter 9, he's all but lost it, and even sees the transformed Chen as if he's still normal, which contributes to his later demise.
• Scenery Gorn: The Ishimura has seen better days. A plethora of decayed locations that haven't been cleaned, as well as areas that have been damaged in the fallout of the events that have occurred on the ship have left the ship in a bad shape. And that's before getting into the damage that the Necromorphs themselves have caused, including the disgusting Meat Moss that covers the walls and makes up tendrils of the stuff, forming environmental hazards and blocking access to vital areas at times.
• Scenery Porn: The views of Aegis VII during the opening are a real sight to behold, as well as some sections of the Ishimura, particularly the outside of the ship during the ADS sequence. For everything else, however, refer to the trope directly above this one.
• Schizo Tech: The Ishimura, a Mile-Long Ship capable of FTL travel and ripping multi-trillion-ton chunks of rock out of a planet's crust via gravity manipulation technology, is somehow powered by a bog-standard combustion engine that runs on hydrazine, a ubiquitous Real Life rocket fuel. It's not even a particularly huge engine; any decently sized cargo liner on Earth's oceans mounts a bigger one.
• Schmuck Bait: A few examples:
  • The Marker fragments that you can collect in a New Game Plus. It's something to pick up, so most players will... but collect them all, and the new ending will show Isaac falling further under the Marker's sway, with the implication being that he's going to build new ones.
  • The armory of the USM Valor is full of missiles, including an unstable nuke. The containment systems are a hair away from catastrophic failure, where if the missile is shot at or damaged by an explosive, it will detonate and vaporize Isaac instantly. You are promptly attacked by an Exploder. Guess what happens if you detonate its explosive sack.
• Sci-Fi Horror: The Dead Space series is a love letter to this genre, and it shows in this remake just as much as ever. Not only is there something that's horrifically mutating human bodies, but the crew of the Kellion has to contend with the fact that they're stranded in space at the same time.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Played back and forth with the chunk of Aegis VII the Ishimura has lifted into low orbit for mining and processing. Even taking into account its extremely high metal content, both the version observed from aboard the ship and the planetside crater are far, far too small to account for the multi-trillion-tons mass mentioned in logs and conversations. However, the final cutscene then suddenly balloons the chunk to about the size of Greenland, making its alleged mass somewhat more plausible.
• Secret Room: Doctor Kyne has one in his office that's hidden behind a Kinesis-movable bookshelf. The supply closet that Nicole commandeered as a temporary office in the Medical deck technically counts as well due to how it's accessed.
• Shown Their Work:
  • The Necromorphs are the most honest example of this trope. If one takes a good look at a Necromorph's skin, one will notice how accurately pallor mortis (paleness of skin due to blood draining from the body) has been modeled onto them. The yellowing of some areas is also very accurate and true to life.
  • The barrier busting scene has been changed to be more scientifically accurate. In the original, Isaac breaks through a barrier with a thermite charge that evaporates the debris while hardly inconveniencing him (which is nowhere close to how thermite works). In the remake, Isaac uses hydrazine fuel, and the player has to stand a considerable distance away, behind a pane of reinforced glass, before Isaac detonates the bomb with a properly volatile explosion. Also the use of hydrazine instead of thermite makes sense as thermite's only use is to burn extremely hot, which while makes sense to be on the ship for industrial purposes makes absolutely no sense to be present on the medical wing of the ship due to the temperature it burns at being lethal for the human body, while hydrazine can be used as both an explosive chemical (as well as rocket fuel) and a medicinal product, thus explaining its presence neatly.
  • As with the previous games in the series, the developers understand how sound works in a vacuum. The player will only hear sounds that Isaac is in direct contact with, such as his weapons, his thrusters, and his breathing. What few sounds that can be heard are less sounds and more shockwaves. There is a moment where this is averted, however, and that's the second fight with the Leviathan, since fighting that gargantuan hunk of necrotic flesh just wouldn't be as awesome without it screaming at you.
  • The Ishimura realistically deteriorates as the game progresses due to accumulated damage; the Flight Deck's illuminated "USG ISHIMURA" sign which at the beginning of the game has one letter burned out, has barely any letters still functioning by the game's second to last level. Decks will slowly lose power and lighting, leaving them in near total darkness especially upon repeat visits.
  • A layer of frozen condensation will build up on Isaac's suit whenever he enters a vacuum, and will realistically melt away once he exits it before it evaporates away.
• Story Difficulty Setting: The remake has one, aimed at players who want to enjoy the story without having to deal with the unforgiving combat.
• Suddenly Voiced: In the original game, Isaac was a Heroic Mime that never spoke, unless you count a single "Come on!" at the very end of the game, or his journal entries that gave his own thoughts. This time around, his voice actor from 2 and 3, Gunner Wright, fully voices him, lines and all. That said, he isn't as talkative as later games make him, as he generally talks only when spoken to, or during situations where not speaking would be awkward.
  • Thanks to the voice lines, Isaac comes off less as someone having to be ordered to do everything (an unfortunate storytelling result of being a Heroic Mime), to offering his own input and ideas independently while expressing his engineering knowledge and skill. He's also far more emotionally invested and responsive to the events of the game compared to his largely passive demeanor in the original.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: By going through a 100% Completion run, Isaac, despite his heightened immunity to the Marker due to his unique intellect, is vastly overexposing himself with Marker fragments that carry traces of the same signal and is eventually overwhelmed as a result into becoming a proxy of the Marker's will, intent on making more Markers to spread its signal.
  • The automatic doors no longer have safety features to re-open in case you decide you actually want to go back through them after opening them and backing off to allow it to close unlike in the original trilogy. Playing chicken with the doors in this manner is liable to get you hurt (only slightly) by it closing on you.
• Survival Horror: Stranded in space, hunted by horrific abominations out for your blood, with limited resources that you need to manage in order to escape alive? Textbook. Then there's the Marker itself in all its remastered glory. Not to mention the Necromorphs displaying accurate pallor mortis.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The room where Isaac fights the Leviathan is packed to the gills with ammunition, something that players will notice well before the lights come on and the Leviathan itself comes into view.
• Take Your Time: The loud warnings blaring over the Ishimura's PA system can usually be flat-out ignored to no consequence. Even as the ship is steadily falling towards Aegis VII in Chapter 3, or being pelted with asteroids due to the ADS cannons being inactive, and so on, the player as Isaac can take as long as they need to go off exploring without causing a Non-Standard Game Over. Likewise, after Isaac and Nicole retrieve the executive shuttle stolen by Kendra, you can take your time completing side quests and backtrack to old areas, even as the Ishimura violently shakes apart and the ship's computer warns of imminent catastrophic failure.
• Taking You with Me: Hammond's ultimate fate this time around. After being mortally wounded by the Necromorph version of Chen, he tackles the latter into the Valor's Singularity Core, vaporizing himself and the monster together.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: One of the audio logs indicates this is how the Ishimura first officer killed himself after Captain Mathius died and the situation aboard ship became hopeless. That his RIG is found out on the hull in Chapter 4 next to the ADS turrets further supports this theory.
• Title Drop: Twice.
  • The final chapter is still named Dead Space.
  • Whereas it took the original trilogy all the way to the end of the third game for a character to finally speak the words "dead space" in-game, here it happens in the penultimate chapter, courtesy of Nicole lecturing Isaac on the effects the Red Marker has on the necromorph infestation.
• Tragic Monster: In the end, in spite of how much of a relentless threat he is towards Isaac as the Hunter, Brant Harris was ultimately manipulated by Mercer every step of the way into his transformation. This is even reflected in a line of dialogue that plays, should you finish his sidequest before the end of Chapter 10, where Isaac says that the Doctor can't hurt him any longer.
• Transhuman: The Hunter is revealed to be this through a sidequest exploring its creation by Mercer, unlike most Necromorphs, as the creature is self-aware and cognizant of its original identity as Brant Harris and is cooperating with Mercer despite his current state as a Necromorph of his own volition, making him retroactively the only sentient Necromorph in the series aside from the Brethren Moons.
• Trash the Set: By the time you Outrun the Fireball onboard the USM Valor, the ship has been utterly trashed as a result of the infestation and subsequent failing systems caused by the overload (and removal) of the singularity core, necessitating a quick exit.
• Unrealistic Black Hole: The Force Gun now spits out a miniature singularity as its alternate fire mode instead of the explosive ball of the original version. Enemies standing close to the charge will be pulled in and rendered helpless.
• Up Close with the Monster: The scene in which Isaac has to obtain Captain Matthius's RIG is changed to instead have Isaac pinned beneath the reanimated corpse as it mutates directly on top of him. Only by using a fire extinguisher and his Kinesis module does he escape.
• Used Future: Everything in the game has a well-worn appearance. The Ishimura itself is particularly noteworthy - she may be the jewel of the CEC's fleet of planetcrackers, but she is still over half a century old, and it shows. The interior surfaces are covered with signs of corrosion and wear, and the wiring system is hanging by a thread - something Isaac himself comments on when he sets himself to re-routing electrical power to enable the ship's point defense system.
• Version-Exclusive Content: An interesting case with the Anodized suit texture, which is exclusive to players with an EA Play Pro subscription, but is otherwise available on all versions of the game regardless of platform.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The remains of the Aegis VII colony Isaac and Nicole land on after leaving Ishimura behind to return the Marker to its pedestal. The whole environment is covered in organic growth, the tethered planetoid fragment is in free fall from low orbit, swarms of necromorphs pour out of the woodwork all over the place, and there are save points everywhere.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Averted. The flamethrower is as strong as its incarnation in the second game instead of the original game. Although still unable to be used in a vacuum, it is a powerful crowd-control weapon and isn’t a slouch against most individual targets either, being capable of stun-locking unlucky Necromorphs in place with a constant jet of flame until they’re ash and charred bones, while consuming much less ammo than it previously did. Moreover, its alternate fire can kill most enemies including Guardians quickly.
• Video Game Remake: A remake built from scratch of the original game that came out almost fifteen years ago. It's not quite a Shot-for-Shot Remake as many gameplay and story elements have been expanded upon to a decent degree or slightly changed (like the slug fight being changed from a simple "hold the fire button" to a fully fleshed out boss battle) but it does follow the general outline of the original without radically changing the overall course of the story.
• Virtual Ghost: Video logs in the remake are done like this, with holographic versions of the characters acting out the recorded scenes within their respective zones, rather than simply projecting a blurry video in front of Isaac like in the original.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Dr. Elizabeth Cross, who aids you in clearing out Hydroponics in Chapter 6 and vanishes shortly afterward. Subverted, as the reason she vanishes is because the Marker's influence on Isaac causes him to hallucinate Nicole in place of Dr. Cross whenever she shows up.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 10. This chapter is where the Marker's influence really screws with Isaac's senses, and reveals a bombshell: Nicole and Isaac's relationship is revealed to have been very, very strained prior to the outbreak due to Isaac's mother committing a murder-suicide in the name of Unitology, despite Nicole's assistance to get her away from the church. Isaac, in a fit of misplaced anger, blamed Nicole, and the two were on thin ice afterward.
• Wham Line: One that only applies to New Game Plus. Should the player find all of the Marker Fragments throughout a repeat playthrough, everything seems to be playing out as it did before... Until Isaac suddenly says this.
  Isaac: She can't take the Marker. She doesn't understand...
• Wham Shot: The remake spices up the plot twist of the original game by revealing that the "Nicole" Isaac has been following is actually Elizabeth Cross while she sees him as Jacob Temple. Their appearances have been altered by the Red Marker in order to manipulate them to return it back to its pedestal on Aegis VII.

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How I wonder what you are...