Where to even start is the real question, as every aspect of this remake has something new and incredible on offer. While this return visit to the Ishimura will absolutely feel familiar, it also boasts quite a lot that’s new and viscously more dangerous than ever before. Indeed, REmake might be the most (and even only) direct comparison one could make for this title, as Dead Space opts not to leave anything behind but rather enhance what was already there. If cut content was something that had been worrying you after other recent revisits like Capcom’s remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3 left much on the cutting room floor, Dead Space takes the opposite route and is in fact much closer to 2002’s Resident Evil in terms of being a “remake”. This is of course all familiar to you if you’ve already played the original game, as the story of Dead Space remains largely identical. With nothing to protect himself but a scavenged repair tool and his whits, Isaac must brave the darkness and find a way off of the infested craft - or die trying. Things quickly spiral out of control as a host of undead alien mutations of human flesh attack from the shadows, splitting the team up and leaving Isaac alone and terrified. That vessel, the USG Ishimura, will be our home for this wild ride, as Isaac and his team (security chief Zach Hammond, fellow techie Kendra Daniels, and two armed escorts) come in for a rough landing aboard the strangely silent ship, leaving them stranded until they’re able to get their own ship running, and fix the Ishimura’s problems. Set in the far-flung year of 2508 Dead Space sees us stepping into the space boots of CEC engineer Isaac Clarke, freshly dispatched as part of a repair operation sent to investigate a communications blackout aboard one of the company’s mining ships. After playing through its 9-hour campaign and diving into its New Game+ mode, I can confidently say that this revisit is one of the best… perhaps ever.

The first title released in this series in a decade, and the first not handled in any capacity by the original developers at EA Redwood Shores/Visceral Games (developed instead by EA Motive), this revisit had both a lot to live up to - and a lot prove to both a new generation of players and skeptical old guard fans. As the new age of our favorite genre continues to shake off the dust of so many years on the back burner, “survival horror remake season 2023” has officially started thanks to the release of Dead Space, a remake of the 2008 classic.

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