It’s remarkable how well it all holds up. And just how terrifying, immersive, and downright memorable Isaac Clarke’s journey through the USG Ishimura is. The setting of a giant derelict spaceship (a planet cracker, no less) is as essential to the tone and feel as Isaac’s background as an engineer. The USG Ishimura is, in many ways, the main character in the game.

The compelling story is told once more, actually aging quite well and presented as more cinematic than ever. Many harrowing twists and turns await, with slight tweaks here or there to modernise the story and the way you experience it. Smaller instances of this are extra interactions and slight changing in climactic scenes for further context. The biggest comes with the fact that unlike the original, Isaac Clarke now speaks. This is an interesting but sensible touch; our hero is voiced by Gunner Wright in the two sequels, now returning here. This suits the story being told, helping to move the story along at times it may otherwise drag if you’re solely being exposited to.

Looking back at the surprisingly light environments of the 2008 release, it is unbelievable how scared I was during my original playthrough. The corridors feel smaller now with more refined light sources that flicker or are seemingly cancelled out by the shadows surrounding them; fighting the Necromophs within them feels restrictive in the best way and often leads to the player needing to be aware of their surroundings. These new environments, combined with the sound design, raise the tension even further, with creature cries heard rattling down the pipes of the ship, making you unsure if you are about to come under attack at any moment.

Dead Space is a game worthy of the remake that it has received here. The story still holds up today and while yes, you can play the original on Xbox Game Pass, it is certainly missing the new audio and polish of this remake. I’m glad that EA changed its stance on remakes; Dead Space is a game that is truly in need of a revival for both fans of the original games and horror fans playing this for the first time. Like reading a good book, it was great to return to this cult horror game I enjoyed all those years ago. However, considering that the price is being charged at full AUD$RRP it’s hard to say this is a must own right away for returning players.

The few systemic changes that Motive, the developers behind this remaster, have folded into the game can be categorised as ‘perfectly fine’ to ‘largely irrelevant’, however. The ‘Intensity Director’, a sort of randomised encounter generator which supposedly has upwards of 1000 possible actions it could take at any given time – including sound cues and enemy attacks – often made benign choices such as having a single enemy standing in a large room or at the end of a long hallway as I entered it, or having vents randomly shatter open for seemingly no reason.

Dead Space (2023) is an impressively slick remake of a classic, but the original is a classic. It holds up in people’s minds. Re-experiencing it with the power of Frostbite and PS5 just didn’t wow me as it should purely because the game was already so damn well crafted to begin with. From title screen to credits, I can’t say that I was ever disappointed or unengaged. It just felt akin to watching a new 4K restoration of an old movie I hadn’t seen in years. An enjoyable experience, but with a constant feeling of ‘ah yes, now here’s this bit.’ That is no fault whatsoever of the team at Motive, who have done immensely impressive work, but it speaks to the incredible accomplishments of Visceral Games a decade and a half ago.

The original Dead Space suffered from a feeling of repetition and after a while you were able to work out what sounds were danger and what sounds were just that, ambient sound. The Intensity Director changes this on its head and adds longevity to the game, with there being a familiar sense with each playthrough, but always with an undertone that everything can change like that.

Motive could have easily just remade the game as is with fancy new graphics and called it a day, but they went above and beyond. Not only is this a faithful reimagining of the 2008 original, but they’ve also rebuilt the entire game from the ground up with all-new visual enhancements, gameplay improvements, all-new lighting, and more dynamic encounters – all without a single loading screen in sight.

With the Dead Space remake, we have a very faithful and utterly stunning recreation of the original genre-leading masterpiece. Little has changed apart from presentation aspects and while some may feel that is a missed opportunity, I am more than happy to re-experience this classic title as it is. Dead Space was a watershed moment in horror gaming and considering how little it has changed for this remake and how remarkably well it still plays shows just how amazing the original release was. Dead Space is a safe remake but an enjoyably tense and entertaining one nonetheless.

With the Dead Space remake, I was scared literally zero times. As a horror game, it simply fails and I think I can point to a few reasons why. First and foremost is the new, much touted AI Director that supposedly has hundreds of scares. From what I can tell, the AI Director just throws enemies at you semi-constantly. There isn’t any build-up of suspense, no fake-outs and no curated moments of terror. Instead, the AI Director conditions you to expect enemies all the time and so when they appear they’re not shocking or surprising. After a while, they actually become annoying.

Motive has taken a modern classic and rebuilt it from the ground floor to meet the expectations of ‘today’s gamer’. Isaac Clarke is no longer the stoic, silent protagonist, encounters are more dynamic, and the game’s setting, the USG Ishimura—an iconic, sci-fi planet breaking starship that rivals Nostromo—is a seamless dreadnought without a loading screen in sight.

This new version of Dead Space is one of the few remakes that has managed to slot in that little window of time where it’s not been too soon or too long since the release of the original. It brings with it nostalgia, and almost enough change to make it feel fresh and familiar at the same time. For some this will be good news, for others not so much. For me, having loved every minute of only a single play through back in 2008 I was elated by the fact that I had pretty much forgotten almost all of the details in the game. This time around, it’s like playing Dead Space for the first time… again.

Hard cut to 2023 and the same corporate machine that crushed a burgeoning world under its rudderless ambitions has itself mutated, some lessons learned and priorities re-evaluated. So comes Dead Space, again. A finely tuned, ground-up remake from EA’s Motive studio, Dead Space invites fans and newcomers alike to tread its hallowed halls and rediscover the importance, and power, of this landmark title.