Originally released in 2008, Dead Space was EA’s sci-fi riff on 2005’s Resident Evil 4. It took the revolutionary design ideas of Shinji Mikami’s horror masterpiece – the over-the-shoulder perspective, tense crowd-control combat and zombies that weren’t really zombies – and launched them into a far-flung corner of the cosmos, switching virus-infected villagers for mutant alien necromorphs. The results were darkly thrilling, but couldn’t fully escape the light of Resi 4’s incandescent star.
Fifteen years down the line, with so much more distance from Mikami’s game, Dead Space is easier to appreciate on its own merits. This overhaul, from EA studio Motive, is a surprisingly restrained affair, resisting the temptation to supplement the game with modern adornments. Instead it streamlines the experience, altering the layout of doomed spaceship the USG Ishimura so that players may pass through it and its many horrors more smoothly. It’s a remake that embraces the original’s taut pacing and powerful forward-momentum, and is all the better for it.
