Videogame horror Review-Dead Space Franchise Main Entries
By Aaron Perez
Published: 3/13/2025
Warning: Spoilers
Created by the now defunct Viseral Games, Dead Space is a survival horror videogame franchise that takes place centuries in the future. It spans three major games, a couple of spinoffs, and a remake created by Motive Studios. The first game, and its remake begin on an isolated planet called Aegis 7, which is the setting of an illegal mining operation for a planet cracker class vessel named the Ishimura. The Ishimura loses all communication with the parent company CEC, which dispatches a repair crew on another vessel named the Kellion. After a malfunction, the Kellion crashlands on the Ishimura's hangar bay, and it is revealed that the ship has been infested by monsters named necromorphs. It's sequel, Dead Space 2, follows up years later on Titan Station, which is orbiting Saturn and has an even bigger infestation of necromorphs. Dead Space 3, the weakest of the trilogy, tried to go to another direction, adding multiplayer and weapon customization with mixed results. It then killed the franchise for a decade, until a remake of the first game was released with positive reviews but the sales weren't enough for EA, the parent company of both Motive Studios and Viseral Games, to fully revive the franchise. While an IP being killed off and briefly resurrected is enough to count as horror, the franchise itself is filled with elements that brings terror to its audience.
The game's protagonist is Issac Clarke, who only joined the repair crew to see his estranged girlfriend, Dr. Nicole Brandon, who was aboard the Ishimura. He desperately searches for Nicole and there are brief encounters with her, but something seems off. It is revealed in the final chapter that Nicole was been dead the entire time, and Issac was hallucinating her the entire time. The remake takes it a step further by having another survivor, Elizabeth Cross, as a stand-in while Issac hallucinates Nicole. Dead Space 2 takes things to another level, now having the hallucinations of Nicole trying to kill Issac while he finds a way to cure himself. Issac frees himself of the influence of the Markers and in Dead Space 3, he isn't affected until the epilogue, where the Brethren Moons are awake and heading to Earth.
The Monsters
The main antagonists of the franchice, necromorphs are creatures created from dead flesh and have a mission to expand their kind. They are not quite zombies, since they are horrificaly mutated and twisted corpses of formerly living beings. The source of their creation are monoliths known as Markers, which are created by planetoid sized beings known as Brethren Moons. The purpose of the necromorphs are to create enough body mass for a convergence event, which gives birth to a new Brethren moon. In essence, the Brethren Moons are the final stage of evolution among the necromorphs, continuing the cycle of searching for life in habitable planets to create more bodies and so on.
The creation of a necromorph is a horrifying process, since it involves a corpse being mutated and transformed. This normally involves necromorph types called infectors, which are bat-like creatures whose only purpose is to find already dead individuals and insert a probosis into their brains. This in turn creates the slasher variant, which is the standard fodder necromorph that looks out for more victims to add to the necromorph ranks. On does not have to be fully dead in order to be infected, as seen in the opening of Dead Space 2 when the character Franco Dellile is impaled and turned in a matter of seconds. While his wound was fatal, Franco was in technical terms, "still alive" when he was turned. His brain hasn't even processed what happened to him when he transformed, showing how twisted and merciless a necromorph transformation is. Dead Space 3 takes this concept even further by introducing the Feeder necromorph variants, emmaciated undead creatures who were once humans who ate infected flesh. The game even has a variant that shows up on all three parts called the regenerator Necromorphs. These types have subvariants, like the Hunter, the Ubermorph, and the Regenerators but all are hinted to have the same origin. In Dead Space, the Hunter was created when the main human antagonist, Dr. Challus Mercer, injected Necromorph flesh into a willing subject who is heavily implied to be Brant Harris. Harris then underwent a slow transformation into the Hunter, a beast that can regenerate its limbs and was only destroyed when Issac testfired the engines of a shuttle on it.
The Horror
The Dead Space franchise not only contains violence body horror, it is also psychological. A major controversial part of the franchise is that it involves self-harm and suicide, with psychotic episodes added to the mix. This is due to the influence of The Marker and its effect on the human mind, turning some into monsters way before they are horrifically transformed into necromorphs. Most individuals begin to develop psychotic episodes and murder or self-harm each other but the ones that the Brethren Moons or the Marker deem important are affected differently. The begin to hallucinate dead friends or relatives, making it easier for them to follow the convergence plan. These individuals do begin to feel the psychotic effects of the Marker's influence, but some are more resistant and are able to briefly fight back.
Another aspect of horror that Dead Space uses is the Fermi Paradox, which brings into question if we are alone in the universe. In Dead Space, the reason humans are the only living species seen are because of the Brethren Moons, who are constantly searching for intelligent life to assimilate and spread their kind. They send Markers to those planets, tricking the inhabitants with the promise of free renewable energy. The inhabitants then take these markers and fall into the trap, leading to their extinction. Humanity had unfortunately taken this a step further, by creating a religion that worships these markers known as Unitology. The religion of Unitology was directly created by the human government to cover up what happened on Earth's first infestation. They also martyred a man called Michael Altman, protagonist of the prequel novel Dead Space Martyr and made him the figurehead of the religion. Altman knew the true purpose of the Markers and tried to warn the government but they had other plans. They imprisoned, executed by having him fight a Brute necromorph with only a spoon, and used his name and image to create a new religion once he was dead.
Conclusion
The Dead Space series itself is a stepping stone in the horror genre, taking influence and inspiration from the Resident Evil franchise and even influenced other games. It also took inspiration from various franchises such as Alien, The Thing, System Shock, Half Life, and many others. The games that it directly influenced was the remake of Resident Evil 2, apart from Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and The Last of Us. It's use of psychological horror is still unique and controversial in the video game genre because of its self-harm and suicide themes. Still, the franchise's first, second, and remake are well worth playing.
(Correction)
Franco was definitely killed when the infector stabbed him in the head, that would have destroyed his brain and made the transformation easier.
Main entry ratings
Dead Space: 8/10
Dead Space 2: 9/10
Dead Space 3: 7/10
Dead Space (2023): 9.2/10
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