Glen Schofield, creator of the Dead Space series and director of several Call of Duty games, has announced his retirement.

Schofield broke the news of his retirement on LinkedIn, with a video reflecting on his 35 years in the games industry and thanking his peers, friends, and family.

"Some of you know me as a video game maker, director, and it's something I'm so proud of and I know I'm lucky to be able to do this, but after 35 years of making games and directing them, running teams, it's time for me to officially retire from the day-to-day work," Schofield said. "It's been such an amazing career and I have so many people to thank for it, but I can't possibly do it all here."

Schofield has had a varied career in games, having served as vice president at Crystal Dynamics in the late '90s and directed Gex 3D: Enter the Gecko and Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko, as well as Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain. He created and executive produced the 2008 sci-fi horror masterpiece Dead Space under EA, and he co-directed and produced Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and Call of Duty: WWII during his time with Sledgehammer Games and Activision. His career took a slight dip with his latest release, The Callisto Protocol, a 2022 survival horror game developed by Schofield's Striking Distance Studios that wasn't generally well-received.

"To my close friends and family, and people who have stood by me, patted me on the back, listened to my crazy ideas, thank you so much," added Schofield. "To the fans: you've supported me, you let mine and my teams' games into your homes. You told me when I was good and you told me when I wasn't so good. But you made me better. Thank you so much."

In his emotional retirement video, Schofield struck a grateful tone throughout, saying he "had a front row seat to one of the greatest creative explosions in history," and thanking EA for letting him make Dead Space and Activision for giving him "the keys to three Call of Duty games."

Schofield also took the time to reflect on what's undeniably a historically turbulent time in the games industry, an era marked by mass layoffs and AI controversies, but one he hopes will soon pass.

"This is in amazing industry, with so many talented people, and I know times are tough right now, but the future ahead is really, really bright," he said. "I wish you all, the next generation of game makers, the best of luck. Explore, experiment, enjoy, and don't forget that the most important thing is the idea."

Here are the best horror games we think you should play in 2026.

Former Call of Duty lead and Dead Space creator Glen Schofield is going all in on AI. Speaking to VGC at GamesCom Asia, Schofield gave some of his ideas to "save" the games industry.

"First, let’s train everybody [with AI]. We know this new wave is coming." He adds, "people will say 'well, the software isn’t ready yet'. If you’re telling me about it, it’s ready. I mean, ready to play with at least. You play with it. You learn it. You grow with it. Right?"

He urges companies, "if everybody would just train their people… It’s not a huge investment, it’s the right investment."

When it comes to concerns about Generative AI stealing from actual artists and creators, Schofield notes, "Every artist, every concept artist, is already doing photobashing. They’ve been doing it for 5-10 years. That’s not your work." He adds, "that same person… was the one who said 'I don’t want them taking work', and all that, and I’m like, you gotta be kidding me." Schofield, who has created artwork for games himself, admits he was concerned about this at first. However, his mindset is currently that "Picasso said 'good artists always borrow, great artists steal'."

For developers who are not keen to steal others' work, Schofield suggests "make your own rules on how you want to deal with it," citing that he uses his own paintings and drawings to create a model for his prompts. But even without doing all that, he says, "use it. Let the lawyers figure it out. It’s going to be figured out someday."

This is antithetical to Hideo Kojima, who recently commented on his own feelings on AI, saying that he thinks "of AI as more of a friend," with it helping handle the tedium of development to "lower cost and cut down on time" as opposed to having it create ideas and assets (again, stolen from others' work). Clearly, AI continues to divide and will do so for a while yet.

Former Call of Duty director Glen Schofield says, "I hate doing this, but since I left Sledgehammer, none of the games have been very good."

Glen Schofield, who created the concept for Dead Space and oversaw the original game's development, has been pretty outspoken about wanting to continue the series, to the point where he's actively been in contact with EA trying to make Dead Space 4 happen. In a new interview, Schofield says EA might be a bit more interested now that it's soon to be under new ownership and a whole lot deeper in debt.

"I went to [EA] recently and they're like no, we're not interested anymore," Schofield tells IGN. "I said, I can get back the leadership team. I need the models from EA Motive [who built the Dead Space remake in 2023] and I can save you 30 to 40 million dollars on the idea that I have. And, they're like, 'no.'"

Schofield says, "I have quite a few ideas that I'm ready to go with and one of them is Dead Space 4. The fact that EA just got bought, I think there's an opportunity. I’m already making calls."

What is the opportunity in a post-buyout EA? Well, that's the million-dollar question, and one analysts, fans, and the industry broadly are still trying to figure out the answer to. As a private company with no shareholder pressure, EA might decide to go ahead and fund all those passion projects it's been saying no to. But it's equally possible that the company, soon to be $20 billion in debt, will gut its studios and lay off a pile of developers in an effort to keep costs down.

Either way, Schofield is prepared. "I don't know where EA’s head is right now, I don't think they made money on [the Dead Space remake]," he says. "Dead Space needs to be adapted to different mediums – movies, TV series, it would be great. But I am more optimistic [since the sale of EA], because somebody new could buy [the Dead Space IP]."

The Dead Space remake ranks pretty highly in our list of the best horror games you can play today.

Dead Space creator Glen Schofield says his team had to play a little dirty with its internal marketing to get EA's support.

Talking to The Game Business, Schofield touched on the delicate topic of AAA game development and how, despite having EA as a publisher, Dead Space developers had to fight for attention like they were a scrappy indie studio.

"You end up marketing inside your own company. I made a scary freaking calendar, with just the concept art that we had," Schofield said. "I must have spent $4,000. We gave it to the executives… holy crap did I get in trouble for that! But at the same time… now they're starting to hear Dead Space."

Schofield added that the developers – who, following Dead Space's critical success, re-branded under the new moniker Visceral Games – had to go as far as internally marketing their own game in EA's bathrooms, vying for attention from the higher ups in their most private moments.

"Then we made posters and we'd put them up when there were big internal meetings. The executives would get together, and we put these posters in the [toilets], so whenever they went to the bathroom, they were seeing Dead Space. We did this gorilla [sic] marketing to stay relevant."

He added, "that's about as indie as you can get inside a giant company, having to fight for your dollars."

Schofield then described what I can only imagine is a nightmare scenario for a game studio competing with other studios under the same mega corporate umbrella: executives looking at both studio's games and ranking them numerically.

"The chief creative officers come in and look at all the games," he said. "They compare our game to Mirror's Edge, because that was the other new one coming out that year.

"We're about five or six months before shipping. Something like that. They give Mirror's Edge a 90, and Dead Space is 72. This is internal. The team is devastated. And we've got five or six months. It just sucks the wind out."

Schofield said EA's assessment led to Mirror's Edge getting "more marketing money than Dead Space," whose budget he pegs at "$12 – 14 million.

"I know there's people going, 'That's more than my budget for the game we're making'. Is that what AAA is? I don't know."

Yes, Dead Space is a AAA game simply by virtue of its backing from EA, but it's definitely interesting to hear how the developers had to fight so hard for funding in light of what we now know is one of the best sci-fi horror games ever made.

Bloober's Cronos: The New Dawn is like Dead Space in Hell, but it has a cool female protagonist because the devs say that's simply "more interesting"

Dead Space creator Glen Schofield has "decided to walk away" from a new horror game he's been working on, pointing to pressures to drastically reduce its budget as he suggests he might have "directed my last game" after 2022 flop The Callisto Protocol.

As spotted by VGC, Schofield took to LinkedIn in a post a couple of days ago with some unfortunate news, kicking things off by saying that "it's tough out there" in the games industry.

He continues: "Over the past eight months, I've been quietly working with my daughter, Nicole, on a new game idea. She came to me with it, and I immediately loved the idea. Something I hadn't seen before. We've been calling it a new sub-genre of horror – not just horror, but something more."

Schofield says that they "pulled the budget down to $17 million, built a prototype with a small, talented crew, and started taking meetings." However, despite the fact that "people loved the concept," he found that "early feedback was 'get it to $10M.' Lately, that number's dropped to $2–5M."

Furthermore, Schofield says, the team "decided to walk away last month," as he believes that "some ideas are better left untouched than done cheap."

This decision obviously isn't without its consequences, however, as he says: "We had a team of six here in the States and a full crew in the UK. Now, everyone's looking for work. They're all talented folks – if you're hiring, let me know."

Talking about his game development experience from over the years, Schofield notes that he's "worked on games of every size." Now though, "with the industry on pause, AAA feels like it's a long ways away."

Although he says "I miss it all," he adds: "Maybe I've directed my last game. Who knows? If so thank you [for] playing my games."

Although Schofield is probably best known for directing the original Dead Space, he also served as director of The Callisto Protocol, which was developed at Striking Distance Studios – a studio he founded. Unfortunately, it was released to mixed reviews, and around a month after its launch, the game reportedly sold less than half of the five million copies expected by publisher Krafton and investors.

A few months later, a number of devs were laid off, and Schofield himself later voluntarily left to "pursue new opportunities." Needless to say, it'd be a real shame if he never ended up being able to make something else.

Meanwhile, he rounds off his LinkedIn post noting that his daughter Nicole was "laid off from Striking Distance Studios, a studio I founded and a CEO I put in place," despite being "one of the strongest artists I know" and having "built some of our best levels on Callisto Protocol." Schofield concludes: "She's got the talent. Somebody's gonna be lucky to have her."

Glen Schofield says The Callisto Protocol cost 4x more than Dead Space, needed 3 more months of work, and wasn't meant to be one-and-done: "The discussion we had was ... look at The Witcher."

The Dead Space trilogy is one of the most iconic in modern horror gaming, and even though the remake did incredibly well, the original game's creators were rebuffed by EA when they pitched Dead Space 4.

Speaking to Dan Allen Gaming (in a video shared on ResetEra), some of the game's original creators, Glen Schofield, Christopher Stone, and Bret Robbins, say EA wasn't interested in their ideas.

"We tried actually, the three of us," Schofield says. "We tried Dead Space 4. We're talking this year. We didn't go too deep, they just said 'we're not interested right now'. We know who to talk to, so we didn't take it any further. We respected their opinion. They know their numbers and what they have to ship."

"The industry's in a weird place right now, people are really hesitant to take chances on things," Stone explains. "Take it with a grain of salt. Maybe one day, I think we'd all love to do it."

"We've got some ideas," Schofield teases.

When Allen asks if they'd go back to make the sequel "in a heartbeat," Schofield responds, "Yes," and Stone says, "I'd make a Dead Space 4." Schofield adds that "Bret might have trouble right now, Bret's got a good gig going." Robbins is currently working with former Rockstar developer Dan Houser at Absurd Ventures, which is now working on a new game set within the universe of it's audio fiction series, A Better Paradise.

Dead Space has been the cornerstone of these developers' legacy, especially Schofield's, who made the similar but not as well-received Callisto Protocol. It was also a third-person sci-fi horror game set aboard an abandoned location in space and featured incredibly violent death scenes, but it just didn't find the same success.

Our Callisto Protocol review reads "There's an impressive game here," but "while the story's fine, and it looks incredible, The Callisto Protocol is constantly derailed by an unforgiving combat system that feels badly designed for the vast majority of the encounters you have to deal with."

I saw the original Dead Space on the shelf at Game many times over the years, but I always avoided it because, for some reason, I just didn't think the cover art of a severed arm floating in the void of space looked that interesting. Younger me was clearly an idiot, and my punishment for literally judging a game by its cover was not experiencing that wonderful, scary story until a friend of mine shook some sense into me years later and lent me his copy.

Now, I'd love to see Dead Space 4, so hopefully EA listens to the original team's pitch or makes a new one itself. We might also be getting remakes of Dead Space 2 and 3.

In the meantime, check out some of the best horror games you can play right now.

Dead Space Remake publisher Electronic Arts is surveying players in a bid to discover if fans would like to see a remake of the franchise's second and third instalments, too.

Whilst neither EA nor developer, Motive, have spoken much about the idea of a follow-up remake, a new survey very clearly asks prospective players to rate their interest in playing remakes of Dead Space 2 and/or Dead Space 3 (thanks, ResetEra).

"[Dead Space 2] is a must, but frankly, [Dead Space 3] excites me even more," said one ResetEra commenter. "The setting and lore are top-notch, and [Dead Space] Remake's writer could easily fix the shoddy characterizations and plot contrivances."

Given Dead Space Remake's success, is it that much of a surprise that EA is canvassing views this way? Nope. But whilst the response from fans has been overwhelmingly positive, some hope that rather than just remake old Dead Space games, Motive could explore making "a whole new game" set in the same universe, too.

"Motive Studio's Dead Space is a horror remake done right," we said in GamesRadar+'s Dead Space Remake review, which was awarded an impressive 4.5 stars out of 5. 

"It really is a sublime mix of fresh and familiar, and it's freaking terrifying in its loud and quieter moments. Its reworked visuals and stunning dynamic lighting totally transform certain areas, while the remake's new dismemberment animations mean hacking off enemy limbs with the Plasma Cutter, uncovering bone and muscle tissue as you do, is now gorier than ever. I know this first hand, because I was too scared to run."

Don't worry if you scream like a baby playing it, though – even the development team itself struggles to get through the scary parts, too, sometimes.

"When I'm playing it at night, I can't play it with headphones. It's just too fucking scary," technical director, David Robillard said just before the game's critically-acclaimed launch. 

Horror isn't just for Halloween, you know - here are our tips for the very best horror games.

Dead Space player stats have been revealed, and they're very telling.

Yesterday, developer EA Motive used the official Dead Space Twitter account to reveal stats from players the world over since launch last month. Arguably the most noteworthy statistic is that players upgraded the Pulse Rifle the most out of any weapon in the game, putting Nodes into increased capacity more than any other in-game upgrade.

This is absolutely bonkers. The Pulse Rifle is the second of the Dead Space weapons that players acquire after the Plasma Cutter, and is proved in the opening moments of the entire game to be relatively useless against the Necromorph threat, a far less effective method of cutting through limbs and body parts than the iconic Plasma Cutter.

That players would prioritize the Pulse Rifle over weapons like the Plasma Cutter and the Line Cutter is extremely weird. Turns out an entire ship crew of trained armed forces with Pulse Rifles getting mercilessly shredded by a Necromorph wasn't enough to deter Dead Space players from pelting Nodes into the weapon like no tomorrow.

However, as players point in response to the tweet above, there might be a good reason for this behaviour. Last month, Dead Space players discovered a hack that could render infinite ammo for the Pulse Rifle, whereby players utilize capacity upgrades to generate ammo, turning this into mines, and then collecting the mines over and over again to accrue endless ammo.

If the cheat really went widespread among the Dead Space community, this could be why the Pulse Rifle's ammo capacity was the most upgraded weapon component of all. It makes seriously little sense when taking the upgrade news on its own, but the picture begins to become clearer when you think about the ways in which players are manipulating the game.

Here's why Dead Space is the perfect remake from EA Motive, an excellent homage to everything that came before while still striking out in its own new direction. 

Like the original, one particular scene in the Dead Space remake gave its developer a major headache.

Back in 2019, Glen Schofield revealed in an interview that the team at Visceral had a rough time getting the scene where Isaac is grabbed and dragged across the floor by a huge tentacle to look just how they wanted. In the end, the team absolutely nailed it, and it's one of the most memorable moments of the entire game. It turns out there's one scene in the remake that was also a major challenge for developer Motive Studio. 

The below contains some minor spoilers, so if you're yet to board the Ishimura, look away now. 

Motive recently took the time to answer fans' questions on the Dead Space subreddit. During the AMA, the developer was asked about the work that went into one of the remakes' standout sequences where Isaac witnesses Captain Mathius transforming into a Necromorph. It's both spectacular and utterly disgusting, and as the developer reveals, it took a lot of work to make it look so seamless.

Motive describes the sequence as "a big challenge". Firstly the developer had to scale the Mathius model and align it as closely as possible to the Necromorph model so that they matched. And things don't get any more straightforward from there.

"We then created Blendshapes between two models sharing the same topology, the human (Captain Mathius) and his Necromorph model," Motive says. "From those two animated models, we created Dynamic Masks in Houdini to blend them in a single animated model with our desired look and export alembic data from the final result."

As Necromorphs are considerably bigger than humans, the team also had to simulate Captain Mathius' clothes tearing as he transformed. And as you'd expect, this was no simple task either. "We used Tyflow from 3DS Max to precut the clothing and simulate it with the alembic data from Houdini. Then we exported everything as alembic data to Maya and processed bones to replicate the vertex deformation to be able to send the final result to our real-time Engine (Frostbite)."

This shows just how much effort can go into a short sequence that players only see for a moment and the level of dedication Motive and other AAA developers have for their craft.

In our Dead Space review, we describe the remake as "A sublime mix of fresh, familiar, and freaking terrifying".

If you love a good scare, check out our pick of the best horror games to play right now.

The Dead Space Line Gun is easy to miss, but it's in Chapter 5, just past the clinic and inside a locked Medical Emergency Equipment storage room. The Line Gun is up there as one of the most powerful Dead Space Weapons, but it's also easy to miss, as you're likely being pursued by a deadly, regenerating necromorph and don't even know that it's there to find in the first place. For that reason, we'll explain how to find the Line Gun in the Dead Space Remake, including a clear map and instructions on how to get it yourself.

Dead Space Line Gun location

The one location you can get the Line Gun in Dead Space is in Medical Emergency Equipment Storage, shown on the map below. These instructions will lead you there specifically.

1. In Chapter 5 of Dead Space, "Lethal Devotion", follow the main story until you meet Mercer in person.
2. Afterwards listening to him talk, you'll be attacked by a creature that won't die, even when dismembered, and have to wait for the door to be opened so you can escape.
3. Escape the creature as instructed, then follow the objective to the Clinic to lift the lockdown.
4. Head into the Emergency Room, and use the generator to return power to the door and access ER Hallway A.
5. On the right as you go through, you'll see the Medical Emergency Equipment Storage, which requires a Dead Space security clearance of level 2 to open.
6. The Line Gun is on the floor in the middle of the room.

The Line Gun is pretty lethal, and serves as a kind of heavy-duty Plasma Cutter, coming equipped with mines and generally able to shred a Necromorph - though it's not as flexible and universally applicable as some of the smaller weapons, especially considering it chews through ammunition.

By the way, soon after this you'll be exploring Hydroponics, and are likely to get stuck looking for the Dead Space Deck Systems keycard - but we can give you that knowledge in advance. Don't say we didn't warn you! 

The developers behind Dead Space already have ideas for another game in the sci-fi horror series, even if they aren't quite sure they'll be approved.

Of course, fans of claustrophobic space horror, Necromorph dismemberment, and perfect video game remakes have plenty to blast through with the new Dead Space, but big fans of the series are undoubtedly keen to see what's next from Motive Studio and EA. Well, the good news is that there are already very early plans for a new game, but the not-as-good news is that it sounds like EA hasn't officially green-lit anything yet.

In an interview with GQ, 2023 Dead Space senior producer Phil Ducharme and creative director Roman Campos-Oriola teased the future of the series in agonizingly vague terms:

"For sure, it's, it's a hope that we have. There's interest on my side and I think on Roman's side – you can see his smile – in exploring Dead Space more. There are ideas, that's for sure. We're finishing this week, we're going to be making sure that that launch goes well and that there are as few technical issues as possible. We're gonna be heading out on vacation and then we'll sit down and we'll have those discussions within EA to say, 'Well, what's next?'"

Tantalizing, for sure, but it'll likely be a while before anything concrete surfaces. Also unknown is whether these "ideas" Ducharme speaks of are for another remake - possible for the second Dead Space - or for a new sequel, i.e. Dead Space 4. Either way, the Dead Space remake has shown that the recent obsession around retreads isn't about chasing nostalgia, but filling a certain AAA void.

Check out our full Dead Space weapons guide to equip yourself for the terrifying road ahead.

Here's something I try not to remember: Dead Space is old. Over 10 years old, if you can believe it; I know I couldn't when I looked the game up after the remake was announced. It's been a few years since my third, maybe fourth playthrough of Visceral's 2008 classic. I last booted it up to break in a new sound bar for my TV and – oops – ended up playing through the whole thing. I was instantly hooked all over again, but I can also remember being genuinely surprised by how dated it looked on my last run, my nostalgia-colored memories clashing with the now-officially-retro reality. Did it really look so flat? Were these characters really so hammy? It's been so long that I almost feel like I can't trust my memories of the original.

Make us whole  

Luckily, I don't have to rely on memories anymore, because Motive's only gone and dropped a stonking great remake that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Dead Space was at least 15 years ahead of its time. Besides updating the graphics and sound, Motive barely needed to change a thing for this remake. I suspect many people would've been fine with a standard remaster; just gussy it up and ship it out, making it easier to play on modern platforms. But the changes that the remake had the confidence to make have turned a classic of its time into an unquestionably timeless classic.

I've always found video game remakes particularly fascinating compared to retreads and revivals in other mediums, and from this point forward I will point to Dead Space whenever people ask why. It's maybe the best example yet of how a second attempt, backed by modern technology and shepherded by passionate creators, can improve on something great without overshadowing the original. I don't think it's wrong to say that this remake is a better version of Dead Space, but I also don't know if that's the right way to say it. To me, it feels as though the world of Dead Space had more to give and Motive has tapped into that potential. 

In a sense, there's plenty of proof that Dead Space had more in the tank. After all, it got a sequel that made some notable improvements and additions, and those have now been retroactively grafted onto the remake. Protagonist Isaac Clarke has a voice and acts with greater agency and personality. Zero-gravity sections are now free-form and much more enjoyable. Combat benefits immensely from the addition of telekinesis throws which can turn severed limbs and loose pipes into valuable weapons. None of this stuff felt new as I blasted through Dead Space in two sittings; it felt natural, like things have always been this way. Motive has essentially gone back in time and added this stuff to the original game, and it can feel like the studio did so with a time machine rather than modern technology. 

New arrivals  

It's amazing how well these additions fit, but what's more impressive is the all-new content filling out this incarnation of Dead Space. For starters, the Ishimura absolutely sings as a seamless, interconnected environment. The remake has done an excellent job of logically connecting what were once disparate levels and filling those connections with exciting content, making the ship feel so much more familiar and lived-in by the end. This is immersive sim-grade stuff, and that's only reinforced by the Metroidvania-lite system of security doors that sees you revisit old areas seeking new loot. Part of me does miss the old power node resource caches, if only because they brought resource management into exploration in a cool way, but I think I see what Motive was going for.

The Intensity Director working under the hood like a little horror conductor is a crowning achievement here. I want this system enshrined alongside the likes of Shadow of War's Nemesis tree. Because systematically generated horror sounds unrealistic. Surely it will get old or predictable, I feared. Just as you need only look at the fingers when identifying art made by a machine, surely you'll spot the seams, the all too telling patterns, and see The Horror coming. But no. Motive took the emotional response that makes horror so compelling and modularized it. Dread and relief and danger are sprinkled in like toppings, bringing contrast to the margins of the Ishimura and – not unlike the Nemesis system, albeit on a smaller scale – injecting unique stories into each player's experience. 

And the side quests! Oh, the side quests. Such an elegant way to guide players through the newly expanded story while simultaneously leveraging the beefed-up environment. And that story reads so much better this time around, doesn't it? The church of Unitology is a more unified theme, the ending is seeded more effectively – and given some spice through an alternate ending tied to new game plus – and characters have clearer emotional throughlines that resonate. 

I'm not a game developer, but through this job I have learned that video game development is often about getting as close as possible to an idea using the skills and resources available to you. It's not what you want to do, but what you can feasibly do. This is why a modern remake of an old game is such a promising opportunity. A remake is not just what a game would look like if it was made today, but rather what it would be. What corners, cut out of necessity, could be restored? What ideas, unrealistic at the time, could be expanded upon? So I don't want to say this is just another version of Dead Space the video game with better graphics and more stuff. It absolutely is, but to me – a mere fan who obviously can't speak for the creators – it's a game that better realizes the idea of Dead Space, narrowing the gap between what was envisioned and what could feasibly be shipped. 

15 years after the original, Dead Space still has us cooing over its finer details – and even some of the glitches.

The remake has long been considered one of the most anticipated new games 2023, and after playing through its lovingly refurbished realm of intergalactic terror, many fans have sung the praises of Dead Space developers Motive Studios. Not only has the community commended Motive's precise, loyal reimagining of the survival horror classic, many have spotted thoughtful extra details littered throughout the Ishimura.

Dead Space takes player experience. Motive Studios went out of its way when it comes to immersion factor, from refining one of the original's most infamous setpieces to the carefully considered soundscapes. Adding to this sense of realism, however, are elements that make Isaac just as clumsy as the rest of us; opening lockers sometimes causes protagonist Isaac Clarke to smack his bulky helmet on them, complete with a goofy bounceback animation that feels true to life. We've all been there, man.

Not only is Isaac prey to the foibles of being a little clumsy, but he gets scared of the world around him just like we do. Twitter user @GermanStrands discovered that by simply pointing your plasma cutter at a human corpse, you'll raise Isaac's pulse considerably as he starts to panic. Isaac is no stoic super-soldier; this guy is absolutely terrified of what's going on, and that makes it scarier for us by default.

As you rush through the Ishimura laying waste to the beastly Necromorphs in your path, you'll want to keep an ear out for the intercom. Although it mostly offers generic commentary, Reddit user u/Exminded managed to capture a particularly chilling announcement that caught them off-guard. It asks Isaac to "please report to the morgue", since his "lifetime has expired." Creepy.

One glitch experienced by Reddit user u/ChartyParty_ turned Dead Space into an old-school Resident Evil title, complete with fixed-camera angles and awkward character movements. This actually intrigued many r/DeadSpace users, with some even suggesting that a fixed-cam version of the game would be a cool idea. If that entails a return to clunky tank controls as well, however, it's a hard pass from us.

Finally, some of the most glittering praise for Dead Space comes from the keyboard of one of the biggest names in horror. The original director and creator of the Halloween film franchise, John Carpenter tweeted his rave review of the game, praising it for being both exciting as well as scary. If that isn't reason enough to give this faithful remake a shot, I don't know what is.

If you're struggling with Dead Space's permadeath Impossible Mode, this infinite ammo trick might be your savior. 

Dead Space players have uncovered a trick to grant infinite ammo and Nodes, which might render the 'Impossible' difficulty mode null and void.

This method, uncovered over the past weekend by enterprising players, revolves around the alt-fire mode of the Pulse Rifle. As the Dead Space-dedicated subreddit post below reveals, you can convert the Pulse Rifle's mines from its alt-fire mode to regular Pulse Rifle ammo, which has intriguing knock-on effects.

For this method, you need to first find a Workbench. Then, fire out a mine on the ground, and pick it up, resulting in Pulse Rifle ammo being placed back in your inventory. You can keep rinsing and repeating this method for more ammo, but the trick here is to spend a Node on the 'Capacity' upgrade for the Pulse Rifle whenever your ammo runs dry, resulting in an immediate full clip.

Furthermore, you can even 'Respec' your Pulse Rifle upgrades for 5,000 Credits, which will return all your Nodes to your inventory. You can then take the accumulated Pulse Rifle ammo and sell it in a Shop for Credits if you'd rather Nodes over ammo, which means you've potentially got an unlimited source of either resource. 

This trick will undoubtedly wreak havoc on the ultra-tough Impossible difficulty mode in the Dead Space remake. As you probably guess, the mode is meant to be nigh-on impossible for players to complete, but a limitless supply of Pulse Rifle ammo and upgrade Nodes might just derail the entire thing. Then again, Isaac Clarke is meant to be a resourceful engineer.

Check out our full Dead Space weapons guide if you're missing one or two key items.

It's January 27, 2023, and this week's hottest new releases include Dead Space and GoldenEye 007. Your cynicism may incline you to ask why gaming is so obsessed with nostalgia. But these sorts of releases aren't really about nostalgia - they're about filling a void in the world of modern AAA games.

Dead Space is an exceptionally well-crafted remake of a beloved cult classic, yes, and while I like the original game, fond memories aren't why I'm so excited to dive into the new version. This is a single-player, story-driven game that's built to be played to completion in a few days rather than offering an endless stream of content. 

Single-player gaming has always been alive and well, but the mode of the day is big open worlds and dozens, if not hundreds of hours worth of stuff to do. The likes of Elden Ring and Horizon Forbidden West are fantastic, but I don't need - or even want - every game to consume my life for weeks at a time. Something like the Dead Space remake is a throwback, yes, but it's a throwback not specifically to Dead Space itself. Instead, it's the kind of linear, limited-scope game that we just don't get as much of in 2023 from the AAA space.

Over 100 hours of discontent

Modern gaming is a frequently wonderful place, with online-connected games offering evolving worlds and endless content while indies help fill in the gaps with memorable, small-scale experiences. But while you'll never catch me saying that gaming was flat-out better in the past, there are certain types of games that have fallen by the wayside, and that's been a loss for many players.

The problem, of course, is that it's not necessarily easier making a linear game than it is making a big open world or a suite of multiplayer features. I'll try to avoid embarrassing myself with too much wildly under-informed speculation about how game development works, but given how much publishers have invested in building much larger games, it certainly seems like they believe they're going to be raking in bigger profits – and more reliably recouping ballooning development costs – from games that players can put more time into, and the financial records of live service devotees like EA and Blizzard would certainly agree.

I think this is why remakes have become such a haven for this school of gaming. The original Dead Space was not regarded as a particularly notable seller, but years of nostalgia have compounded its reputation to the point where the name still has value. Between the Dead Space remake and the Star Wars Jedi series, EA has taken a surprisingly favorable stance on single-player games in the past few years, and it's tough to imagine that would be the case without established names helping to promote them.

Goldenied

GoldenEye is a remaster rather than a remake, and it seems like a pretty light one at that, but it's still providing a type of co-op game we just don't get in modern shooters. It's long been accepted that GoldenEye was effectively made obsolete by Halo, but that ignores the way 007 was built around its now-dated control scheme. It's paced slowly so that you can carefully line up your shots based on the exaggerated enemy animations.

The boomer shooter, uh, boom has ensured that we've gotten plenty of modern throwbacks to classic FPS games from smaller developers, but those are all hyper-focused on lightning-fast action and twitch reflexes. GoldenEye levels are endurance challenges - checkpoint-free affairs where you've got to manage your resources against a small pool of predictable enemies.

GoldenEye's nearly survival horror-esque emphasis on resource management was certainly born in response to the limitations of an N64 controller, but that slower-paced action means it still maintains its own flavor, even today. Indie games like Neon White have proven there's life in shooters outside the post-Halo mold, and GoldenEye itself is being mined in games like Agent 64: Spies Never Die and even Screencheat. What if we could these more varied types of action games out of the AAA scene, too?

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely do not want Halo or Call of Duty to give up the precision of their dual-analog controls. But would it be such a bad thing if we got more shooters that were built in a different mold? Either way, GoldenEye is still here to offer a type of experience I just can't get out of current games. 

Ultimately, of course, I don't really want more remakes. What I want are games that feel out of step with the current trends every now and then. And hey, we've had an excellent example of that this week with Hi-Fi Rush, a bold, creative action game that feels like a throwback to a more experimental era of development coming from Tango. But how often is a major publisher going to fund a small-scale experiment from top talent? It's certainly going to be a lot less likely from a company that's not banking on a service like Game Pass.

For now, the remake and remaster trend is largely satisfying my need for robust games that stop short of massive open-worlds and endless content, and I'm most looking forward to remakes of games that I never got to enjoy in the first place. Well, and the Resident Evil 4 remake. That's probably gonna be a banger, too.

There's a chunk of familiar titles among the new games for 2023, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

The Dead Space Z-Ball rewards in the lockers are worth it if you want to be well-equipped, with huge credits, ammo and even an upgrade Node to be won. However, it's not mandatory, and there's nothing in the lockers that you can't technically find somewhere else - so don't worry about losing anything exclusive, like some Dead Space Suit Upgrades for your Rig. However, for those who want to know what they can find, here are all the Dead Space Z-Ball Rewards and how you get them.

All Z-Ball locker rewards in the Dead Space Remake

There are six separate Z-Ball rewards found in the Dead Space Remake, unlocked sequentially for each level or tier you complete. In order, they are:

1. Pulse Rounds
2. Contact Energy
3. Force Energy
4. 1200 Credits
5. Ruby Semiconductor (worth 10,000 Credits)
6. Node

Clearly while the early rewards aren't quite so important, the bounty of Credits supplied by a Ruby Semiconductor and the chance to get new Nodes for upgrading your suit and Dead Space Weapons are clearly a bigger deal - in fact, if you sell the Semiconductor, you get precisely the right amount of money to buy another Node from the store, or put it towards an even more expensive purchase like a weapon upgrade schematic. Either way - high value. These rewards are in the sealed lockers directly opposite you when you leave the arena, with one unlocking each time you complete a round.

So yes, we advise completing the Z-Ball challenge in Chapter 10 when you get the chance, especially considering that you're about to undergo a series of far more complicated and difficult challenges in trying to deal with the Dead Space Marker - but we won't spoil those for you here. Just grab what loot you can, avoid the tentacle babies in the Z-Ball arena itself, and sell the Semiconductor at the earliest opportunity. 

Dead Space's new secret ending has been uncovered, and it's absolutely off the chain.

Be warned: there are full story spoilers for the Dead Space remake here!

Yesterday on January 26, Stevivor uploaded the video seen just below, detailing the Dead Space remake's alternate ending in full. The new ending was outed last week thanks to leaked Achievements for the remake, but we now finally know what the ending entails, and how you can see it for yourself.

Firstly, you'll have to track down every Marker Fragment on the USG Ishimura, as the video above details. Then, you need to make it far enough in the New Game + mode in Dead Space so that you can place the Marker Fragments back in the Shrine in the Captain's Quarters, and then finish the game in order to see the absolute chaos that unfolds afterward.

The alternate ending has Isaac Clarke fully giving into a mental breakdown after collecting all the Marker Fragments. He then fully submits to the Dead Space Marker itself when he departs Aegis VII at the conclusion of the game, giving into his hallucinations of Nicole, and heading back to planet Earth. This is a brand new ending to Dead Space, something of remake developer EA Motive's creation entirely.

The implication here, we think, is that Isaac takes on the burden of delivering the Marker back to Earth, unleashing the necromorphs back home. That surely can't be a good thing, not just for our heroic protagonist, but also for the entire population of humanity. 

We have a wealth of guides for EA Motive's remake you can check out, including our guide detailing all the Dead Space weapons and where to find them, Dead Space master override and crew rigs for the solution to a puzzle, and much more. 

You can also head over to our Dead Space Fuel Station keycard location for help with another puzzle. 

The Dead Space Marker - specifically the Red Marker - is at the heart of the Dead Space story and drives the vast majority of the plot. We'll cover exactly what the Marker is and what it's doing in the story in our explainer below, how it differs from a Black Marker, and where it even came from. However, because the Dead Space Marker is so central to the story, obviously we should clarify: massive spoilers for Dead Space and the Dead Space Remake to follow!

The Dead Space Marker explained

The Red Marker in Dead Space that Isaac Clarke encounters on the USG Ishimura is one of many Markers, though this one is actually an artificial recreation of a "Black Marker" found on Earth. These obelisks are big alien statues of mysterious origin that, in the original games' lore, are eventually discovered to be scattered around the galaxy. Part of the function of a Black Marker is to inspire an urge to recreate it in any intelligent species that discovers one. The colour difference is thought to be from differences in composition, as Black Markers features several unknown elements. 

Either type of Marker largely does the same thing: generates a signal that has two effects: firstly, it affects the minds of human beings nearby, starting with insomnia and depression, and escalating over time to full-on homicidal or suicidal behaviour, usually driven by hallucinations that make this behaviour seem rational to those affected.

Secondly, the Marker mutates any dead tissue nearby into the monsters known as Necromorphs, undead aliens whose form shifts and changes over time, even having them merge together or split apart. So once the mind-controlled humans above start killing each other, those people are likely to come back as gloopy, spiky monsters. Eek. 

What is Convergence?

Eventually, when the Necromorph outbreak is sufficiently huge, the Marker triggers Convergence - aka, the creation of a Necromorph Moon, sometimes called a Brethren Moon. All the Necromorphs gather around the Marker and literally form into a small planetoid made of meat with the Marker at its center. It's effectively one giant Necromorph, which then flies through space and infects other worlds.

Markers seem to have some intelligence - they want Necromorphs and outbreaks to happen, and will often induce hallucinations specifically to further their goals and manipulate humans into helping them or protecting them.

Where did the Marker come from?

The Black Markers' origins are unknown - nobody knows where they came from, but they seem pretty alien and have appeared on different worlds either in falling asteroids or buried underground. In fact, in Dead Space lore, a Black Marker in an asteroid is what supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs.

Red Markers, as we mentioned, were made by human beings, specifically by government researchers who found a Black Marker in the 2200s (about 300 years before Dead Space is set), and tried to recreate them, as they produced huge amounts of energy that they hoped could be harnessed. A scientist named Altman recognized the danger and sank the Black Marker into the sea, but based on his data three Red Markers were constructed anyway, and all of them caused outbreaks because… of course they did. The whole affair was declared a massive failure and swept under the rug by the World Government, before the Red Markers were left abandoned on distant planets.

In the 2500s, a megacorporation called the CEC was mining across space and found one of the Red Markers on the world of Aegis VII - and that's where the plot of Dead Space 1 kicks in! Having uncovered the Red Marker, the CEC mining ship known as the USG Ishimura is hit by a Necromorph outbreak as explained above.

The Dead Space remake devs at Motive went out of their way to ensure the revamped version of the game stayed true to the original, even setting up a room with side-by-side TVs to regularly play and compare both games, but even they knew that the game's asteroid turret section needed a substantial tune-up. There's even a whole new side objectives as part of the changes, involving a Dead Space Master Overide and crew rigs. 

Creative director Roman Campos-Oriola tells GamesRadar+ that the approach to each portion of the game "depends on the elements. We evaluated them. It was part of our discussion, like, are we keeping them like this? Or do we want to improve them based on some of the [design pillars] that I've explained? So the example of the turret section, we're like, actually, we want to completely redo that.

"And that's what we did. But we wanted to keep the elements in that fantasy," he continues. "That is actually quite cool. The fantasy of being on a gigantic spaceship that's being rained down with asteroids. It's kind of cool! It's really dangerous. It's really scary, it's really tense. OK, so that fantasy is interesting. Today, can we build a set piece that is more engaging with that fantasy than the original? And we think that we had the answer to that. 

"So now you're literally outside on the hull of the ship with the asteroids coming at you, trying to fix these cannons. And then once you fix the cannons, well, you have to synchronize to retrain them to target the asteroids. But you're not directly using them exactly like that. So basically, we try to capture the original fantasy of that sequence, and we tried to add a bit more of a space engineer fantasy to it. Because in the original it was Hammond fixing the turrets and Isaac shooting them, but Hammond is the soldier, so that's kind of weird. So we try to improve on that and make that sequence better in terms of pacing." 

As someone who counts the original Dead Space among their most-replayed games of all time, I can say definitely that I won't miss the original turret section. Every time I'd replay the game, that was always the bit where I'd lament that that part is next. Let turret sections stay buried in the mid-2000s along with that tsunami of brown-and-gray shooters, I say. 

Read our Dead Space review for a full breakdown of how this revamp improves on the storied original, or find out all the locations for the Dead Space Rig Upgrades here!

Dead Space remake developer Motive regularly played through the original game to compare specific sequences and double-check their work, even going so far as to put two TVs side-by-side in a meeting room to allow for a one-to-one comparison with the remake to ensure authenticity. 

In an interview with GamesRadar+, creative director Roman Campos-Oriola explains that, "at the beginning of the project, basically we were doing team-wide play sessions where we're all playing the game together, commenting on what we're seeing, discussing why stuff was made, why they were made this way, what type of impact they were having on the player. How are we going to remake those things? At the beginning it was more than a daily thing. 

"But even towards the end of the project, as we were polishing the experience for the sequences," he continues. "Because there are some sequences where we made quite some changes, but other sequences that we kept like the original. We were coming to them on a weekly basis just to check on them and see if we did not miss a little detail here, or if by making a change we did not lose the mood or the tone of that specific sequence. It was part of that development bible that we had to come back to."

"Like Roman said, 'true to the source' was one of our staple statements," adds senior producer Phil Ducharme. "We actually have a meeting room in the studio that has two TVs side-by-side. And what we did around our alpha was that we booted our version, the remake, and the original side-by-side so that we could see those moments and really compare. It's not just about remaking, we want to make sure we don't lose the feeling that was so iconic. Sometimes, the feeling was maybe we actually went too far with some of the changes. And that's what we wanted to make sure we dialed in." 

One of the sequences that required a more extensive overhaul was the infamous asteroid turret section that's so emblematic of mid-2000s action games. Campos-Oriola said the team quickly knew that "actually, we want to completely redo that." 

Motive's diligence paid off: check out our Dead Space review to learn just how well the reinvigorated horror classic holds up, or if you're playing the game yourself, find out how to fix the Dead Space Comms Array here!

Dead Space weapons number seven in total, found around the Ishimura and the best of them are the Ripper and Contact Beam. They hit a great mid-point between damage, effect and ammo availability, but other weapons like the reliable Pulse Rifle and the hard-working Plasma Cutter can offer a lot to the aspiring Necromorph-hunter. For those who want to assemble the full arsenal, here's where to find every Dead Space weapon, and how we rank them.

Dead Space weapons

There are seven Dead Space weapons you can find as you play: 

1. Plasma Cutter
2. Pulse Rifle
3. Ripper
4. Flamethrower
5. Contact Beam
6. Line Gun
7. Force Gun

Plasma cutter

The Dead Space plasma cutter is your go-to/default weapon that will serve you well for most of the game. You can't miss this one, obviously, as the game bottlenecks you into picking it up within the first 15 minutes of the game. 

Its key ability is that it can have a vertical and horizontal configuration, letting you cut left to right and up and down depending on whether you are trying to sever a necromorph's arms or legs. 

Pulse Rifle

The Pulse Rifle is another weapon the game makes sure you can't miss. You'll get it shortly after finding the Kinesis module, when you meet a dying security officer on the Medical tram station platform. It's a useful mid-game weapon when you're mobbed, thanks to its high rate of fire and explosive mine secondary fire that can clear rooms in one go. Ammo can be a little short in a few areas though. 

Ripper

The ripper is hands down the best weapon in Dead Space (while the ammo lasts) and you'll find it during the objective to Refuel the Engines (South), not too far from the Dead Space Centrifuge puzzle. 

What makes it so good is that the primary fire launches and holds a spinning saw blade a short distance from you while you hold the fire button down. Not only does this damage enemies the whole time it's touching them, but it also holds them back. Used well it can stop monsters reaching you, interrupt attacks and generally dice up anything you can keep in front of you. The only downside is that ammo gets scarce in the late game. 

Flamethrower

The flamethrower appears during the mission to Manually Ignite the Engines. When you move into an area overgrown by alien material you can pull it from the hands of a dead crew member partially absorbed into the wall. It's fun but not the strongest weapon overall as it applies heat damage over time, which is not hugely useful when you want to target limb damage for instant effect. 

However, it's very useful in a crowd and especially against the small crawling enemies you encounter occasionally. Its biggest strength is the fire wall secondary ability you can use to create an impenetrable barrier that hurts enemies as it holds them back. 

Contact Beam

You'll be able to get the Contact Beam during the mission to Reroute Power from Mining Administration. It's tucked away inside a Records Office with level 2 Dead Space security clearance you'll find just after a space vacuum section. 

It's probably the best late-stage Dead Space weapon. Ammo seems to be plentiful and its laser beam melts enemies as you literally hose away limbs like power-washing a fleshy driveway. The only real reason you ever need to stop firing is because you can't always tell if things are dead behind its energy beam

Line Gun

You'll be able to find the Line Gun shortly after you meet the constantly regenerating hunter necromorph. This is a gun you can miss in all the chaos and running that follows when trying to escape it. For a far more detailed path to reach it, we have a dedicated page for the Dead Space Line Gun and how to reach it.

Look for this level 2 locked Equipment room to find it once you're running way from the hunter. It's basically a heavier, slower firing Plasma Cutter that only fires horizontally. Because it takes longer between shots it needs a little more skill to use well, although its secondary fire laser mines are extremely good at locking down open spaces. 

Force Gun

The Force Gun becomes available when you head to Hydroponics and start taking out the Wheezers. As soon you go after Wheezer 1 you'll be able to access a level 2 Seedling Room where you'll find this gun. 

It's essentially a gravity-powered shotgun that can blast all the flesh off a necromorph in one shot, and kill it with the second. It's great fun to use but ammo is always sparse, so this may not the best option for a main weapon. Save it for emergencies and larger enemies.

Wondering how long you've got left in the game to use all this deadly tech? We wrote a page explaining how many chapters in Dead Space and its overall length, so you know just how much Necromorph horror you've got waiting ahead of you!

The Dead Space Master Override is obtained by finding the Rig locations of seven crew members in the You Are Not Authorized mission. Finding all the Rigs and bringing them back to the Captain's Nest will grant players the Master Override, used to access special doors and crates with rare loot inside across the Ishimura.

It's important to remember that the Master Override is separate to the Dead Space security clearance - one has no bearing on the other, they're entirely unrelated, like two separate keys for different kinds of locks. But while clearance has its own benefits, the Master Override allows players to get special optional loot that would be unattainable otherwise. For that reason, we'll explain how to get the Dead Space Master Override below, as well as the locations of all the Crew Rigs. 

Of course, exploring the Ishimura is perilous at the best of times. If you need some general help staying alive, our Dead Space tips should help steer you in the best direction. 

How to get the Dead Space Master Override

You'll be able to access the You are not Authorised mission when you complete the Meet Hammond in the Captain's Nest objective. In the same room you'll find a red bridge security console. Interacting with that will start the side quest and give you a list of crew rigs to retrieve. Find them all and bring them back to this console to craft the Master Override. There are seven in total and many of them are locked behind the story, meaning you can only access them as you open up new areas. It's less a case of 'where' you can find them and more about 'when'. Keep in mind that you also can't wear any of these Rigs - but if you want to upgrade your own, we've got all the Dead Space Suit Upgrades and how to get them here!

Now let's take a look at where you can find all the Crew Rigs you need to find in Dead Space.

Where to find the crew rigs in Dead Space

There are seven Dead Space crew rigs to find in order to unlock the Master Override: 

1. Voelker's Rig
2. First Officer White's Rig
3. Lt Commander Holt's Rig
4. Mining Supervisor Dallas' Rig
5. Chief Engineer Rousseau's Rig
6. Comms Officer Bailey's Rig
7. Tram Supervisor Benson's Rig

Voelker's Rig

Voelker's Rig is the first one you can find in Dead Space, potentially even before you reach the console that activates the side mission to find it. During the objective to Reach the Engineering Deck, not long before finding the Dead Space Fuel Station keycard, you'll be able to fly through the hanger in zero-G and then through a force field and out into space. If you hug the right hand side of this area you'll eventually see a purple light, Voelker's Rig, near an O2 supply. 

First Officer White's Rig

White's Rig can't be accessed until you go to calibrate the ADS cannons to deal with the asteroids. That will give you access to an outside trench area. Once you've interreacted with and synced all three guns by destroying incoming rocks you'll complete this section. However, before you return to the ship, fly to the end of the trench where you'll find White and their rig on the left at the end. 

Lt Commander Holt's Rig

Holt's Rig can be found while injecting the various Wheezers to clear the toxic gas. When you kill Wheezer 4 you'll be in a room with one door is blocked by a tentacle. Shoot the glowing nodule to clear it and then go through the door. You'll be in an upper gantry area blocked by yet more tentacles on the left hand side - clear them all away and and you'll find Holt's Rig underneath. You're also just about to hit a sticking point when you suddenly need to find the Dead Space Deck Systems keycard  - but we can help with that at the attached page.

Mining Supervisor Dallas' Rig

You'll find Dallas' Rig during the mission to Find the Admin Rig. It's in a small room off the side of the mining processing area where you have to remove the anomalies by grabbing and throwing the glowing rocks into the energy beam. This will also upgrade your Dead Space security clearance up to level 3 which is another important story beat you can't miss.

Chief Engineer Rousseau's Rig

You'll be able to get Rousseau's Rig as soon as you've found Dallas' one and unlocked that level 3 security clearance. That'll be when you have the objective to retrieve the SOS beacon. To get the rig, head to engineering and the area where the walls and floors are covered in fleshy growths that you've previously been to. The rig is inside the small level 3 locked storage area you probably noticed before but couldn't get into. 

Comms Officer Bailey's Rig

You can access Bailey's Rig when you get the mission to Fix the Dead Space Comms Array. During a conversation at thus point, the door to communications will be opened, letting you into a part of the ship you couldn't previous access. Get to that area and you'll find Bailey and his rig in his office. 

Tram Supervisor Benson's Rig

Benson's Rig will be accessible after you leave the Valor shuttle. Once that section is over you'll get the message that someone has opened a door near the bridge atrium. Once again that will open up access to an area you couldn't previously reach before. In this case a way on to the tram track, where you'll find Benson and their rig on the floor. You'll also get jumped here by a couple of Necromorphs so be ready. It won't be long afterwards that you'll also come across something strange called a Z-Ball arena - if you want to know if it's worth playing, our page on the Dead Space Z-Ball rewards will help you decide.

How to craft the Master Override in Dead Space

Once you have all the Crew Rigs, return to the Captain's Nest where you met Hammond and activated the console to start the mission. With everything you need the console will now give you the option to craft the Master Override. With it you'll be able to open all the Master Override doors you've been passing on the Ishimura - check the maps for star symbols, which dictate doors the Master Override can open. 

However, far more importantly, you'll be able to open specific yellow crates. These are especially important in the late game for extra resources and final weapon upgrades. It's worth collecting all the rigs and crafting the override as there will be a point in the game where you can't do it anymore, and lose access to anything with a master level lock. And if you've noticed you've been playing for a while and wondering how long is Dead Space, we can let you know how much necromorph-mangling is left at our special page!

Dead Space Security Clearance is needed to open level 1, 2 and 3 doors, crates and lockers, but you get it at certain plot points and locations. Security clearance is tied to specific moments in the campaign. but players can do themselves a favour by powering through to reach them as early as possible.

I wouldn't worry too much about backtracking when you get extra clearance levels either, as you'll be heading back to old areas a lot as the story moves you around. The different levels of security you gradually unlock is more about drip feeding you resources later on, rather anything else. There's no real way to short cut anything here. 

There's also the Dead Space crew rigs and Master Override to get much later in the game. This final level of access sees you collecting several rigs from various Ishimura crew to craft the highest level of access for a few doors on the ship and some high tier resource crates - but that's a different guide listed above. For now, here's how to get every Security Clearance in the Dead Space Remake.

All Dead Space Security Clearance levels and how to get them

Here's where to find all three levels of Dead Space security clearance: 

• Dead Space Security Clearance 1 - Obtained from the captain's rig during Chapter 2.
• Dead Space Security Clearance 2 - Obtained from Hammond when you meet him in the Captain's Nest during Chapter 3. 
• Dead Space Security Clearance 3 - Obtained during the chapter 7 mission to Find the Admin Rig.

We'll cover each of these in more detail below, so either scroll down to find them in order, or click the links above to jump straight to the one you need.

Dead Space Security Clearance 1

You'll get Security Clearance 1 during the Chapter 2 mission to Find the Captain's Body. Once you've dealt with the Necromorphs and got the captain's rig you'll speak to Hammond and get Level 1 Security Clearance. 

Dead Space Security Clearance 2

Isaac will get Security Clearance 2 during the Chapter 3 mission to Meet Hammond in the Captain's Nest, close to the Dead Space Centrifuge puzzle. Head to the bridge and follow him into the nest where he'll tell you he's found a CEC Executive Keycard and can upgrade your security to level 2. 

Dead Space Security Clearance 3

Clearance level 3 will be gained during the chapter 7 mission, Find the Admin Rig. This will see you chasing down Supervisor Dallas to get his rig with admin codes. You'll be told it's in the Processing Control Room but you'll need to clear some dangerous anomalies (rocks), as the door you need won't open until gravity is restored, and that won't happen until you grab all the glowing rocks and throw them in the mining beam. Do that and you can finally reach what's left of Dallas and claim Security Clearance 3.

Of course, if you're looking for more ways to get around the Ishimura, at times you'll be required to find different keycards and components. If you're trapped in Engineering, here's how to find the Dead Space Fuel Station keycard, or if you're exploring Hydroponics, here's the location of the Dead Space Deck Systems Keycard!

If you want to know how long Dead Space is then that depends on how much of it you want to see. The new remake adds in extra side mission elements that are completely optional but could add a few hours to your playtime. Especially considering how your access to the Ishimura depends on story beats opening up locked doors and letting you reach certain areas - its possible to look into side objectives you can't complete yet, which just adds extra time to your playthrough. 

How long is Dead Space and how many chapters are there? 

From my experiences, the Dead Space Remake should take approximately the following amount of time (though differing player skill levels and approaches will obviously lead to some variation).

• Just Story/Critical Path: 11-13 Hours
• Average playthrough/some side quests: 15-18 hours
• Completionist/100%: 18-20 hours

Speaking personally, Dead Space took me about 20 hours to complete its 12 chapters, but I did 100% all the side missions and a lot of backtracking in the process. 

Many of the side quests in Dead Space are locked behind story progress though, so you can frequently follow them into dead ends which you can't do anything with, at least until you go back to the story where a new door or pathway can open up after you've completed a main objective. What I also discovered eventually as I played was that most side missions are largely along the route you'd follow as you complete the story anyway, so I might have actually been making things harder for myself by trying to do side missions when they first appear. You simply can't do them until the game allows it, but it's not always clear when that is - there are 'access denied' markers, but I found it a little confusing in a few places. Plus, if you don't check in regularly to see if a mission is now available you can be further away from it. 

A core playthrough of Dead Space focusing on just the main story missions will last about 11-13 hours if you really focus on core objectives at the expense of everything else, maybe longer if you're finding it more challenging. The main benefit to doing the side missions are some extra story beats and trophies/achievements. However, the Dead Space Master Override and crew rigs quest will get you a key to certain doors and crates that hold valuable resources and upgrades late game, so that is worth doing.

Overall, Dead Space will likely take you 15-18 hours to finish on a casual playthrough. Although expect that to edge closer to 20 if you aim to see everything and finish every mission.

The Dead Space centrifuge puzzle needs you to use both Stasis and Kinesis together to control the clutches and install them in the centrifuge. It's a simple solution, but a little confusing regardless, as players are still probably learning how to use these powers in tandem when it comes to puzzle solution. For that reason, we'll go into further detail about what's needed in our guide to the Dead Space centrifuge puzzle below.

How to activate the Dead Space Centrifuge

The Dead Space Centrifuge puzzle can be solved in several steps I've outlined for you below:

1. Anti-Grav fly to the opposite walkway and recharge your Stasis if needed.
2. Float down to the centrifuge and the spinning generators on the arms.
3. For each "clutch generator module", use Stasis to slow it down.
4. Then, while slowed, used Kinesis to slide it into the centrifuge.
5. Insert both clutches as mentioned above.
6. When done, float back up to the main control panel on the walkway overlooking and click "restart centrifuge."

If you're like me, the tricky bit here is recognising the importance of Stasis. It had been a while since the last puzzle that required the time-slowing power, so it might not be your first impulse to try Stasis-ing the spinning clutches - but the centrifuge won't accept them while they're spinning too fast.

Once you've completed the puzzle above, the centrifuge will cause all oxygen to vent from the room - whoops - and you won't have long to get out. Take the elevator behind you and use the walkway curving around the room (avoiding the spinning generator and necromorphs). There'll be oxygen refills in some of the alcoves you can shelter in, until you reach the next elevator and can follow the next walkway around the airlock.

Of course, that's not the only puzzle in the game. Later on you'll have to sort out the Dead Space Comms Array - for info on that, check the link provided.

The Dead Space Deck Systems Keycard isn't far from the circuit breaker, on a desk in the gas-filled East Seedling Room B, across from the breaker itself. Though essential to progression, the Deck Systems keycard is one of the few objectives in the game you can't just have a line drawn to, requiring you to search the local area in hydroponics and evade the necromorphs - but if you don't have it in you to do that, we'll lay out where to find it in our guide to the Dead Space deck systems keycard location below.

Where to find the Dead Space Deck Systems keycard 

To find the Deck Systems Keycard in Dead Space, take the following steps:

1. Head to the Circuit Breaker that requires the keycard itself.
2. Turn around to face the opposite direction.
3. You'll see a door across from you to East Seedling Room B.
4. Go inside - it's full of gas! However, the Keycard is on a desk to the right. Grab it and get out.

There's also a bench in there for you to use, though keep in mind that while you're using it, the O2 readout on the back of your head will still go down, so use it quickly!

Once you have the keycard, bring it back to the circuit breaker and install it. With the generator also set up, you'll have access to the room's gravity systems, which - when activated - will allow you to ascend through the room and reach the upper levels so you can keep stabbing wheezers. If you're finding it all a little overwhelming, or you're just sick of those damn baby necromorphs spitting goo at the back of your head, our Dead Space tips will help you even the odds a little. 

The Dead Space Fuel Station Keycard is needed to access the fuel management office and the circuit breaker inside, found in an Eastern dead end. The keycard itself is going to require a bit of combat to reach, as there's necromorphs in the area who are effectively guarding it, but it's nothing you shouldn't be able to handle at this point in the game. For more info about where it's found and where it's used, read on to see our Dead Space Fuel Station Keycard guide.

How to find the Fuel Station Keycard and open the Fuel Management Office in Dead Space

The Fuel Station Keycard in the Dead Space Remake is found in the little alcove on the Eastern side of engineering, on top of a desk near some lockers. You can see it marked above, but the area will have some necromorphs, and the thin walkways can make things a little dangerous as you'll have less room to move around and escape. We recommend going aggressive and making sure they can't get too close before they have a chance to box you in.

Once you have the Keycard, take it to the locked door marked above, which leads to Fuel Management. Inside is a circuit breaker that you can use to actually power up the refuelling station at the end of the walkway, though you'll have to depower either the lights or oxygen to do so - it's your choice. Do you prefer to fight necromorphs in the dark, or on a timer before you suffocate? Either way, once you're done, you can always head back to the circuit breaker and shuffle things around again.

That's not the least keycard you'll have to get though. The Dead Space Deck Systems Keycard can be an issue once you reach Hydroponics later, or for a more immediate concern, you're only a few minutes away from having to deal with the Dead Space Centrifuge puzzle. 

Our Dead Space tips, hard-earned over hundreds of Necromorph encounters, will help you stay alive and find resources across the remake. Not only that, but we can give you tips and tricks to actually thrive, doing better than ever before. If encounters with Necromorphs are leaving you constantly torn to pieces, our help will help make you whole again.

Here are some quick Dead Space tips to get you started, with more detail below :

1. Always look behind you - Necromorphs love attacking in groups from all sides.
2. Re-explore areas with new clearance - you'll find vital resources and new upgrades.
3. Don't worry about buying ammo or supplies - you'll generally get enough from crates and kills.
4. Not max out one gun  - ammo supplies can be inconsistent so don't fully upgrade a single weapon you can't use all the time.
5. Stamp on all the corpses - just to make sure you have any resource drops.
6. Don't forget to use stasis - it's easy to forget you can slow enemies.
7. Look for glowing lights - crates and lockers can be hard to see in the gloom but their illuminated locks always stand out.
8. Learn ambushes and necromorph tricks watch vents, check 'dead' bodies, trut nothing. 
9. Throw necromorphs' spikes back at them! - use kinesis to save ammo, turning claws, shelf and wall parts into make do spears. 

1. Always look behind you when Necromorphs appear

Dead Space loves attacking you from behind. Especially in the early half of the game. When a Necromorph pops out of a vent in front of you, you can almost always guarantee another's done the same behind you. Get into the habit of checking every direction the second you hear bad noises to see what directions you need to worry about. If you get jumped and don't have time, kill the immediate threat and just assume there's one behind you as well. You'll rarely be wrong. 

2. Re-explore old areas with new security clearance

It's tempting to go off looking for keys or a way to open the various Dead Space Security Clearance doors and lockers you'll find. Don't sweat it too much though, as the game is fairly linear and you'll be backtracking a lot through areas with increasing access to the various things you can't open. It's more about making sure you have resources to pick up the second or third time you pass through an area than giving you a challenge or puzzle to solve. That's especially true of the Dead Space crew rigs and Master Override side mission that gets you a final security level. Just remember to look out for any locked things you can later open when you revisit places. 

3. Don't worry too much about buying ammo or supplies 

As you play you might be tempted to stock up on loads of ammo for all the Dead Space Weapons. Don't. You'll rarely find yourself running short as there are plentiful supplies to loot and most enemies drop something when  you kill them. A far more useful tactic is to transfer any excess when you have it to storage in case you need it later. Or, more usefully, sell it later when you need spare change for an upgrade or the power nodes you use to unlock new abilities. Same goes for things like Stasis batteries, O2 cylinders and so on - treat it like cash and store it all until you need to sell it. 

4. Spread your nodes around a bit

It's tempting to try and fully upgrade a favorite gun, but try to spread the love around as ammo availability can vary over the course of the game. Because of that you want at least a few viable options so have something to fall back on if you run out. Whatever you go for damage is always a priority, scooping up any useful and relevant extras like ammo capacity or reload speed along the way. You should also make sure that you're doing the same for your armor - as you unlock new Dead Space suit upgrades you'll have no opportunities to modify them with nodes.

5. Stamp on anything you kill

Every enemy you kill will usually drop some supplies if you stomp them once they're dead, if they don't pop something out in the process of you killing them to death with extreme prejudice. Always do a quick sweep of the battlefield after a fight to make sure you've got everything that could have been dropped. 

6. Don't forget to use stasis regularly

This might seem obvious but just in case it isn't, your time-slowing stasis power is for more than just keeping doors open and invaluable in combat. Use it whenever you can to slow enemies down and buy yourself a little more time to handle things. Or, in the case of the giant brute mini bosses you encounter occasionally, it can let you get behind them where they have hugely damaging weak spots you can take advantage of. 

7. Always look for glowing lights as you explore

Dead Space is a dark game and while you might not see ammo or a crate tucked away in a dingy corner, you should soon start to recognize the telltale lights that give away something useful. They usually have shapes and colors as well that will help you see what it is - green for money, white for ammo/health, rectangles for lockers and so on. Once you've seen a few and know what you're looking for you'll be able to tot up what's in a room from a glance, not to mention that there'll be bigger opportunities to earn loot now and then, like the Dead Space Z-Ball rewards.

8. Learn to recognize ambushes and necromorph tricks

Necromorphs love to jump the player either by playing dead, or leaping out of vents. To clarify, not every vent will spit out a Necromorph, but enough will do so that you should always keep a close eye on them. Meanwhile, any Necromorph lying on the ground that you didn't kill is almost certainly faking it, especially if they haven't been cut to pieces yet. Keep your distance and throw something at it with Kinesis to see how it reacts (probably violently). Oh, and speaking of which…

9. Throw necromorphs' spikes and claws back at them!

Kinesis is probably the most underrated power or attack you have, but it's very dependent on what you throw. ANY object slung with Kinesis will do at least a little damage, but if you pick the right projectile, it'll spear through the Necromorph for a massive critical hit, and you barely need to aim. Wall pipes and explosives are good, but you can also throw the claws and spikes from Necromorphs' arms and tails back at them! So if you've already killed a few, don't bother using guns - just pick up the sharper limbs and sling them at the survivors. Or, if you've shot off a Necromorph's arm and it's still coming, pick the arm up and use it to deliver a killing blow.

The Dead Space comms array puzzle involves removing broken parts and replacing them with enough working one's to restore power to an antenna in Chapter 7. You just need to use kinesis to move parts around and make a complete connection to let the power flow.

However, in zero-G and inside a large domed room it can be easy to get disorientated or lose track the pieces as they float around - making this puzzle tougher than it needs to be. There's a lot chasing bits down, flying around to see if one is the bit you need, or just to try and get a good view of everything. Below we've got the Dead Space comms array puzzle solution laid out clearly to make all that low gravity faff easier. 

If you're after some more general help surviving then check out our Dead Space tips for all the basics. 

Dead Space comms array solution

This is the comms array solution in Dead Space. The white symbols inside the red outline show the connections we made to get the the power back. The broken parts will have an orange symbol and be sparking, while the working parts have clear white lines or angles showing the direction they'll send power. Using kinesis you can yank the broken parts out, release them to set them adrift, and then place working ones instead. 

The two images above is the solution that works for me, athough you don't need the square shape we have at the bottom. All you need to do is draw a line from the bottom to the top. There's multiple paths and arrangements to do this - a straight path from either side of the generator to the array is fine, and one side can be a dead end as long as the other one reaches its goal.

Whether you use our solution or a different one, just focus on getting a line of blue power from the bottom to the top. If you get confused, back away as far as you can to get a better look at everything and make sure that you're not missing any parts that have spun out of view.

Wandering how far you got to go from this point on? We can let you know with our page explaining how long is Dead Space!

The Dead Space remake has broken street date, with players receiving the game well ahead of release.

On the Dead Space subreddit, the post just below was published on January 24, showing someone having managed to obtain EA Motive's remake early. Dead Space isn't due to launch until later this week on Friday, January 27, meaning this player received their copy over three days before launch.

Elsewhere on the subreddit, another player posted the image just below, showing they'd also managed to obtain an early copy of the Dead Space remake. This player, who posted on January 25, reveals that they actually obtained their copy from North American retailer Walmart.

This could cause other eager players to try and obtain Dead Space early from their nearest Walmart, especially given the comments underneath the two subreddit posts from envious players. It'd be highly unlikely if the remake was on general sale at the retail giant though, as what's more likely is this copy was put through sale in a rare error instead. 

Either way, there's now less than 48 hours to wait until Dead Space is finally out in the wild for players around the world. Over the past weekend, leaked Trophies for the Dead Space remake revealed it has an alternate ending. So far at least, we know no further details about this mysterious alternate ending, leaving fans eager to discover more this coming weekend. 

Earlier this month, a Dead Space remake dev revealed he can't play it at night with headphones on - it's just too scary in certain environments, apparently. 

Dead Space Remake's achievement list is now available, and it comes with a sneaky clue about what we can look forward to when the game releases next week.

Although those of us who played Dead Space the first time around may not think there'll be much to surprise us in the Dead Space remake, it turns out that the remake will feature at least one thing we didn't get in the original: an alternate ending. 

According to a new achievement list recently updated by True Trophies, Dead Space Remake includes a new trophy called "Reunion". And whilst we don't know any of the specifics - at the time of writing, Motive hadn't even announced that an alternate ending was coming at all - the trophy description does tell us that it will pop when we "see the alternative ending on any difficulty mode" (thanks, TheGamer).

Officially unveiled in 2021 and initially planned for 2022 – although that release window slipped to January 27, 2023 – Dead Space Remake is set to become one of the biggest new games for 2023… not to mention one of the most terrifying. Our own Leon Hurley, who went hands-on with the horror towards the end of last year, stated that he believes this modern incarnation "recaptures what made the original an essential horror experience".

Don't worry if you scream like a baby playing it, though – even the development team itself struggles to get through the scary parts, too, sometimes.

"When I'm playing it at night, I can't play it with headphones. It's just too fucking scary," technical director, David Robillard tells PLAY magazine's issue #22. 

"Just the amount of realism and, again, atmosphere. Not just visually, right? In the way we handle sound, ambience, effects, having systems that will try to spook you. These things, you know, could have been done [on PS4], but not to the level we're doing them today. And they really add a lot to this sort of genre and make the whole kind of experience come together even more."

There's now only a few short weeks to get completely caught up on everything you need to know about one of the most impressive upcoming horror games out there, so here's everything we know so far about Dead Space Remake. 

Keep up to date with all the best games set to launch this year with our guide to new games 2023. 

The Dead Space remake is in good shape. Officially unveiled in 2021, originally planned for 2022, and delayed to this year – January 27, to be precise – it's now set to become one of biggest new games for 2023, as well as one of the scariest. Not that its 2008 source material wasn't absolutely terrifying when it graced our screens some 15 years ago, but the reimagining, helmed by Motiv Studios and EA, channels the original's terror beautifully. That's according to our own Leon Hurley, who, having gone hands-on towards the end of last year, firmly believes this modern incarnation "recaptures what made the original an essential horror experience."

That spine-chilling sentiment appears to be shared behind the scenes too. So much so that the Dead Space remake's technical director, David Robillard, admits he isn't as comfortable playing the game after dark as he is during daylight hours. "When I'm playing it at night, I can't play it with headphones. It's just too fucking scary," Robillard tells PLAY magazine's issue #22. "Just the amount of realism and, again, atmosphere. Not just visually, right? In the way we handle sound, ambience, effects, having systems that will try to spook you. These things, you know, could have been done [on PS4], but not to the level we're doing them today. And they really add a lot to this sort of genre and make the whole kind of experience come together even more."

Deep cuts

Not to the level we're doing them today, is a line that strikes at the heart of why the Dead Space remake exists in 2023. We're in the middle of an old school horror revival of sorts at the moment – kick-started by Capcom's superb Resident Evil 2 reimagining of 2019, and followed by its Resident Evil 3 remake the year after; with the likes of the Resident Evil 4, System Shock, Silent Hill 2 and, of course, Dead Space all in-line for similar treatment in the coming weeks, months and years.  

The original Dead Space was masterminded by developer and artist Glen Schofield, whose latest survival horror venture, The Callisto Protocol, launched last year. Comparisons between the two games were somewhat inevitable, and while our own Leon Hurley loved the stunning world of The Callisto Protocol, he struggled with its immersion-breaking combat – and, given how engaging combat was in OG Dead Space, The Callisto Protocol's pivot in this space was indeed a strange decision. Elsewhere, while never comparing its Dead Space remake to Schofield's latest game, Motiv is set on pushing immersion as far as it possibly can on today's high-powered hardware.  

"Even when we started this project, I did several walkthroughs of the original game to make sure that I had it really mapped out in my mind – and immersion was one of the strongest selling points," explains senior producer Phillipe Ducharme. "For us, anything that we could do to try to enhance that immersion was an automatic yes." 

"If we're able to get the player with the pad in their hands at the start and play throughout the entire game without putting their pad down, like to have them play for 12, 14, 15 hours straight, because they're so immersed, and they just don't even want to go to the bathroom," Ducharme continues, before laughing and interjecting, "Well, it's not healthy." But it's all about keeping the player well and truly gripped. "Otherwise, like, that's because they jumped in and they don't want to leave, they don't want to put it down – then job done, we've achieved that, like we were able to deliver that immersion."

Part of that commitment to immersion on Motiv's part is framed by familiarity. As you might expect, the devs are keen to welcome back players of the original game who may seek nostalgia, while also introducing new generations to a retold classic, or satisfying those who missed the original the first time around. If you fall into the former category, you may enter the remake assured that you know the lay of the land. You might recall the locations of its most deadly enemies, and from which corners its most startling jump scares appear from. Motiv, however, is determined to keep even the most seasoned Dead Space players guessing.  

Ducharme says: "The initial part of the game, like, if you play them side by side, they're extremely similar. But then as you go through some of the chapters, there's some objectives that were not as popular. We wanted to make sure that if we were making a change, it was actually to reflect on one of our key pillars […] not just make changes because we thought we knew better than the original team, because they did an amazing job."

Robillard adds: "We needed to find a way to fill those gaps, so that the player doesn't feel like 'Oh, I've been here, it's fine, I'm safe'. No, you're never safe. Like, you will get jumped. Somebody wants your lunch money, and they're not friendly."

If you fancy that, you can offer your own lunch money willingly in exchange for Dead Space on PS5, Xbox Series X and PC on Friday, January 27, 2023. Good luck to you! 

All throughout January, GamesRadar+ is exploring the biggest games of the new year with exclusive interviews, hands-on impressions, and in-depth editorials. For more, be sure to follow along with Big in 2023. 

PLAY #22 is out now, and it’s the time of year to look ahead. Within the pages of this Games Of 2023 special, we have heaps of incredible previews taking a look at everything that’ll be lighting up your life across PS5, PSVR2, and PS4 next year. Our cover game, Dead Space, will be kicking things off in a big way come January, with a luxurious PS5 remake that really pushes what’s possible on the new console.

Subscribe to PLAY Magazine here to save on the cover price, get exclusive covers, and have it delivered to your door or device every month.

Games Of 2023 Preview Special

We spent plenty of time talking with some of the team at EA Motive about the big PS5 remake, revealing how they revelled in upping the gore factor, how they’ve changed the games in some interesting ways, and how they’ve leveraged PS5’s power to enhance the original, from gorgeous lights to creepy shadows.

But that’s not all! We packed as many games we’re excited about as we could into the feature, including heaps of hands-ons. From more details on the games you’re looking forward to, and hopefully some new ones to add to your list, there’s something for everyone.

While 2023 is definitely looking like a great year for horror, thanks in part to the sheer fidelity and level of immersion possible on current-gen consoles, that’s not all next year has to offer (though we do have some great deep dives on Resident Evil 4 and Dead Island 2). We also get into Like A Dragon: Ishin, Forspoken, Final Fantasy 16, Street Fighter 6, Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, and more!

PSVR2: priced, dated, and games revealed

But how about some festive cheer? PlayStation has finally given us the gift of PSVR2 launch details – if you can call the steep price a ‘gift’. While the cost will limit the audience, there’s no getting around how impressive a piece of kit it is, and fortunately unlike its predecessor it has the games to match.

It’ll launch with first-party support in Horizon Call Of The Mountain, with plenty more to come, and some mega-sized third-party titles too. Let’s hope the release momentum in February can build throughout the year, rather than stall.

A feast of reviews

The blockbusters continue into this issue’s reviews section, including big new launches with Sonic Frontiers and The Dark Pictures: The Devil In Me. One was a pleasant suprise - but we’ll leave which is which for you to discover.

Plus: Star Ocean: The Divine Force, Return To Monkey Island, The Chant, Gungrave GORE, and more! We also take a longer look at Resident Evil Re:Verse and Dragon Ball: The Breakers.

RetroStation: the best Metal Gear you never played

You know we can’t resist getting old school with the RetroStation. This month we take a big look at the Metal Gear Solid and Ape Escape crossovers, talking to the voice actors involved for behind-the-scenes details.

We also dust off Fate/EXTRA, which remains a very unique PSP RPG, Yakuza 5’s 10th anniversary, the history of Christmas, and beyond!

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You can subscribe to the print edition, digital version, or save even more with the print/digital bundle – whatever you choose, you’ll be receiving an unprecedented trove of dedicated PlayStation coverage every month.

Footage of the Dead Space Remake has started to appear online, so players looking to jump into the survival horror game blind may want to stay vigilant. 

The video in question comes from YBR Gaming's YouTube where they play a full chapter of Dead Space Remake, showing off all the work EA has done to get the creepy-crawly, sci-fi horror back into a presentable place. It's unlikely this'll be the last time we see it before the Dead Space Remake lands in January 2023 too. 

Of course, this is for a remake, and it's not expected to diverge narratively from the 2008 original. These spoilers have been out there for nearly 15 years. However, if you haven't played the game, or have forgotten specifics a decade and a half after launch and intend to go in blind, set your filters to avoid seeing anything you don't want to now. 

If you're less worried about avoiding footage and instead want to see how the title is coming along, the video shows Chapter 3 of the game. There's a nice spread of environmental storytelling, monstrous creatures trying to murder Isaac, as well as several zero-gravity sections with the player trying to navigate the derelict ship.

It acts as a nice showcase of the work done on the game, and it's visually impressive. We've seen this previously in trailers showing off big upgrades in older areas, but it's nice to see the work shine in unbroken gameplay footage. If you want a more detailed breakdown, why not check out our Dead Space remake preview? 

Once it comes out, it will be nearly 10 years since the last Dead Space game, but perhaps if this does well, and there is still an appetite for series, who knows? Maybe a Dead Space 4 could be on the cards. 

Want to play something spooky this October while you wait? Check out our list of the Best Horror Games.

EA has lifted the veil on Dead Space Remake today in a big way, and we've gotten plenty of gameplay footage showcasing exactly how the game has changed over the 2008 original.

If you haven't already played Dead Space, do be warned that some very graphic violence awaits you - that much hasn't changed. In places, Dead Space Remake features very similar level design to the original, and in these areas you can most easily see the sharp changes in fidelity between the two versions of the game. One room in the original, for example, shows fetuses floating in liquid chambers in a wall - in the remake, the room is expanded with adult figures in rounded tubes, as well.

The USG Ishimura is now fully seamless to explore, with no loading screens dividing one area from another. Naturally, some areas have been moved around as a result. You'll find the first encounter with the monsters attached to the wall at a different point in the game, for example.

Some in-game events and jump scares - like the scientist whose hand gets pinned to the glass, or the surgeon who's mutilating a body - play out much like the original here, right down to the specific timing of the animations.

Other events, however, like when you have to pick up some codes from the captain's corpse, play out completely differently. Where previously the captain transformed behind glass before breaking out to attack you as a necromorph, here the transformation happens as Isaac is examining the body for a more personal scare.

You can find out much more about how Dead Space Remake holds up in our full hands-on gameplay preview.

Check out our guide to the best horror games if you're looking to dive into something in time for spooky month.

There is a cacophonous, neverending jump scare at the heart of the Dead Space remake in the few hours I've played so far. The spaceship you're on is a broken metal haunted house, constantly jangling your nerves with sparking, shorting electrics and unspecified clangings in the dark. It's a relentless sensory assault, where being attacked by alien corpse monster Necropmorphs actually ends up being a relief because at least then you can stop worrying what the noises might be.

Things to do

The constant mix of 'what was that' noises behind you, spooky whispers, and general uncertainty about what the next few minutes will bring just refuses to let you acclimatise or settle. The opening also creates an endless pressure that never lets up, after crashing on the apparently abandoned mining ship, the USG Ishimura. The engines need fixing and you'll collide with the planet below if you don't do that – BUT there's also a debris field above that will tear the hull apart once you gain altitude, so you need to get some defences online. All while dealing with a cosmic corpse infestation that starts, maybe, two minutes in? There's no teasing out any monster reveals or tension-building in Dead Space, as soon as you press start it's immediate wall-to-wall alien death and imminent calamity. And this is just the first three hours. It's like you're putting out fires with more fire and pocketing the still hot ashes as you go. 

While I only played the first three chapters, I was impressed with how well the remake keeps this unending horror alive, for want of a better word. The constant, pressing dread of bad things happening should just wear you down after a while – and at this point I've no idea how the pacing will space out over the entire game – but what I've played managed to somehow sustain itself without overstaying its welcome. That tick list of priorities presses in on all sides: the engines need fuel and restarting, there's a centrifuge to repair and get spinning, an asteroid defence system to reactivate, and so on. There's no time to catch your breath, and the fact that alien corpse monsters are never quite at the top of your list of problems is almost impressive. Where horror is usually about balancing big scares with quiet patches to let you sweat, this just keeps you busy enough to somehow put the flesh monsters on the backburner with a note that says 'problems for tomorrow me'. 

When Tomorrow You does have to deal with Necropmorphs, it's a stressful exercise in self-controlled vulnerability. Wailing on enemies with uncoordinated gun fire just makes them angrier – the way to kill them, famously, is to cut off their limbs. Sever enough bits and then they die, forcing you to try and stay calm enough to take careful shots while gibbering blade-armed cadavers run flailing at your face. As horror game mechanics go, it's up there with things like Resident Evil's restrictive view and turning circle or Fatal Frame's photography, as one of the greats, forcing you to try and retain a sliver of rational thought in the face of something that just wants to make you panic. 

Monster mash

One necromorph soon becomes manageable – lop off the legs to buy some time and then deal with the arms – but then there are multiples, or combinations of variants with different patterns and attacks. Things like basic necros bum rush you, while the alien corpse babies hang back and attack from range; or Leapers, fittingly, jump suddenly to launch themselves at you from way further back than you expect. Like a lot of good action horror, you have to constantly stay focused in the moment and make good, tactical decisions to survive. The weapons are violently impactful too, with a thud that makes every shot feel like it's got a starring role. There are also various alt fire modes adding another layer of strategy – timing when to best use the Pulse Rifle's limited grenade launcher for example (hardcore fans will probably notice that this is the Dead Space 2 firing mode, replacing the original's less useful 360 burst). 

Mastering the weapons becomes even more important when you realise creatures can spawn and appear from vents at almost any location at any time as well, thanks to something called the Intensity Director. This new bit of tech looks at how things are going and, if it's been quiet for a while, throws a few enemies in here and there to keep things exciting. It means you can never feel safe, even when backtracking well trodden areas. 

It's all appropriately gory for the series as well. There are bodies everywhere, bloody messages on the walls, and unhinged civilians hurting themselves and others. The Marker, an alien artefact behind all this, drives people insane with the resulting deaths and suicides providing the bodies needed to create Necromorphs, and do some other stuff I won't spoil here if you don't already know. Interestingly, director Roman Campos-Oriola tells me the Remake will rework elements of the original story to incorporate certain things that were only established in later sequels, spin-offs and comics. All you need to know at this point is, generally, it looks like someone ran a blender through every corridor in the ship and you're stomping through the chunky aftermath. 

Future shock

It's always a good sign when a demo ends and it leaves you wanting more. When I got home from the preview event I immediately started playing the original because I wanted to carry on the experience. What I found really interesting is how the remake is basically the same game, just more 'now'. There are obviously huge improvements to the visuals, with lots of new atmospheric and lighting upgrades, while the sound design takes all the haunted whispering and metal banging and turns it all up to a more contemporary level. The game overall, however, basically feels like an incredibly accurate recreation of the original. There are a few notable changes, though – the opening objectives at the start are slightly reordered, for example, following some redesigns to the ship layout which is now a fully traversable open space, and some differences in how you get some gear. Things like that, and the story retcons, make me wonder how close things will track over the whole thing. 

Even if this was to play out as a one-to-one remake, that's no bad thing, as what I've seen proves the original still has the chops. But I'm curious to see how the new ideas change things. I get the feeling that the opening's accuracy is almost a homage, it's so spot on, and that we'll see more interpretation in the later stages. Which could make an already strong remake, even more exciting. 

If you want to pre-order the Dead Space Remake then we've all the info you need, including how to get the Collector's Edition with Isaac's helmet. 

Gameplay of the Dead Space remake has premiered online for the first time ahead of launch.

Earlier today on October 4, EA Motive finally debuted gameplay for the highly anticipated horror remake. You can catch the full gameplay trailer in the video just below, which shows off protagonist Isaac Clarke skulking the hallways and corridors of the terrifying USG Ishimura, desperately scouring the ruined ship for his colleagues while fending off brutal necromorphs. 

This sure does look like the Dead Space fans came to know and adore over a decade ago, but with a fresh coat of paint for 2023. The gameplay looks just as horrifying as ever, as Isaac dismembers the necromorphs with deadly precision, before in turn being rendered a corpse.

As we mentioned, this is our first time getting a look at gameplay for the Dead Space remake, but it's not our first time hearing about gameplay details. Earlier this year, EA Motive announced it would tune-up the remake's weapons to make them sound less dinky, and just this past week, the developer also revealed it'd be giving full scenes to characters who only ever appeared on audio logs in the original game.

Dead Space launches next year on January 27, 2023, exclusively for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. The horror remake won't have any loading screens, in keeping with the original game, and it also won't have any microtransactions whatsoever. 

The Dead Space remake also has an original developer on board as a consultant for the project, if you're wondering how faithful the new version will be. 

The Dead Space remake will expand the role of side characters, to give those who only appeared off-camera time on screen.

This new detail was shared by a developer's blog earlier this week, from publisher EA and developer EA Motive. Creative director Roman Campos-Oriola explains that since EA Motive wants the Dead Space remake to fit into the trilogy's overall continuity, they've made some changes, like giving Isaac Clarke a voice, which the protagonist never had in the original horror game.

"And some characters who were a bit more secondary, who only appeared in audio logs, like Dr. Cross—we gave them some actual screen time," Campos-Oriola continues. Accompanying these changes are a new "layer of narrative side-quests," which gives the player brand new content to delve into, including what happened to Nicole during the initial outbreak on the USG Ishimura. 

Elsewhere in the new blog post, it's emphasized that the Dead Space remake still hits all the main plot beats of the original, but with this added new side content. So although the story of the remake might be familiar to players of the original adventure, there's plenty going on elsewhere to get to grips with around the gargantuan spaceship.

The Dead Space remake is set for launch in just little under four months from now, arriving on January 27, 2023. Considering there's been talk in the past about the remake possibly including levels that were cut from the original Dead Space, the new horror game should really be a treat for both newcomers and familiar fans of the original. 

Elsewhere, we know Dead Space won't have loading screens or microtransactions, the former in particular being something that the original game was well established for.

The Dead Space remake release date has been set for January 27, 2023, EA has announced.

Back in March, it was reported that the Dead Space remake had been internally delayed to early 2023, and now we have a concrete release date straight from EA. 

The news was shared to the official Dead Space remake Twitter account. Don't expect anything flashy or a new trailer though; the announcement is just a little video snippet of the Dead Space logo and the new release date. Still, it's nice to have something spooky to mark in the ol' calendar.

Motive is developing the Dead Space remake using EA's proprietary Frostbite engine, which was used to make Star Wars: Squadrons and the Battlefront 2 campaign. While it sounds like the story will play out pretty faithfully to the original 2008 sci-fi horror classic, we've already seen examples of the ground-up visual overhaul in the reveal trailer and subsequent livestreams focusing on the game's sound design and art direction.

A couple of more minute details have surfaced in the months since the remake's announcement. In an August 2021 livestream focusing on the game's early development, the devs proudly showed off a gross new "peeling" tech to make carving up necromorphs as realistic as possible. Following the livestream focused on sound, some fans expressed concern over the apparently dinky sounds coming from the game's iconic plasma cutter and pulse rifle, and Motive was quick to update the sound effects, proving that it's keeping a keen ear to fan feedback.

Find out where we ranked the original Dead Space on our list of the best horror games ever.

Dead Space Remake developer Motive updated the effects for the horror shooter's iconic plasma cutter and pulse rifle after some fans thought they sounded a little dinky at a recent audio showcase. 

dead_space_remake_update_from_motive_audio from r/DeadSpace

The studio showed off the freshly adjusted sounds in a recent Reddit post. The plasma cutter has regained a lot of its bass and sounds much less like someone stepping on an apple. They also fixed the bizarre, arm-shattering recoil animation present in the last video, which helps sell the gun as a whole. The difference in the pulse rifle is even more pronounced. The version shown off during the audio reveal stream sounds like a submachine gun with an oddly cute pop to it, but the new changes have given it the weight and thump of a much heavier weapon.

"When we showed you the Plasma Cutter and Pulse Rifle not everyone was sold on it, and there were a handful of criticisms that felt they could still be better," Motive says. "We believe that the feedback given was definitely valid and reading the comments on what was highlighted, we made a few modifications that we think improves it!"

Motive is quick to caution fans that these guns are still a work in progress, as is the whole dang game. In a similar vein, perhaps to address lingering concerns that the remake looked a bit too bright for a horror game during the March stream – which wasn't really about lighting or environments, to be fair – the studio says it has an art showcase planned for May. 

A now-confirmed report gives the Dead Space Remake an updated release date of early 2023. 

The Dead Space remake release date has reportedly shifted to early 2023 following an internal delay.

That's according to a report from VentureBeat, which claims that publisher EA was originally planning to release the Dead Space remake this October. However, the company is now reportedly pushing the game back a few months to give the team at developer Motive more time to ensure it sticks the landing.

It's unclear how soon "early 2023" could be, assuming this report is accurate and EA's plans remain unchanged. That said, EA never announced an official release date for the Dead Space remake, and Motive has kept its cards very close to its chest from the moment the game was revealed, so these dates remain unconfirmed. 

The report adds that the remake "continues to impress people internally," and that EA hopes to see it match the level of Capcom's well-received Resident Evil 2 remake, which is oddly poignant given that the original game was itself heavily inspired by Resident Evil 4. 

This news arrived just one day ahead of another proper showcase for the remake. On Friday, March 11 at 11 am PST / 1 pm EST / 6 pm BST, a few devs from Motive will walk us through the improved audio of the remake, promising new details on the "A.L.I.V.E. system" controlling dynamic audio as well as the delivery for protagonist Isaac Clarke's new dialogue, which is voiced by returning actor Gunner Wright. 

Motive has a lot on its plate, so it wouldn't be too surprising to see the remake slip into next year. In addition to remastering Dead Space while staying faithful to the original, it's working to make it a "fully unbroken experience" not unlike 2018's God of War reboot. It's also balancing another story-driven game which has yet to be announced. 

The Dead Space remake uses new peeling technology to make dismembering necromorphs even grosser. 

Dead Space remake developer Motive will hold another developer-led livestream showcasing the remade horror icon on Friday, March 11.

Motive announced the stream earlier today. A tweet confirmed that the show will start at 10am PST / 1pm EST / 6pm BST on Friday, and you can tune in via YouTube and Twitch. For this stream, Motive will focus on the game's "audio development," which is especially tantalizing given how impactful and memorable a soundscape the original game had. 

The YouTube listing for the stream describes it as "the sound of fear reimagined," which is exactly what we want to hear. 

"This livestream will focus on the studio’s philosophy for taking Dead Space’s award-winning audio design to the next level by bringing the game to today’s generation of platforms and the new Frostbite engine – while still remaining faithful to the iconic atmosphere, mood, and sounds you know and love," the video description reads. 

The stream will feature creative director Roman Campos-Oriola, senior producer Philippe Ducharme, and audio director Olivier Asselin. These three devs will outline the aptly named "A.L.I.V.E System" said to control protagonist Isaac Clarke's heart rate, breathing, and dialogue delivery (with voice actor Gunner Wright returning to add new dialogue for the character, who stayed quite in the original game); how modern-day audio occlusion enhances Dead Space's many sounds; and how effects for weapons like the plasma cutter and pulse rifle have been updated.

The Dead Space remake went dark shortly after it was announced in July 2021. We last heard from Motive in September, and at the time the studio said we likely wouldn't see or hear much about the game until 2022. Clearly, it wasn't kidding. Here's hoping we don't have to wait another six months for our next look at the game, but for now, it'll be nice to see and hear more of it in action. 

Developers from the original Dead Space have consulted with Motive on the remake and describe it as "amazingly respectful" of the original. 

EA Motive – the team behind the upcoming Dead Space Remake – is getting its collective "heads down" to review all the "thoughts, theories, and suggestions" players have submitted since the highly-rumored remake was announced a few weeks back, but likely won't have anything else to show us until "next year".

"We’ve really enjoyed seeing and hearing all of your feedback and reactions," Motive told fans on Reddit (thanks, Eurogamer). "It was important to us to give you an early look at what we’ve been working on so you could tell us your thoughts. We’ll continue reading your feedback and what your expectations are for the remake of Dead Space."

Everything we showed was a work in progress which means that we’ll be working on things like Isaac’s suit, the aesthetic and ambiance of the Ishimura. We’re doing work to ensure it has the right level of wear and tear. For example, here is an early work in progress clip showing some of the ways that the team is going to be giving that worn look to the Ishimura."

dead_space_update_from_motive from r/DeadSpace

As a sweetener to confirmation that we won't see any more updates from the team until next year, the poster included a brief but fascinating glimpse into how the team is looking to ensure the remake matches the original.

"We’re going to be heads down now working on the game, taking some time to review all the thoughts, theories, and suggestions you’ve all shared with us," the post concluded. "We look forward to showing you how you’ve helped shape the game next year when we’re further in development!"

If you missed the big reveal show at the end of August, we discovered that EA Motive has created new, uh, "peeling" tech for us when we carve up necromorphs in the upcoming The Dead Space remake. Developers Philippe Ducharme and Roman Campos-Oriola took delight in explaining how the new feature will see Isaac peels back the flesh of the necromorphs layer by layer. Ew.

We also recently discovered that although the original Dead Space game featured a mute Isaac Clarke, the remake will add voice acting that will once again be performed by Gunner Wright, who has portrayed our monosyllabic hero before. 

"One of the rules that we have is that Isaac is only going to talk when he's being talked to," Campos-Oriola told us at the time, or "in a situation where it would feel weird if he remained silent".

We also know that the Dead Space remake won't feature any loading screens, a feature that's actually returning from Visceral's Dead Space 2.

The Dead Space remake is using grotesque new "peeling" technology to carve up necromorphs.

Just yesterday on August 31, EA Motive debuted a showcase just below, giving viewers a very early look into the ongoing development of the Dead Space remake. At roughly the 20-minute mark, developers Philippe Ducharme and Roman Campos-Oriola reveal the new "Peeling" technology that the remake is utilizing, which horrifically peels back the flesh of the necromorphs layer by layer.

It's a staggering feat of technology for the horror remake. Ducharme and Campos-Oriola explain that this new Peeling tech will bring an added dimension to the Dead Space remake, where players will carve through the flesh of the necromorphs with weapons such as the Plasma Cutter, before slicing through the bone to dismember them.

Cutting limbs has always been a massive part of Dead Space, with the "cut off their limbs" writing scrawled in blood appearing in the reveal trailer for the remake. Considering you'll need to sever limbs to render the necromorphs dead, it makes sense that the Dead Space remake developers at EA Motive are going to such lengths to make this feature as impactful as possible.

Elsewhere in the showcase yesterday, it was announced that protagonist Isaac Clarke will have voice lines in the Dead Space remake, and that his original voice actor from the Dead Space sequels, Gunner Wright, will be returning to the role. It's anyone's guess when EA Motive's remake could launch, but a previous rumor claimed it's currently targeting a 2022 release window.

We also know that the Dead Space remake won't feature any loading screens, a feature that's actually returning from Visceral's Dead Space 2.

The Dead Space remake will add voice acting for protagonist Isaac Clarke, performed by returning actor Gunner Wright. 

Wright announced the news himself during today's Dead Space community reveal stream. After joining the franchise in Dead Space 2, Wright will now reprise his role as Isaac for the upcoming remake, where the original game kept Isaac as a silent protagonist. 

Throughout the reveal stream, creative director Roman Campos-Oriola and senior producer Phillippe Ducharme reaffirmed that one of the goals with the remake was to add in improvements and context found in later Dead Space games as well as supporting media. Ducharme said that the decision to add voice acting for Isaac was made fairly early on, and with input from the "council" of Dead Space fans and community members it formed to get regular feedback on the remake.

"What was clear is that, if he's back, it has to be Gunner," Ducharme says. "Isaac is Gunner. We started having these discussions with casting and it became very, very clear that, for us, was the right angle." 

Campos-Oriola clarified how Isaac's new voice work will be folded into the original story. "One of the rules that we have is that Isaac is only going to talk when he's being talked to," he explains, though a presentation clarified that while Isaac will "primarily" only respond, he may also speak up "in a situation where it would feel weird if he remained silent."

"He is going to respond. He's going to engage with Hammond. He's going to engage with Kendra. He's going to be part of these discussions," Campos-Oriola says. "But he's alone. When you're alone in that dark corridor, he's not going to talk. He's not going to break that immersion. He's not going to break that feeling of isolation."

In other words, while Isaac will be voiced in the remake, he won't suddenly become a chatterbox. 

Speaking of narrative improvements: the Dead Space remake will be one long cut, not unlike God of War.

You'll need to know how to watch the Dead Space community livestream to get a fresh inside look at the direction for the new horror remake, and you're already in the right place.

The stream from EA's Motive Studios is set to begin today at 10 am PDT / 1 pm EDT / 6 pm BST and you can catch it right here via the Twitch channel embed above. The stream will include appearances from lead developers on the project as well as "a look at an early development build of the game." Since EA's being careful to note that this is an early build of the Dead Space remake, it's unlikely to have all the features and visual polish you'd typically see in a promotional stream.

In short, it's probably not going to look as good as that Dead Space remake reveal trailer from the EA Play event. But it will hopefully be even more illuminating about what kind of approach Motive is taking to the difficult task of remaking a sci-fi horror classic that still doesn't feel that old, even if the 2008 original is old enough to start thinking about its college applications.

Motive Studios is making all the right moves so far by bringing in original developers as consultants and pushing for a "fully unbroken experience" like God of War. Hopefully it arrives in 2022 like the rumors are indicating, and we won't need to wait too much longer to play it ourselves.

The original Dead Space has a prominent spot on our list of the best horror games, and hopefully the remake will too. 

A Dead Space remake livestream coming Tuesday will share more details about the developers' new vision for the horror classic remake.

Dead Space remake creative director Roman Campos-Oriola will be joined by senior producer Philippe Ducharme tomorrow, Tuesday August 31 at 10am PT / 1pm ET to preview an early development build on Motive's Twitch channel.

In a press release, EA says the livestream will debut footage from an early prototype of the game intended to "illustrate Motive's vision of Dead Space in motion for the community." In addition to Campos-Oriola and Ducharme, the livestream will feature members from the Dead Space Community Council, which is Motive's officially designated fan group that's been called on to consult on the remake.

The Dead Space remake's reveal trailer showed a brief but tantalizing look at the rebuilt Ishimura ship, a hulking Necromorph looming in the distance, and protagonist Isaac Clarke. And while everything looked fantastic fully rebuilt in the Frostbite engine, we've been desperate to see more from the remake since its reveal.

Motive has said its Dead Space remake will have "an improved story, characters, gameplay mechanics and more," and it sounds like we'll learn more about what that means tomorrow. It's probably a bit too early to expect a release date, but a recent report from Venture Beat suggests we'll see the remake launch next year.

For what to play in the wait for the Dead Space remake, why not start by checking our guide to the best horror games to make sure you haven't missed any. 

The Dead Space remake will be shot in the same way as God of War.

In a blog post introducing the team behind the remake, creative director Roman Campos-Oriola explained that "our intention is to offer a fully unbroken experience, it will be an uninterrupted sequence shot, from the start screen to the end credit, without interruption.

If that sounds familiar, it's because Kratos and Atreus' 2018 adventure was shot in much the same way, with 'single-camera' cutscenes transitioning swiftly back into the player's perspective. God of War pulled the approach off very effectively, but Campos-Oriola suggests that the Dead Space remake might be able to achieve an even smoother effect, stating that "the super-fast SSDs on modern systems allow us to load and unload really fast."

More than just a flashy visual effect, however, the single-shot approach serves its own purpose. Senior producer Phillipe Ducharme says that "the objective we gave to the whole team was to have players pick up the controller and completely lose track of time. Like, they play through the entire experience without putting the controller down. That's how immersive we want our game to be, that people just dive in and don't come out until the credits roll."

While changes are being made, art director Mike Yazijian says that "the main source of inspiration is the original vision for Dead Space," with the remake team making sure that everything is being done "out of respect for the original game," while making sure the project "stays relevant to modern audiences."

The Dead Space remake was announced at EA Play last month. While it might be getting a new version, it's clear that developer Motive is paying attention to what's come before, bringing on the original developer as a consultant and reintroducing content that was cut from the original game due to technical constraints. There's no official word on when we can expect the title to arrive, but reports suggest EA is targeting a launch in 2022.

Fancy something spooky right now? Here's our list of the best horror games.

The Dead Space remake is apparently targeting a 2022 release window.

Yesterday on August 5, Venture Beat published a new report delving into the upcoming remake from EA Motive. According to several sources familiar with the development process of the Dead Space remake, the horror reboot is currently scheduled to launch in Fall 2022.

That is, of course, is all goes to plan. It goes without saying that the last year has been particularly turbulent for developers around the world, adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic, and by no means are we in a "post-pandemic world" just yet, meaning development at the Montreal studio could undoubtedly still be impacted by the virus.

Elsewhere in the new report from Venture Beat, it's claimed that EA plans to unveil more about the forthcoming Dead Space remake before the end of 2021. That's surely welcome news for those looking forward to the remake from EA Motive, because as of right now, all we've seen of the remake is a very brief teaser trailer, which showcased a necromorph and protagonist Isaac Clarke for a split second in a reveal trailer last month.

However, some additional developments about the remake have since come to light. For one, an Assassin's Creed veteran of 15 years is helming the remake in the directorial role, and EA Motive has actually got one former Visceral Games developer as a consultant on the remake. Additionally, the game also won't feature any loading screens or microtransactions, and might even feature sections cut from the original game due to technical constraints.

Head over to our best horror games guide to see where the original Dead Space placed in our list.

The Dead Space remake game director has been confirmed as a veteran of the Assassin's Creed franchise.

That would be Eric Baptizat, who just recently updated his LinkedIn profile to reveal that he's now game director of the forthcoming Dead Space remake at EA Motive in Montreal, Canada (thanks, VGC). Baptizat originally departed Ubisoft Montreal in April 2021, and has been working at EA Motive on the Dead Space remake ever since.

Baptizat's game development history is filled with some heavy hitters. Before working on Assassin's Creed Valhalla as game director, he was a lead designer for Assassin's Creed's Black Flag, Unity, and Origins, and prior to having a helping hand shaping Ubisoft's massive franchise, he worked on Shaun White Skateboarding and Surf's Up. 

When Baptizat announced his departure from Ubisoft earlier this year in June, he was just the latest in a long line of high-profile departures from the studio. In March, Valhalla lead writer Darby McDevitt announced he would be leaving Ubisoft Montreal after a decade working there, and last month in July, Valhalla art director Raphael Lacoste revealed he would also be leaving after a 16-year journey with the company. 

As for the Dead Space remake itself, we're slowly learning more information about the project since it was revealed last month in July. As a next-gen exclusive game for the PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC, the Dead Space remake won't have any loading screens, nor will it have any microtransactions. Additionally, original Dead Space user experience director Dino Ignacio is consulting on the new game with EA Motive, and the remake might even feature levels that were cut from the original game due to technical constraints.

Outside of this though, all we've seen of the actual remake so far is a very slim teaser trailer. It's clear that EA Motive's Dead Space remake is at least a few years out from seeing the light of day, but the thought of precariously stalking the hallways of the USG Ishimura, potentially with brand new levels and areas of the ship itself to explore for the very first time, is a fantastic prospect.

For a lovely little detail about the original game, head over to our piece on how Resident Evil 4 director Shinji Mikami reacted to seeing Dead Space for the first time.