4) Creepy Environments
When a cultural product weans inspiration from its peers — whether it’s within music, movies or video games — said product always treads a very fine line between homage and out and out pastiche. Err to closely to the original, genre-defining IP and the title is labelled as a derivative knock-off; a sub-par experience that could only hope to be talked about in the same breath as its forebearer.
So, when EA announced Dead Space back in 2008, all signs hinted that it would, like so many before it, fall foul to those irreparable pitfalls. Except, it didn’t. With an engaging narrative, bone-chilling atmosphere and an almost unforgettable setting in the USG Isihmura, Dead Space freed itself from the shackles of convention and was able to be considered as a true sci-fi horror experience on its own merit.
Yes, it echoes the genre greats like Alien, Event Horizon and the irk, but Visceral Games took Ridley Scotts’ mantra — crafting a foreboding haunted house in space — to a whole new level and immersed the user within a universe that was well-rounded and horrifying in equal measures. And boy, was it horrifying.
Creeping around the vacant halls of the Isihmura, clutching nervously to your ever-trusty Plasma Cutter as you go, was a truly nerve-shredding experience. Not only did the sound design elevate the journey as a whole, the fact that you played as Isaac Clarke — a blue-collar and, crucially, silent protagonist — infused the game with a tangible sense of loneliness.
Fans of the series will know that Clarke begins to lose his marbles with each passing iteration, but within the original Dead Space, he was an unassuming engineer who had to fight his way through the abandoned ship tooth and nail. He was, for all intents and purposes, the unlikeliest of heroes. He didn’t want to be mowing down Necromorphs any more than you or I, but he adapted.
Like the Isihmura itself, Isaac was an empty shell, lost amidst the stars as the nefarious Unitology cult ran rampant all around him. In many ways, we learned more about our silent protagonist gradually as we explored the various regions of the ship.
Horror games ought to take note of Dead Space for its use of environments. The USG Isihmura may bear semblance to the Nostromo and other famous space voyagers in fiction, but Visceral Games’ flagship vehicle was crafted with such attention to detail that it felt as though every nook and cranny served a purpose. All beautifully contained within a single, blood-drenched milieu.
