Review

Dead Space

A remake of the 2008 sci-fi horror classic. Engineer Isaac Clarke is stranded on the mining ship USG Ishimura, which is overrun by grotesque Necromorphs. You fight them by cutting off their limbs, with scarce ammo and a user interface built into the world itself. Rebuilt with modern visuals and sound, and added story and level changes.

Sci-fi horrorDismembermentSurvivalXboxPCPlayStation

Games like Dead Space

9/10

Game Avant verdict

A ground-up rebuild that keeps the USG Ishimura's claustrophobia intact while fixing the original's silent protagonist and inconsistent pacing, held back only by a story that occasionally over-explains what used to be left unsaid.

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By GameAvant · Published Oct 4, 2026 · Updated Oct 9, 2026 · 13 min read

Screenshots

IGDB

87%

242 ratings

Steam:

90%

63,171 reviews

Fits you if

you want claustrophobic sci-fi horror with resource pressure.

Skip it if

you dislike gore or prefer horror that is not action-based.

Availability

Where to play

Steam

$14.99

Buy

Facts

Platforms: Xbox · PC · PlayStation
Release date: January 27, 2023
Length: About 15 hours
Difficulty: 3/5 (estimated)
Genres: Shooter · Role-playing (RPG) · Adventure
Themes: Action · Science fiction · Horror · Survival
Perspective: Third person
Modes: Solo only
Languages: 3 languages
Text in your language: Yes
Steam Deck: Playable
Microtransactions: None

More about Dead Space

Dead Space is Motive Studio's ground-up remake of the 2008 sci-fi horror classic, rebuilt from scratch rather than simply touched up, and published by EA. It follows engineer Isaac Clarke as he boards the USG Ishimura, a mining ship gone silent in deep space, only to find it overrun by grotesque creatures called Necromorphs that used to be its crew. The broad shape of the story is the same as the original, but almost everything around it has been rebuilt to modern standards, starting with the one change longtime fans debate the most. Isaac is now fully voiced, played by Gunner Wright, turning the original's silent protagonist into an actual character without losing the sense of isolation that made the first game work. New side missions and rewritten dialogue flesh out crew members like Nicole Brennan and Terrence Kyne, who barely registered as people in the 2008 version, giving the ship's backstory more weight than a simple collection of audio logs ever could. The combat system keeps its defining idea intact and sharpens it: strategic dismemberment, where shooting off a Necromorph's limbs is far more effective than aiming for the head, forces you to think about every encounter rather than just point and shoot. A new peeling system makes that dismemberment feel more tactile with weapons like the Plasma Cutter and Line Gun, and zero-gravity sections let Isaac float and boost freely through open space instead of hopping between the fixed magnetic points the original relied on, a small change that makes entire sequences feel less restrictive. Perhaps the most striking technical achievement is how the Ishimura itself is traversed. There are no loading screens and almost no hard cuts between areas of the ship, so the whole thing feels like one continuous, wrong place rather than a series of separate levels stitched together, which does a lot of work for the sense of dread the game is built around. An Intensity Director randomizes scares and enemy placement across playthroughs, keeping even players who know the original on their toes, though that same randomness occasionally undercuts a carefully paced set-piece by throwing an enemy in a beat too early or too late. The expanded story does cost the original something: it removes some of its ambiguity, spelling out details that used to live only in item logs and the player's own imagination, and combat pacing in the mid-game can repeat the same handful of Necromorph types in corridors that start to blur together. None of that undoes what the remake gets right. It keeps the USG Ishimura's claustrophobia completely intact while fixing the two things that dated the original most, a silent lead and an inconsistent pace, making this the clearest way to experience one of survival horror's defining stories today.

The thing you'll love. Or hate.

A talking protagonist

One unbroken camera

A rewritten, more explicit story

Not quite for you?

Three alternatives, one line each on why.

Shorter

Similar, but noticeably shorter.

With co-op

Similar, but playable together.

Cheaper or free

Similar, for less money.

Frequently asked questions

How long is Dead Space?: About 15 hours to finish the main story.
Which platforms is Dead Space on?: Dead Space is available on Xbox · PC · PlayStation.
Does Dead Space have co-op?: No, Dead Space is single-player only.
Does Dead Space run on Steam Deck?: Playable
What does Dead Space cost?: $14.99 on Steam.