The star of the series, Isaac Clarke is an engineer with the CEC, dispatched on the USG Kellion to repair the Ishimura. He is also looking for his girlfriend Nicole who is stationed there. He quickly finds that the Ishimura has been overrun with Necromorphs and has to fight through all of them while repairing the ship and rescuing Nicole. By the time of Dead Space 2, his sanity has taken a couple of hits and he has been locked away in an asylum on Titan Station. Unfortunately, another Necromorph attack happens there and Isaac has to once again fight to survive.
Combat Pragmatist: Isaac will use just about any advantage offered in melee.
Cool Old Guy: Isaac is actually around Sam Fisher's age, according to his official bio. In the first game he was 43, in the second he's about 46, though a lot of that was in stasis so it might not count.
Dead Man Walking: Unless Isaac can cure himself of the nasty things in his brain in the second game, he's doomed to go crazy and die. Struggling to find a way to solve this is the major impetus of the game.
Deadpan Snarker: Isaac has turned into one of these by the second game, perhaps courtesy of being Suddenly Voiced. It's understandable, given what he's been through.
When Isaac is keeping the deck of the Drill Tank clear, Ellie asks him if he's fine:
Isaac: Oh yeah. Good times!
The Determinator: Isaac Clarke is not going to let a shipful of Nightmare Fuel stop him. He does his repair jobs alone despite the circumstances, he manages to repeatedly punch out Cthulhu, refuses to relent when betrayed and left to die, and his Heroic BSOD lasts all of five seconds when he finds out that Nicole's dead.
The Engineer: Isaac's definitely the Combat Engineer variety. This characterization is much better reinforced than the first game, where his status as an engineer was more of an Informed Attribute. This time around, his first tools are improvised devises he jury-rigs out of medical equipment, and he occasionally has to do a little rewiring of control panels in the form of a hacking mini-game to bypass inoperative doors.
The Faceless: Except at the beginning and end of the first game, at least.
Gadgeteer Genius: In the first game it is and Informed Ability, but in the second game Isaac's first tool is a Kinesis Module he cobbles together out of parts he rips from a malfunctioning hover-bed. His new plasma cutter is a mash-up of a flashlight and a surgical operating laser.
The second part of this (the Genius part) is what makes him so effective at combating the Necromorphs and the Marker. Several logs indicate that smart people that come into contact with the Marker are more functional afterwards than people of less intelligence. Isaac takes this to the natural conclusion: the smartest people are able to defeat the Marker, rather than being consumed by a desire to make it.
Or by this point, Isaac exists in a constant state of Tranquil Fury. Why bother raising his voice?
Heroic Willpower: Isaac takes debilitating hallucinations quite well. At least one other character mentions that out of everyone exposed to the Marker, he was by far the most stable. In the end, this is what saves him. In fact, his Battle in the Center of the Mind seems to even destroy the giant Marker! No surprise he looks totally drained afterwards.
Informed Ability: Averted: Isaac must physically rewire control panels in order to activate different machines or devices, which certainly requires more engineering know-how than simply pushing a button on a screen. Justified by the developers as a way to highlight and emphasize Isaac still being an engineer rather than a Space Marine.
Kleptomaniac Hero: Isaac steals more or less everything he comes across. Mostly justified, since the previous owners are all dead.
Everything he doesn't steal is readily purchased from your local Ishimura Store terminal. With looted money.
Better yet, money he acquired by selling stuff he stole.
The Quiet One: Nothing but grunts and screams from him in the first game.
Interestingly, he does have things to say if you look at his notes on the objectives. He's intelligent, and not gullible or naive. He is, however, scared out of his mind.
Also, the grunts and screams are somewhat on the extreme side, almost making him a Screaming Warrior. Entirely justified in that, when he's stomping the crap out of the monsters he comes across, he's (as noted above) scared to death, and likely is trying to resolve some of that fear any way he can.
Sanity Slippage: Isaac suffers from hallucinations because some of the Red Marker's influence still lingers.
Jerkass: They are all in a tense situation, but Kendra acts incredibly hostile to everyone, especially Hammond. She's rather friendly towards Isaac, though. Likely because she knows exactly what's going on aboard the Ishimura, and is trying to manipulate events and people to accomplishing her goal.
The Mole: She's actually working for the government and put on the rescue mission by her higher-ups.
Manipulative Bitch: Plays Issac and Hammond against each other and acts friendly towards Issac so she can get him to do most of the work.
Only Sane Woman: She frequently argues with Hammond to abandon the mission and rightly stating that he's out of his league. Of course, this later turns out to be an act.
Chief Science Officer of the Ishimura and devout Unitologist. Fearing what would happen if the Necromorph outbreak spreads, he sabotaged the ship, until visions of his deceased wife shows him how to stop the outbreak.
Another Mad Scientist and Unitologist on the Ishimura. Audio logs Isaac finds detail how the Necromorphs drove his already unstable mind into full blown Ax Crazy. When Isaac finds him Mercer has been experimenting on humans and Necromorphs, the results of which he unleashes on Isaac.
Here's another one for you; Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a type of bacterium responsible for numerous difficult-to-treat or outright incurable ailments in human beings. It's abbreviated MRSA, and the abbreviation is often pronounced "Mer-sah" or Mercer.
Omnicidal Maniac: Mercer's master plan, such as it is, is to use the Ishimura to transport a group of Necromorphs to Earth, where he'll unleash them to turn the entire planet into Necromorphs. This plan's not particularly realistic given the current condition of the Ishimura, and he eventually forgets about it entirely and feeds himself to an Infector.
Nicole Brennan
Played by: Iyari Limon
Isaac's long-term girlfriend, a medical officer stationed aboard the Ishimura at Isaac's suggestion. Nicole didn't suffer any negative effects from the Necromorphs, and managed to send out a message to Isaac saying that the place is falling apart (though she doesn't say what the problem is), alerting Isaac that something is wrong. Isaac spends most of the game looking for her. Nicole also makes cameo appearances in Downfall and Extraction.
Proper Lady: She is very kind, sweet, compassionate, and calm.
Gabe Weller
Played by: Ramon Tikaram
A security officer on the Ishimura and the second player character in Extraction. He is sent down to Aegis VII to retrieve the bodies of the mass suicide and happens to meet up with his old friend, Nathan McNeill. The bodies are found to be gone, and he and Nathan have to escape Aegis VII as they soon discover what the bodies have transformed into.Weller is the main character in Severed, re-appearing alongside Lexine as the two try to get off the Sprawl.
Badass Bookworm: Although he's a security guard, rather than an engineer, he's just as capable of rewiring panels as Isaac.
Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of Severed, he is badly injured and has to sacrifice himself to save Lexine.
Late to the Party: His chapter one in Severed starts off just as the Necromorphs are attacking the hospital, but by the time he gets there, Isaac is long gone and the place is in even worse condition.
With This Herring: Averted, unlike Isaac, he's pretty heavily armed from the get-go.
An engineer stationed on Aegis VII and Lexine Murdoch's boyfriend. What was supposed to be a routine planet crack changed due to the discovery of a mysterious red artifact. He and his team are sent to extract what everyone is now calling "The Marker"...
A detective stationed on Aegis VII and the player character whose point of view is shown through most of the game. He was investigating the bizarre rash of murders and insanity since the extraction of the Marker, until he meets up with his old friend Gabe Weller from the USG Ishimura. He soon finds himself trapped on a madness-ravaged Aegis VII, along with an alien threat known as the Necromorphs.
A surveyor of Aegis VII and girlfriend of Sam Caldwell. As the Aegis VII colonists go mad, she tries to find sanctuary in the security office, but joins Nathan and Gabe as they all try to escape from the Necromorph attack.Lexine reappears in Dead Space 2: Severed, once again trying to escape from Necromorphs.
Action Girl: She protected Gabe and found painkillers, off-screen.
Damsel in Distress: She's stuck in the hospital during the second Necromorph attack. She's also one of the Key Subjects Tiedmann marked for Termination alongside Isaac, and the Church of Unitology wants her as well.
The Chick: Never picks up a gun or does anything to defend herself.
MacGuffin Girl: In Extraction She somehow has the ability to nullify the Marker hallucinations which is why the Church of Unitology is after her. In Severed She was one of the subjects in Tiedemann's project, likely because of her ability to cancel out Marker-induced hallucinations. It's revealed that she's pregnant, and her and Gabe's child was also of interest to the government.
Executive Director of Colonial Mining Affairs for the Concordance Extraction Corporation. He survives the crash that wipes out the shuttles, and relies on Nathan, Gabe, and Lexine for protection, as he possesses the last working shuttle off the planet.
The Load: He doesn't really do anything after giving them the shuttle.
A scientist that experimented on part of a Marker in Dead Space: Aftermath. Stross went insane and was locked up on the Sprawl after he killed his wife and daughter (whether he was hallucinating or if they had turned into Necromorphs is unknown). In Dead Space 2 Stross knows Isaac since they both had information about the Marker, and insists that he knows how to destroy it, but his incoherent ramblings make him hard to understand.
Asshole Victim: His hubris is directly responsible for everything that happens on the O'Bannon in Aftermath. Even before he came under the Marker Shard's influence and brutally murdered his wife and infant child, he was still an arrogant dick, who was cheating on his wife, planned on leaving her, and thought too highly of himself to consider that maybe, just maybe he shouldn't be playing with the Red Marker fragment. When hell broke loose, he panicked completely, leading directly to
The Load: Stross is a completely useless liability. He gives you a few hints on where to find the Marker, claiming he knows how to destroy it, but after that he degenerates rapidly into a Madness Mantra and has nothing to contribute. Once he becomes violent, Isaac struggles with him and kills him. Turns out, his help was unnecessary, anyway.
To the point that the developers put an audiolog on his body, in the extremely likely event that the player would want to abuse his corpse.
Never My Fault: His Fatal Flaw. As Dead Space: Aftermath showed, he was responsible for the death of several people after breaking a seal on a door which let a necromorph slaughter a crew of workers. Driven insane by it, he brutally murders his wife, Alexis, and their son, by his own hands. By refusing to accept responsibility for his actions, the Marker slowly drives him crazy in 2, to the point he starts attacking Isaac and Ellie, forcing Isaac to kill him in self-defense.
Sanity Slippage: Starts out fairly coherent and helpful, and gradually degenerates through the course of the game as the Marker eats away at his mind.
A Class 4 heavy equipment pilot working on the Sprawl when all Hell breaks loose. She and a few of her friends lasted for a while, but by the time Isaac finds her she is the only one left. She is at first reluctant to trust Isaac, but goes along with his plan to destroy the new Marker and stop the Necromorphs.
Action Girl: A CEC Class Four Heavy Equipment pilot. She kicks major ass and calls Isaac a nerd.
Action Survivor: One of very few characters to survive a Dead Space game.
Ambiguously Brown: Ellie's apparently modeled after her voice actress Sonita Henry, who's mixed-race.
Badass Normal: No armour, no big guns, no combat training and no superpowers - just one very tough lady.
She also qualifies for Genius Bruiser: when you first meet her, she's fighting off Necromorphs. No big deal, right? Except she's knows they can rip her apart, and is safely taking them apart from behind a security fence. No one else thought to do this in the chaos of the outbreak.
The director of Titan Station, he was the one running the project that extracted the knowledge in building Markers out of Issac's head and is partially responsible for the new Necromorph outbreak. He spends most of the game trying to stop Isaac and Ellie from getting to the Marker.
Determinator: It doesn't matter that the station is almost destroyed, all his men are dead, monsters are everywhere and he himself has horrific injures - while he is alive, Tiedmann will not let you reach the Marker.
Facial Horror: Towards the end of the game, he is caught in an explosion, resulting in him losing a lot of the flesh on his face, as well as his entire nose. And he's still alive. Ouch.
For Science!: Tiedemann's excuse. Partly justified as the game suggests that all attempts to replicate the Marker (including the serious scientific ones) are in fact manifestations of the Marker's influence on the human mind.
I Did What I Had to Do: Whilst he does inhibit Issac, he does occasionally show empathy for him, and even states that, under different circumstances, he'd find his persistence admirable. An audio log later in the game also reveals that, despite the demands of his superiors, Tiedemann made sure that a decent amount of people could escape.
Pet the Dog: Near the end of the game, you find logs that reveal that Tiedemann's order to evacuate Titan Station, given near the start of the game, was directly against the wishes of his superiors. Evacuate everyone except the people who came in contact with the Marker, who are to be killed by Sprawl Security, that is... which, considering that the Marker's architects are required for its activation, has its justifications too.
In Dead Space Mobile, Tiedemann is quite reasonable towards Vandal and is rather quick to be willing to work with her after she explains she's not his enemy. This is quite a contrast to his no-compromise, kill-at-all-cost attitude towards Isaac.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Yes, he tries to kill you multiple times, and yes, he's the one who left you to rot in an asylum for three years, and yes, he's a dick, but it's implied he had ultimately good intentions and was following orders. Also, he refused to let the civilians of the Sprawl under his care die and issued an evacuation against direct orders of his superiors.
Nicole Brennan Hallucination/The Golden Marker
Played by:Tanya Clarke
A hallucination Isaac experiences repeatedly during the game. In contrast to the real Nicole, this Nicole is mean-spirited and spiteful, alternating between belittling Isaac and flat out yelling at him.
Psychic Assisted Suicide: Capable of inflicting this on Isaac if he doesn't fight off her influence.
Daina LeGuin
Played by: Tahyna Tozzi
The first person to contact Isaac once he breaks out of the asylum. She says she knows how to make the hallucinations stop, and spends the first third of the game directing Isaac to her.
Expy: To Kendra. Both were your Voice with an Internet Connection, female, and well-endowed. And they both betray you, only to be killed shortly after.
A doctor who experimented on Isaac and Stross. When Isaac runs into him, he cuts Isaac out of his straitjacket, apologizes for what he did, and slits his own throat.
Appearing only in Severed, Bartlett is Weller's superior officer. Despite the Necromorph outbreak, he directs Weller around the Sprawl and tries to help him reach Lexine.
Eye Scream: Gets his eyes torn out by some sort of Unitologist Jedi. Doesn't stop him from lethally wounding Gabe though.
Face Heel Turn: Initially it seems like he's helping Gabe, however, he sics a gunship on Weller and tries to kill Lexine.
I Have Your Wife: Sort of, he calls you at multiple times in chapter 2 to remind you how he's tracking her down and going to kill her.
Human Aliens: Completely subverted, but in an ironic way, since all the Necromorphs are made from human corpses and have just enough recognizable human parts for a fully-horrific Uncanny Valley effect.
After the going into the Eye Scream machine in Dead Space 2, their screams and grunts sound distinctly less animalistic and more like Nightmare Fuel the shrieks of humans in agonizing, unconscionable pain.
Nightmare Face: All of them, since they are based on human bodies.
Our Zombies Are Different: Type P. The Necromorphs are spread by a virus that reanimates and mutates dead bodies. But the person has to be dead for it to work, no slowly becoming weaker until they die, which is probably why the Necromorphs infect by stabbing with giant mandibles. That said, the person can be dead remarkably recently (as in immediately) and it still counts.
Sliding Scale of Undead Regeneration: Type II. Necromorphs, despite their appearance, do not rot and appear to get stronger the longer they last. And while shooting them in the midsection does little damage, dismembering them "kills" them somehow.
The Virus: The Necromorph Recombination Virus. Interestingly it only affects dead bodies, which the already created Necromorphs are ready to make.
A Necromorph whose sole purpose is to spread the infection. While it is physically weak, it is a credible threat thanks to its ability to turn corpses into Necromorphs.
Glass Cannon: It doesn't take much to kill one, but if given enough time it can revive a whole room full of Necromorphs.
Mook Maker: They can revive the dead bodies of the crew as Necromorphs, typically Elite Mooks.
Pregnant
A bloated-looking Necromorph that carries Swarmers in its stomach. Damaging its belly will release the Swarmers, making it a difficult Necromorph to deal with, especially in large groups.
Dead Weight: Although being heavily bloated doesn't slow them down much.
Kill It with Fire: The flamethrower, though objectively a lousy weapon, has the benefit of burning their Swarmers to death as they pour out.
Mook Maker: Shooting them in the stomach unleashes a swarm of... Swarmers.
Exploder
A very dangerous Necromorph with a bloated (and highly explosive) arm which it detonates in a suicide attack if it gets too close.
Action Bomb: If that wasn't bad enough, they often appear in large groups. On the plus side, friendly fire is in full effect here, and you can even steal the bomb if you sever it from the arm.
Attack Its Weak Point: That big, glowing, orange thing on its arm? It might be a good idea to shoot it before it gets too close.
Glass Cannon: Two shots will put one down. You don't even have to aim since it's so thin. It's basically a walking stick with a bomb attached.
Divider
A tall, thin Necromorph that splits into several smaller Necromorphs upon being attacked.
Nightmare Face: Even more so than most of the others as due to the violent fuion between the flesh and the statis module their faces are completely static.
Guardian
A mass of flesh attached to a wall that spews out smaller, weaker Necromorphs to defend itself. Often encountered one at a time, but can sometimes be found in pairs.
Combat Tentacles: Used to kill Issac if he comes into close proximity with one.
Instant Death Radius: Getting too close has them decapitate Issac with a tentacle.
Mook Maker: Constantly spitting out tentacle pods to help defend itself.
Made of Iron: Most of their body aside from a few weak points are completely immune to damage. When playing on hard or impossible difficulty one of the players main concerns isn't its attacks, but running out of ammo white fighting one. Hope you saved up some stasis so you don't have to worry about missing...
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: One shows up out of nowhere on the Valor and delivers one to Hammond. They can also do this to Isaac.
This type of Necromorph only appears in one chapter and whose only form of attack is slowly poisoning the air. They are often supported by more combat-oriented Necromorphs.
Body Horror/Uncanny Valley: While completely without natural weapons or defences - they don't even move and you have to be trying pretty hard to get killed by one - they are still disturbing in how vulnerable and human they look, curled up on the ground. They also sound like a human struggling for breath.
Deadly Gas: Its only form of attack. Standing next to one too long will suffocate Isaac.
Vader Breath: Easily located by their loud, well, wheezing gasps for air.
Drag Tentacle
Presumably part of a larger Necromorph, the Tentacle grabs Isaac and drags him towards its lair unless Isaac can shoot it off.
Attack Its Weak Point: Because this is the only way to hurt it and if you don't you be dragged into a hole in the wall and killed horribly.
Hope Spot: Often when Issac is dragged all the way back to their hole he tries some desperate form of escape only to be killed almost immediately. When the second tentacle that appears pulls him near the hole it loses its grip just long enough for Issac to stand back up before brutally grabbing his head and yanking him the rest of the way in.
Interface Screw: Whenever one grabs Isaac it messes with his aiming controls, making it much harder to hit. They still go down pretty easy though.
Nothing Is Scarier: We never do get to see what is on the other end of this thing... but Isaac might.
Puker
A Necromorph whose main attack is vomiting caustic bile at Isaac, as well as a ball of caustic material that slows Isaac down, allow it to close the distance.
Poison Is Corrosive: The Puker spits highly acidic bile at its enemies, reminiscent of The Spitter. While it's sizzling any Human player's armor, he's unable to run. In Multiplayer, this can range from annoying (on the objective carrier, who can't run anyway) to lethal (human players rushing toward an escape point).
Tiny infant Necromorphs whose bodies are filled with a volatile, yellow fluid that explodes when Isaac is close. They are tiny, making them hard to hit, and they come in packs, but can be killed easily.
Action Bomb: They explode. Like the Exploders, a headshot will put them down and leave the bomb intact for you to use.
Necromorphs that resemble velociraptors. They attack by running at high speeds toward Isaac, ramming him, and running back. They love to attack in large rooms filled with boxes to hide behind, though you can find an odd Stalker in a random room once in a while.
Get Back Here Boss: They only show themselves to attack you, and you have a window of about two seconds to hit them (preferably with a Stasis blast) before they tackle you and retreat to cover for another round.
A powerful necromorph that is very similar to a Guardian, in fact its strongly implied that it is the female version of a Guardian.
Boss Necromorphs in Dead Space 1
The Hunter
A special type of Necromorph created by Dr. Mercer, made from injecting Necromorph tissue into a live victim's skull. It constantly regenerates limbs, requiring Isaac to stop it using his environment.
Determinator: The Hunter takes a hell of a licking and keeps on ticking. To put this thing down, you eventually have to fry it with the ignition of a ship, destroying it down to the cellular level.
Healing Factor: It will regrow its limbs if given enough time, or right away if you completely cripple it.
Implacable Man: The Hunter Necromorph reappears throughout the levels it's in (albeit in fixed locations), regenerates from any damage you do to it, and even returns a few levels later to menace you after you think you've stopped it by trapping it in a cryogenic freezer.
Mighty Glacier: The Hunter is powerful, but slow and easy to cripple (about halfway been a mook and Elite Mook in damage resistance). It just keeps coming, though.
A Necromorph that has barricaded itself in food storage and is poisoning the Ishimura's atmosphere as part of a biological terraformation. Fights Isaac by flailing its tentacles and shooting exploding pods at him.
Combat Tentacles: Three. After destroying them it reveals its weak point allowing Isaac to finally kill it. Of course, then the tentacles come back.
The Slug
A huge Necromorph that attacks from outside the Ishimura by flinging debris. Isaac fights and kills it with the ship's turret system.
Combat Tentacles: It uses them to pitch debris at you, which you must destroy if you don't want the hull to rupture.
Hive Mind
The Hive Mind is the last boss in the game and has been controlling the other Necromorphs through telepathy. It kills Kendra after she betrays Isaac and attempts to make her escape before turning on Isaac himself. After a heated battle, Isaac manages to destroy it and barely escapes with his life.
Combat Tentacles: Its favorite type of melee attack is swinging its tentacles at Isaac. After dealing a significant amount of damage it will grab him with them and lift him up in the air where he'll have a short amount of time to destroy its remaining weak spots or be ripped in half.
Hive Mind: Its name alone is all you need to know.
Mook Maker: Starts spiting out Pregnants if you take too long to defeat it.
Boss Necromorphs in Dead Space: Extraction
The Urchin
A large Necromorph of unknown origin that appears in chapter 6.
The Spider
A massive Necromorph that serves as the boss of chapter 9 that is found crawling on the exterior of the USG Ishimura..
Boss Necromorphs in Dead Space 2
The Tormentor
A huge Necromorph that attacks Isaac in the Church of Unitology basement. Isaac has to shoot off one of its arms, then run as fast as he can to escape it.
Cutscene Boss: Gameplay wise, it's not so much a battle as a timed aiming minigame. Shoot the right target before it can eat you.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: After dodging the gunship, it turns out the Tormentor's lurking in the basement of the Church of Unitology for... some reason, tries to eat Isaac, and ends up being killed in a massive explosion.
Ubermorph
A Necromorph Isaac encounters near the end of Dead Space 2. Like the Hunter it is impossible to kill by normal means; unlike the Hunter its origin is unknown. It is also the only Necromorph that looks like an alien, not a mutated human.
Lord British Postulate: The Ubermorph can only be killed permanently by pushing it into a fan in the last room it appears in. As it isn't indicated anywhere in the game that you can do this and it doesn't appear after this anyway, this is probably a glitch.
Nigh Invulnerability: The Ubermorph cannot be destroyed — like The Hunter, its limbs will simply regenerate ad infinitum. However, it CAN be killed by luring it near a fan close to the end of Chapter 15 and using the Force Gun to push it in, even if it is arguably unnecessary.
Or you can just run up further and destroy the circuits to permenantly cut him off.
