Trivia / Dead Space (Remake)

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• Approval of God:
  • Glen Schofield, the lead developer of the original Dead Space, has given his approval on the development of the remake and has stated he's excited to see what Motive will do with it. He has admitted that it's strange not being a part of the development team, however.
  • Producer of the original trilogy and series co-writer Chuck Beaver has given explicit praise over the remake in a longform playthrough of him reacting to the entire game from start to finish, even commenting occasionally all the various improvements done in the remake are things he genuinely welcomes and wished they either had done the first time around or committed to more fully.
• Author's Saving Throw: Generally speaking, if a mechanic or presentation choice was revised for Dead Space 2 and was considered an improvement, the remake uses the version of it from the sequel.
  • Most immediately obvious is that Isaac is no longer a Silent Protagonist, which was dropped in the second game.
  • Zero G sequences uses the personal thrusters from the second game, rather than the magnet boots and jumping from the first. The remake even adds controls for rotating Isaac on the Z-axis, adding even more control over his movement.
  • Unrelated to Dead Space 2, the much-criticized turret section where Isaac recalibrates the Ishamura's asteroid defense cannons was completely reworked with brand new mechanics.
  • Kinesis combat has been massively improved, with a snappiness to it to match its implementation in Dead Space 2. Now, fan blades, poles, enemy limbs, stasis canisters, and more can be used at a moment's notice to deal out damage to your enemies in stark contrast to the original game's sluggish Kinesis, which was solely meant to be used for puzzle solving and environmental manipulation rather than combat.
• Collector's Edition: The collector's edition of the game, provided by Limited Run, has quite the collection of Feelies for fans. In addition to getting the game itself, you'd also get...
  • A fully wearable and functional recreation of Isaac's helmet (a godsend for cosplayers).
  • A steel book for the game itself.
  • An enamel pin, depicting the Marker.
  • A steel 4" replica Marker to be displayed on a desk.
  • The game's original soundtrack.
  • An embroidered patch.
  • Posters from the Ishimura.
• Content Leak
  • A minor one, but it happened nonetheless. The launch trailer for the game was intended to be released on Thursday, January 12th with a live broadcast of it for fans to tune into... Until the trailer was accidentally posted on the game's Steam page on the 11th. Following this, after the trailer spread like wildfire through the fanbase, Motive released the trailer a day early.
  • Far more severe, a full list of trophies was released to the public by True Trophies, revealing some changes that were made based on their descriptions.
  • Even more severe than those two leaks, just five days prior to launch, someone was able to obtain a copy of the game and uploaded four full hours of footage from the game onto the internet.
• Dueling Works: With The Callisto Protocol, a game that is a very clear Spiritual Successor to the Dead Space series, with the same kind of Survival Horror gameplay, Diegetic Interface, emphasis on Body Horror, and both coming out within roughly a month's time of one another. In the end, however, Callisto was met with a mixed reception due to its linearity, repetitive combat, and lackluster PC port, leading to decent, but not stellar, sales. On the other hand, Dead Space was met with universal acclaim for its faithfulness to the source material, strong technical stability, and updated mechanics and presentation. This would lead to exceptionally strong sales for Dead Space, leaving it the winner.
• Promoted Fanboy: A surprising amount of people involved with this game have been long-time fans of the original.
  • Pretty much the entire development team on the remake has admitted to being fans of the franchise for quite a while.
  • This also extends to the fans who were reached out to as part of the dev team's community council, where they were able to have access to the whole game every six weeks to provide feedback on the game's progress.
  • While most of Jason Graves's score from the original game is still used in the remake, long-time fan of the series Trevor Gureckis was brought on to compose a variety of new music.
• The Other Darrin: Several of the original game's supporting cast have been replaced for the remake, including Zach Hammond, Kendra Daniels, and Corporal Johnston, who's an outright Gender Flip to boot.
• Role Reprise: Gunner Wright, the original voice actor for Isaac Clarke in the previous games, as well as Tanya Clarke, Nicole's voice actress in Dead Space 2 both reprise their roles for the remake. Claudia Besso also returned as the voice of the Ishimura computer.
• Sequel Gap: Well, new installment gap. This is the first new installment in the Dead Space Franchise since Dead Space 3, which released in 2013, making this particular gap in release just shy of ten full years.
• Throw It In!
  • The sea shanty found in the game was created by just a few employees at Motive during the COVID-19 Pandemic, when sea shanties became rather popular online, and was intended just as a fun gift to the team. However, the team loved the shanty so much that they implemented it into the final game as an Easter Egg.
  • Sticking Line Gun lasers onto Necromorphs wasn't originally intended, but the developers realized the systems they'd built allowed for such a thing to happen and tweaked it so that it would work consistently.
• What Could Have Been: Slashers originally had a behavior set that allowed them to function in Zero-G environments. However, due to them not being very effective in Zero-G, the behavior sets were removed, and Slashers never intentionally appear in said environments.
• Word of God: In a response during a Reddit AMA, the writers confirmed that it was not just Chen that caused the Valor to crash, as the infection spread rapidly once he was aboard the ship, finally addressing a plot hole from the original game.

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