Inside Dead Space™ #3: Aboard the Ishimura

The USG Ishimura is a masterful piece of engineering. Commissioned in 2446, the first-ever “Planet Cracker” was designed to mine vital materials from the depths of space. A mile in length, with a crew numbering over a thousand, it represents the pinnacle of humankind’s technical achievement.

There’s just one problem: It also happens to be infested with reanimated, grotesquely deformed former humans who want nothing more than to hunt you down.

UPDATING AN ICON

When the original Dead Space™ arrived in 2008, critics and fans alike cited the detailed, claustrophobic, horrifying environment of the Ishimura as one of the game’s—and the genre’s—best elements. So when it came time to remake this iconic horror game, the team at Motive™ needed to make sure the ship itself received just as much attention as any other character.

That’s right, character: “The Ishimura is an iconic ship because it was treated like a main character,” says Associate Art Director Roy Tuazon. “So much detail and thought went into creating it. They did an amazing job of keeping the player immersed in the ship, and left us wanting to see more. I personally think the Ishimura is as iconic to the gaming world as the Nostromo from Alien is to the film world.”

“Right, because it’s sort of a microcosm of the entire Dead Space world,” says Senior Game Writer Jo Berry. “It’s a corporate ship, it’s very de-personalized, but it also has this kind of cosmic horror, where it’s not hostile—it’s just gigantic, and indifferent. In a way, the Ishimura is the enemy, because so much of the ship is so incredibly dangerous. But also, it’s all Isaac’s got in order to deal with the Necromorphs.”

“Still, every space in the ship, from the paneling to the lighting, is designed to be a little off, a little dangerous-looking,” says Lead Level Designer Catherine Stewart. “It suits its purpose in a horror game so well because the spaces look like they could be lived in—just, maybe designed by a person who seemed to actively denounce health and safety regulations.”

JOINING IT ALL TOGETHER

So how do you manage to make an already terrifying setting feel even more immersive…and thus even more terrifying? First, of course, you need to rebuild the entire ship from scratch, with new, more detailed assets that make the most of modern hardware. But if you want to really ratchet up the tension and immersion, you join the whole thing together in one seamless environment, with no camera cuts and no loading screens. 

“We had some nice challenges on the tech side to solve,” says Project Technical Lead David Robillard. “We needed to not only stream content in and out as the player progresses or revisits other sections but also make sure that this content would match the player’s progress. Luckily, Frostbite™ had been working on several improvements to their streaming solution over the last years and we were able to take advantage of these.”

“We were also lucky to have the layout files from the original game,” Catherine notes, “even though they were in a very outdated format. One of our designers salvaged what data he could so we could put these completely hacked assets into the game as an initial reference point.”

“Even so, it was a big challenge,” Roy says. “We had to take the gameplay spaces, put them all together, and then fit it all inside a 3D ship. And then we had to move some areas to make sure that it all made sense. We also had to make certain areas bigger or smaller, or add connecting hallways, that sort of thing. But we didn’t just add things to add them. Everything we did, we did because it made sense, because it fit.”

“And we expanded some spaces because we have new mechanics,” adds Catherine, “like the updated zero-G experience. But it’s all because we really wanted the player to be able to feel the sense of how the ship sections interlink and understand it better as a whole entity.”

“It was a lot of work,” Roy says, “but it was totally worth it.”

And that revamped zero-G mechanic offers even more freedom to explore, the team says—and therefore more freedom to experience terror in new and horrible ways. “For example,” says Roy, “in the original game, you take a gondola from one end of the ship to the other, and you see this nice environment everywhere. But in our version, you’re able to take the gondola to one end, activate zero-G, and then come back without the gondola. Now you’re able to explore this new area that, previously, when you looked down all you saw was this dark, creepy room.”

“Right, the player’s ability to move more freely around allowed us to open up lots more spaces for more exploration,” Catherine says, “Which means that we got to hide new items and scares in interesting places.”

INTENSIFYING THE ATMOSPHERE

But it’s also about fleshing out what was already there. Take one of the game’s earliest moments as just one example: “In the original game,” says Jo, “when you first enter the Ishimura, you come in from the hangar, and there’s an empty room and then you go into the flight lounge. The purpose of that room was really just to teach you how to open a door. But that space seemed perfect for a sort of customs area, because this is where most people would first come into the Ishimura. So now it’s full of safety warnings, customs declarations, scanning stations—and from there it develops into a fun moment as you come onto the ship.”

“We were able to take locations or branding from the bigger Dead Space universe,” Roy says, “and bring that into the Ishimura in the form of advertisements, posters, stuff like that. So now when you play the game, you’ll see locations that were mentioned in, say, Dead Space 2. Those small details help unify the whole universe even more. And all those little storytelling elements give the ship the feeling of a very lived-in world.”

It is, however, a world that even its designers are sometimes scared to visit. “I still remember when we did the swap in Hydroponics from our early placeholder pieces to some final art,” Catherine says. “It sent a shiver down my spine; the feeling of icky grossness was really something special. That’s when I knew we’d really captured the magic of the original.”

“And the Crew Deck!” Jo shudders. “I think anyone who’s played the original game knows why the Crew Deck is a very bad place to be, and I think in our version there’s even more reason to dread going there. It’s fun but it’s just so spooky.”

“I’m scared all the time, all right?” admits Roy. “But I think going to the belly of the beast, down into Engineering or the Mining Deck, that’s the worst. You have that whole industrial feeling, everything’s so cramped—it’s busy, it’s dark, shapes are everywhere, and you think it’s a Necromorph but no, it’s just machinery. And every time, I think I know what’s happening, I know what’s going on, and then bam! Another piece of my hair just turned gray.”

You’ll have your chance to explore this seamless new version of the iconic Ishimura when Dead Space releases on January 27, 2023, on PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Until then, make sure to check back here for more developer insights still to come!