The originalDead Spacewas an esteemed gem of a sci-fi horror game that offered many intense and brutal frightening moments, a captivating storyline, and iconic characters. Flash forward 15 years later, those same characters return to the USG Ishimura, and the remade story can be experienced again from the start, thanks to EA and Motive.
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2023’s Dead Space Remake is a faithful successor to the original, bringing back some of the familiar level design and enemies. The eerie Necromorph creatures weren’t the only ones to get horrifying new designs with next-gen graphics, though. The characters themselves have all changed quite a bit.
Warning: potential spoilers for Dead Space and Dead Space Remake ahead.
11Captain Benjamin Mathius
The USG Ishimura captain spearheading the Church of Unitology’s mission to make Necromorphs from the Aegis VII Marker is a much more prominent character in the remake. Benjamin Mathius was only seen in a blurry blue video file in the original game, and you could barely get a glimpse of him before his transformation in the morgue.
The expanded lore in the remake includes new hologram environmental storytelling, where you often can view the captain interacting with other characters before the outbreak. His transformation is alsomuch more frightening and intimate, allowing you to get very close to him before the Infector turns him into a Necromorph and sends him right on you in moments.
10Kendra Daniels
Your ally aboard the Kellion en route to the USG Ishimura has slight changes to her character. Kendra Daniels' arc remains the same, leading up to her eventual betrayal and death at the end of the game, while keeping many of her same communications and dialogue scenes throughout. The updates lie in her actress and outfit.
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Kendra gets a new face here with actress Brigitte Kali Canales, who you may recognize from Fear The Walking Dead, Roswell, New Mexico, and The Old Ways. She now gets a cooler brown and white leather jacket instead of her old short sleeve one and has a new accessory on her left wrist in the form of a touchpad to communicate with RIG units.
9Zach Hammond
The officer leading Isaac and the rest of the crew on the mission to the USG Ishimura, Zach Hammond, didn’t see a reprisal from the original actor Peter Mensah. Mensah is well-known for TV series and films like Spartacus, 300, and Midnight, Texas. The new actor and character model for Hammond is Anthony Alabi.
Like Daniels, Hammond had notable upgrades to his suit, which looks much more suitable for space travel and has tons of extra padding and accessories. He remains with you on your journey for the same amount of time until his death, which is changed here for him to die by a Necromorph Chen instead of the Brute.
8Jacob Temple
Jacob Temple is one of the least important characters in the game, only coming across through audio logs and then his brief death scene you observe. Like Isaac, he’s a fellow engineer searching for his girlfriend somewhere on the Ishimura, so his story is quite a parallel. But then both their lives are cut short when captured by Dr. Challus Mercer.
The scene where Jacob dies plays out much differently in the remake. Instead of being tied to a chair and impaled by Mercer’s metal rod, he now tries to shoot Mercer only to be quickly stopped with the stasis round and then killed. Jacob’s wardrobe also changes, with his character now having a yellow thermal instead of the dirty shoulderless tee and suspenders.
7Dr. Nicole Brennan
Nicole Brennan is the main protagonist’s girlfriend in Dead Space, who you find out has been dead the entire time, and the chapter names also have a clever way of spelling it out. Her remake character has an interesting connection with Dead Space 2, as actress Tanya Clarke reprises her role of Nicole Brennan from the original sequel.
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Therefore, this Nicole looks more mature and aged up than the younger version in the 2008 game. She continues to haunt Isaacin many instances as a hallucinationbut also gets expanded side missions with holograms that show exactly what she was up to before Isaac and the Kellion’s arrival.
6Dr. Challus Mercer
In addition to the scary Necromorph species you narrowly survive throughout, Dr. Mercer serves as Dead Space’s human antagonist, driven mad bythe principles of the Church of Unitology. His suit and character overall remain in pretty similar shape and design, but he has an even more menacing and villainous presence in the new game.
He doesn’t talk to you through glass this time around. Instead, Challus Mercer can actually render you motionless by freezing you in stasis as he delivers hisbest attempt at a villain speech, pacing around you and gazing proudly at a Hunter. His death in the remake is more cinematic than abrupt and is poetic justice for being betrayed by the Marker.
5Aiden Chen
Kellion pilot Aiden Chen saw some drastic changes in not only his overall character features but how he was utilized in the remake’s story. He certainly looks like a more experienced pilot now with a much older character model and not the young man with a buzz cut that seems just drafted into the program.
Chen’s space suit gets finer details like extra pockets and tubing, including a pilot’s mask attachment. In the original, his character died straightaway during the first Necromorph scene in the Arrivals Bay and never heard from again. The remake shows Aiden’s Necromorph transformation, which brutally kills Zach Hammond right in front of Isaac.
4Isaac Clarke
The first Dead Space game established Isaac Clarke as a silent protagonist who would only grunt and make noises, butthe sequels changed that direction. The 2023 remake keeps Gunner Wright as the model and voice of Isaac Clarke, but many expressed their opinions on the new look, which indeedfeels more sad dadthan a formidable space engineer.
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The gameplay experience feels incredibly different now that Isaac reacts to situations and talks in conversations with the supporting cast, making him feel more aware as a character. His RIG suit gets upgraded details and armor, his weapons are just as satisfying, and there are more zero-gravity sequences. And hestill doesn’t freak out easilywith all the Necromorph madness.
3Dr. Terrence Kyne
The more remorseful counterpart to Mercer in Dead Space, Dr. Kyne, who sought Isaac’s help to return the Marker to its origin, is nowhere near recognizable. That’s because the model and voice actor was originally Keith Szarabajka, and now the role has switched over to Iranian-American actor Pej Vahdat from Bones, Shameless, and Dynasty.
A new blond-haired Terrence gets more accessories around his standard-issue white Ishimura suit, which now has logos on the left shoulder, sporting a tool belt and strapped packs around his body. His character arc remains pretty much exactly the 2023 version, ultimately ending with him being shot and killed by Daniels while trying to do good.
2Dr. Elizabeth Cross
The original Dead Space didn’t incorporate Dr. Cross' character into the plot all that much, and she wasn’t well-established before she and her boyfriend Jacob met the same fate at the hands of Dr. Mercer. You can hear her through the audio logs along the way, and then you only see her dead body lying on the ground near Jacob.
Here Dr. Cross plays an essential part in the Nicole twist, where you discover that she was the person Isaac was supposed to be seeing when hallucinating Nicole. And the Marker made her see Jacob in Isaac. It all culminates with Daniels killing her after Cross learns the truth.
