PARTING SHOT: DEAD SPACE 2

Dead Space 2 makes you relive the horror of the first game in service of its own scares

Three years have passed since Isaac Clarke escaped the USG Ishimura with his sanity (just about) intact. Burdened with the knowledge of the necromorph threat, and haunted by his failure to save those he loved, Clarke attempts to continue his life aboard the Sprawl, a space station orbiting Titan.

But outside the window, pregnant with threat, floats the Ishimura. From early on, you could have looked out of the window and seen the industrial steel of the ship parked in orbit. Silent. Deadly. You, in control of an Isaac Clarke who has clearly been broken by his experiences on the ship, keep catching glimpses of it. “They’re not going to make me go back there, are they?” you think.

Enter Chapter 10. There’s no avoiding it, you need to go back to the Ishimura to get some tools. You’re an engineer, after all. This dreadnought of trauma is beckoning. Once you enter, you see someone’s been taking care of her – there’s hazard tape, warning signs, and so on. You enter the ship. It’s fine. You descend into its bowels. It’s fine. You locate your objective. It’s… fine?

By this point, you’re on edge – jumping at shadows, finger twitching on the trigger. Something is going to happen, and when it does, it’s going to ruin you. Visceral wouldn’t just let you suffer like this for fun, would it? There’s got to be something waiting for you in the Ishimura, hasn’t there? This existential terror couldn’t all have just been in your head… could it?

And then the lights go out.