Metallic groans seep through the thick hull of the industrial starship, drifting behind panicked gasps as the door latches securely at your back. You’re alone, defenseless, and dying. From the end of the corridor, from the shadows of shattered lights, an aluminum can rolls out. You scour the grated floors and encroaching walls with your flashlight. A scuttling sounds draws near. Your light dashes upwards with barely a second to recognize the immature flesh of a human fetus lunging at your throat.

Shortly after the events of the Dead Space comic (which is pretty good reading), Isaac Clarke and the skeleton crew of the Kellion arrive to find the Ishimura – a planet cracker-class starship – drifting aimlessly. While I can’t go into any further details regarding the first level, it was viciously clear that Isaac had taken an irreversible step into a living nightmare. Where’s a space marine when you need one?

Isaac isn’t a soldier or the byproduct of genetic experimentation. He’s an engineer with a plasma cutter (i.e. a geek with an expensive laser pointer). The Necromorphs he faces aren’t aliens or mindless zombies. They are people, or were, before being ripped from the inside-out and repurposed into a grotesque menagerie of Clive Barker proportions. Bones jut out into sinewy scythes, oozing sacs of skin drag behind makeshift legs, and distorted faces dangle uselessly from tendons as reminders of what once was.

While discussing the evolution of the Necromorphs, Production Designer Ben Wanat said:

“[The early concepts] were kind of interesting, but they definitely were not relatable. There’s no human parts in them… I started incorporating human elements into alien bodies, sort of like aliens that would absorb people and stick them in their carcasses, and become sort of a living part of it… [I was] thinking about how humans would move if their bodies were being used in ways they weren’t meant to be used.”

Looking at the scraps of clothing that cling to some of the Necromorphs repulsive bodies, you can almost imagine the lives and jobs they once held. It’s a small touch visually, but provides the needed variation for similar Necromorphs to maintain their revulsion though Dead Space’s (potential) 12 chapters. Just in case, there are plenty other types to keep you busy, including the aforementioned fetus.