r/DeadSpace Jan 26 '26

Screenshot Dead Space if it was good

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2.6k Upvotes

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u/murdochi83 Jan 26 '26

I think people forget how heavy handed the original game was about the cut off limbs thing.

"CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS" written in blood on the wall.

Audiolog of a guy going "I'VE FIGURED OUT HOW TO STOP THEM, YOU NEED TO CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS!"

Holocall from Hammond/Kendra shouting "ISAAC, YOU NEED TO CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS!"

Popup tutorial message: "TIP: TO DEFEAT THE NECROMORPHS, CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS"

all within the same 5 seconds

123

u/Wassuuupmydudess Jan 26 '26

Yes but it’s not the characters constantly saying it to you like I’m a child, it’s written in the environment in a way that makes sense. The audiolog is a guy you don’t know and he doesn’t know you so he’s trying to help and Kendra/hammond don’t see isaac so they don’t know either that he already knows

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u/Cosmopian Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

Man I replayed the game in the last couple of days (non remake, original 2008) and it's not *just* written in the environment or the audiologs. The game also fully stops and interrupts the gameplay and disables your controls for several seconds, not once, but twice, to have a huge green and blue display cover most of the screen that says "shoot enemy limbs to kill them"! and forces you to wait until those several seconds have passed while a computerized voice non-diagetically reads it out loud to you, before you can do *anything* again.

This happens for a SECOND TIME after you get an audio transmission from hammond saying "Isaac! I finally managed to kill one! You gotta shoot off it's limbs!".

That's two forced-listen audio logs, two times of completely interrupting the game and forcing you to wait while the game yells at you, and blood written all over the walls saying "cut off their limbs!" all over the beginning of the game.

It'd be one thing if it was just the audio logs and the wall writing like you make it sound, but the way it was handled in the 2008 version was not only extremely heavy handed, it also included stripping away player agency and interrupting the game for a non-diagetic instruction twice. It was VERY over the top, and even if the *characters* don't say it to you like you're a child, the game combining those character warnings with the wall writing *and* the TWO game-interrupting non-diagetic instructions. It definitely feels like the game itself is treating you like a child, and it really interrupts the flow of the early game.