The Dead Space remake improves its main cast, but not the crew of the Ishimura

Empty room is a terrifying game about venturing through an abandoned industrial spaceship, all under the sign of suffocating isolation. Isaac Clarke is not entirely alone, however – his ship, the USG Kellion, arrived with a small crew of support personnel. the Empty room Remake characterizes Isaac and his allies in a much deeper way than the original – but that can’t be said of the other poor souls on the USG Ishimura.

The two most prominent characters accompanying Isaac are Zach Hammond and Kendra Daniels, a security guard and a computer specialist. Isaac is almost instantly separated from his team and forced to communicate with them via space Skype calls.

In the original game, Daniels and Hammond are at each other’s throats before the Kellion even gets to its destination. Daniels comes across as aggressive, questioning every decision Hammond makes, with no context or clue as to why. It’s an awkward setup, especially since Isaac is a silent protagonist and unable to get involved. From the player’s perspective, it’s like watching mom and dad fight.

Image: Motive Studios/Electronic Arts

The remake addresses this discomfort in two elegant ways. First, Isaac is now a voiced protagonist, and he regularly interferes in the team’s plans. He’s cool, confident, and competent, just like the trained engineer he’s supposed to be. He saves his teammates’ lives early on with a clever suggestion, and he can tell what the next quest objective is from some schematics or a damage report. Instead of following orders from the other two, he feels like an important part of the team.

Second, Hammond and Daniels also feel like a rare safe respite from the horror. Isaac finds few living souls left on the Ishimura, and most of them exist only to die and add to the suspense. I’ve come to appreciate my conversations with my Kellion shipmates more and more. And when the plot escalates and everyone is at each other’s throats, it’s all the more delicious after the friendly beginnings and slow hostilities.

It’s a shame everyone else on the USG Ishimura is a cardboard cutout that exists only to go insane and/or die. The notes and audio logs Isaac finds all over the ship might mention things like a normal poker night or awkward relationships with a co-worker, but it’s all window dressing, a stark contrast to the warm fuzzies I get from a compliment from Hammond .

A guy might write a journal about the ship’s weekly poker game: “Went to poker night. Played poorly…because of all the ominous visions I had!” Meanwhile, I feel like a chump over here for hoping for a detailed account of poker before the outbreak.

A bit of graffiti was so absurd it made me laugh (apparently unintentionally). Someone had scrawled on a bathroom wall: “I can’t die here. Not here. Not like that.” It appears that a second author replied, “EAT ME,” to which the original author wrote, “They ate my boy.” The absurdity momentarily interrupted my immersion. It’s like that left 4 Dead graffiti argumentbut much smaller and sillier.

Image: Motive Studios/Electronic Arts via Polygon

There’s very little evidence as to who the people on the Ishimura actually were, you know, as people before the crisis, and the clues that are there are a little clumsy. One worker scrawled “Fuck that ship, it’s a shitty capitalist organization” next to a cheerful placard that falls a bit on its face. It’s a missed opportunity, especially compared to a game like this prey (2017) where the player can find small glued snowmen and corporate whiteboards left during the meeting.

While the Ishimura is still a terrifying, rusty maze, it feels a little like everyone on board was born to sign up for that gig and then die. It’s less of a failure and more of a missed opportunity. However, the game is much better when it comes to the interactions between its main characters. A little graffiti is goofy, and I’d love to know more about the days of the Ishimura before it all went wrong – but none of that is enough to spoil Isaac’s horrific journey through a very spooky ship.