But when people around you are either slitting their throats or being killed by Necromorphs, it’s probably best to have some guidance. Sure, you’re being led around in a fairly obvious way at the start. When the first tutorial message is to remind you that ‘x’ is to run, you get the idea of what’s in store for you. The result is some of the most intense (and horrifying) opening 10 minutes to a game in recent memory. The game hits the ground running almost immediately, relegating the recap for those who “walked in late” to a cutscene, in favour of throwing players into the action.

Visceral clearly knew what they were doing with Dead Space 2. Isaac must now meet up with a woman named Daina Le Guin, who promises a cure for the hallucinations, as well as a rescue from the Necromorphs. Complicating matters is the fact that Isaac is suffering from progressively worsening hallucinations. It turns out that the Necromorphs are back, and have infested the space station. Three years after the events of the first game, engineer Isaac Clarke awakens with no memory of these three years on a space station called The Sprawl. The resulting Dead Space 2 not only gave us more horror, but ultimately ended up as one of the scariest titles of the generation. It was no surprise that EA and Visceral got right to work on the sequel after Dead Space‘s critical acclaim.

Combining elements of John Carpenter’s The Thing and Paul WS Anderson’s Event Horizon, and putting it all into a video game made for some truly entertaining (and horrifying) moments for PS3 and Xbox 360 fans. Visceral’s Dead Space was a match made in survival horror heaven.

Dead space 3 story recap