Dead Space: Creating (and Recreating) Isaac’s Suit – IGN First – IGN

In a line-up of survival horror characters, Isaac Clarke stands out. Rather than a regular Joe attempting to outrun zombies, Dead Space’s protagonist is a space engineer ready to weather the harshest conditions. That’s clear to see in his now-iconic space suit, which has received a grimy upgrade for the upcoming Dead Space remake.
The original suit was designed by Chi-Wai Lao, a concept artist who worked at EA alongside Dead Space creator Glen Schofield back in the early 2000s. “[To begin with] my suit designs were all over the place,” says Lao, “ranging from very slim-fitted to very bulky, some very robotic looking, a couple even [carried] a giant sword. They were drastically different from the Dead Space suits we recognize today.”
To ensure credibility, the team considered what materials would be available to engineers in the Dead Space universe. “What is it made of?” Campos-Oriola asked himself. “For example, a good insight coming from my job as director was that [Dead Space is set in] a universe where resources are stranded. That’s why they have to go to space to mine a gigantic planet, because nothing’s left on Earth. So leather in that type of society must be really, really rare. So we need to make sure that it’s not leather on him.”
While much of the design remains faithful to Lao’s original suit, some things did need to be altered. “The other thing that bothered us a little bit were the boots,” Yazijian says. “It felt very simple in the original version, but we came back to that design as well and then actually gave him proper boots that have a lot more articulation in the foot and the shins and so on.”
“We’ve added a little light on the heel to signify you when the mag boots are on,” Campos-Oriola reveals. “But you also now have the thrusters, because you can float in zero-g and now you can navigate and fly around. So we had to think, where are those thrusters on the suit? How do they work? How would they help you navigate in zero-g? That went into the design of the rig.”
The rig, of course, is the most important centerpiece of Isaac’s suit. The illuminated spine acts as a diegetic health bar, and the half-moon Stasis indicator completes the in-universe HUD. The design has been kept for the remake.
“It’s very similar in that the original rig, I loved the design,” says Yazijian. “It looks so unique and iconic, and we wanted to retain that. We don’t want to mess with it. But when you look at it, it does look kind of flat and simple. And what we did is we actually modeled all the individual pieces. You can actually zoom into each one of those sections and you see the mechanism that’s inside. […] And we also added on the back, you can see the Stasis meter and the Kinesis as well. So there’s a lot of detail there.”
“So I think overall it works because it still feels like the same suit from a distance, but when you see it up close, it’s a lot more realistic,” concludes Yazijian. “And then the last pass was the materials. We really went back and then [added] a lot more realistic shaders to it to make sure that it actually felt like the material it was supposed to be. It wasn’t just dull and flat.”
The final version of Isaac’s suit is representative of the Dead Space remake as a whole; a more detailed, believable version of the thing you’ve loved for years. At a glance it’s the same, but take a closer look and you’ll find dozens of new elements that help elevate it into the modern age.
For more from Dead Space, check out how the development team recreated one of the original game’s most chilling scenes, and how the remake fits into the modern survival horror renaissance.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.
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