When I first played Dead Space back in 2008, I became infatuated with the Ishimura.
It felt lived in.
Every section of the ship justified its placement within the wider whole.
Every room provided understandable context.
Engineering sat by the engines, because of course it did.
Suitcases were strewn around the arrival lounge.
Medical was evenly divided between clinics that helped with ailments of both the mind and the body.
And it helped that you, protagonist Isaac Clarke, were an engineer.
Someone who understood the joints and brackets that held everything together.
You, too, were a functional part of this larger machine.
But this time around, I found myself particularly struck by the crew quarters.
The Ishimura is a planet cracker.
Its sole purpose is to punch into the surface of a planet to wrench out its shiny guts.
The inside of the ship, unsurprisingly, looks like a vessel that has cracked a lot of planets.
It is suffocatingly bleak.
Endless corridors of grim metal.
Heavy doors to protect against the dangers of such a profession.
The Concordance Extraction Corporation cares little for your comfort, and why should they?
The Ishimura is a place of work, and just because youre stuck there for months (years?)
at a time matters little to those stuffing their pockets full of delicious planet rocks.
But what of the officers!
Where does the Captain, his first mate, and his cook sleep?.
Well, thats a good question.
They are brilliantly - laughably - average.
Here we find the carpets the crew must crave.
Each officer has their own private room.
A cabinet complete with hard liquor and photos of home.
But heres the thing: It doesnt matter.
The walls are the same claustrophobic metal as seen everywhere else on the ship.
Your rank among your colleagues means little to the groaning bones of the Ishimura.
Dress it up in crimson as much as you like.
If you are aboard, you are worthless.
Madness and decay are both an inevitability and a welcome conclusion.
I hope, if anything, that the remake enhances this sense of suffocation.
I want to see more evidence of the misery that existed regardless of mutated monsters.
Of capitalisms firm grip on the throat of comfort.
The USG Ishimura is believable because it sucks.
Thats precisely why I love it to this day.
