Our introduction to the universe takes place hundreds of years after the canonical beginning of the overall Dead Space timeline, so there are many concepts in the original Dead Space and its 2023 remake that aren’t immediately obvious when Isaac Clarke first appears on the USG Ishimura.

Whether it’s the giant obelisk-like Red Marker that’s essential to Isaac’s adventures, or the evil Unitology Church obsessed with serving Isaac, the story can be very dense in this first part, which includes the spinoff – Mediah and two sequels – and establishes important lore that will solve mysteries left behind. For those who want a deeper understanding of what happened in Isaac’s first encounter with the Necromorphs, we’ll provide an overview of the history and lore of Dead Space and the events of its chaotic ending. Be warned, this will be a full spoiler.

Looking for a specific section? Here is a link to the story description on the following page:

Dead Space’s Story Explained

Our story takes place in the year 2508 on the elite spaceship USG Ishimura, known as the “Planet Cracker”, when the planet is on the brink of failure. In the dystopian far future of Dead Space, humanity has exhausted Earth’s natural resources and is building ships like the Ishimura to explore other planets.

But this seemingly routine planet destruction mission seems to have run into a problem, and that’s where we come in. After receiving a distress signal from the USG Ishimura, Engineer Isaac Clarke (protagonist), Senior Security Officer Zach Hammond, Computer Specialist Kendra Daniels, Corporal Johnston, and Corporal Aiden Chen are sent aboard the ship to investigate the source of the distress signal. . Isaac has even more to lose as his wife, Dr. Nicole Brennan, is stationed on the ship and is working on a mysterious project.

The officers, awaiting their mission, arrive on a mining ship, but a malfunction causes the ship to crash into Ishimura’s docking bay. To their surprise, no one reacts to their flashy appearance, but it doesn’t take long to understand why. After investigating the ship, Isaac, Hammond, Daniels, and Chen are attacked by nightmarish monsters known as Necromorphs. In their first encounter with the monsters, Chen is killed, while Isaac is separated from his companions and flees deeper into the ship.

After escaping the first swarm of Necromorphs, Isaac finds a small workshop where he discovers a plasma cutter and a message scrawled in blood on the wall: “Cut off their limbs.” Isaac realizes that the only way to stop the flesh-eating creatures (supposedly mutants of the ship’s crew) is to dismember them, which gives the protagonist a chance to defeat this mysterious enemy. With this knowledge, Isaac sets off with the determination to find his wife Nicole, reunite with his crew, and leave the ship.

After managing to regain contact with Hammond and Daniels, the trio summarize that they must repair the ship before it breaks down before they can escape. First, Isaac repairs the tram lines so they can travel to other parts of the ship. He then attempts to return to the ship he came aboard to see if the Ishimura is still salvageable, and is reunited with Corporal Johnston. Before he can assemble anything, the Necromorphs attack and destroy the ship, killing Johnston.

From here, Isaac travels through the ship, repairing its systems and trying to learn more about the Necromorphs. Eventually, Isaac discovers that the planet the ship orbits and mines, Aegis VII, has been in quarantine for centuries. The crew of the Ishimura knew this, but decided to go there anyway. Isaac realizes that their true purpose is not to mine the planet, but to retrieve an ancient alien artifact called the Red Marker.

While passing through the medical department, the engineering department, and finally the bridge, Isaac learns that the ship’s captain, Benjamin Matius, is a devout follower of a religious group that worships a sacred artifact called the Church of Unitology, the Black Marker. Unitologists believe that the Marker has supernatural properties and holds the secrets of eternal life and rebirth. So when the colonists of Aegis VII appear to find another Marker, they send Benjamin Matius and Ishimura on a mission to retrieve it under the guise of a regular mining mission.

When Isaac learns of this, he encounters Hammond again, who is now on the bridge trying to prevent the ship from crashing into an approaching asteroid field. Hammond also reveals that they were attacked by a necromorph version of Chen, trapping Chen in an escape pod. Isaac reminds Hammond that it is not Chen anymore and throws the creature into space (this will be important later).

Outside the ship, Isaac successfully recalibrates the ADS cannon, preventing Ishimura’s destruction by an asteroid, but receives a mysterious signal from Nicole during medicine and decides to investigate. In the process, he discovers further details regarding Ishimura’s retrieval of the Marker, including the fact that Matius had succeeded in converting many of the scientists and researchers aboard the spaceship to Unitology.

He also learns that the Marker was driving those around him insane, causing them to experience extreme paranoia, severe depression, vivid hallucinations, and violent obsessions. This effect was first studied in the Aegis VII colony, but eventually reached Ishimura after the Red Marker was transported aboard the ship. However, things went drastically wrong when Ishimura began mining Aegis VII.

After Ishimura blasted a huge crater into the planet, the Aegis VII colony was attacked and infected by a horde of Necromorphs. When the monsters swarmed the colony, they pleaded with Ishimura for help, but she cut off all communication to prevent the spread of infection. This was Matius’ decision, but was strongly questioned by the crew of the Ishimura. Eventually, Dr. Terence Cain tried to arrest Matius to save the colony. However, Cain accidentally killed the captain while trying to knock him unconscious. The Necromorphs then travel to Ishimura on the Aegis VII shuttle and are able to board.

Back to Isaac’s journey: The down-on-his-luck technician enters the infirmary and follows Nicole’s signal, which leads him to a laboratory inhabited by mysterious creatures. Before Isaac can investigate, he is captured by an evil scientist named Challus Mercer. Apparently driven mad by the Marker, Mercer tells Isaac to worship him and repeatedly mentions an event called “Convergence”.

He also experiments with the Necromorphs, creating near-immortal abominations he calls “Hunters” that can regenerate severed limbs. Mercer tries to use the monster to kill Isaac, but he escapes, but Mercer still pursues him through the sickbay as he tries to deal with the poisonous gas filling the ship. Isaac eventually defeats the monster by freezing it, but he’s not done yet with a final showdown with Mercer’s regenerating minions…

After his confrontation with Mercer, Isaac heads to a hydroponic facility, where he and another survivor named Doctor Cross free. Stopping the poisonous gas launches a giant monster called Leviathan into space. During this time, Isaac discovers that if he repairs the communication, he can send an SOS call into space. He decides to pursue this goal and enters the mining field.

There he finds his wife, Nicole Brennan. Even if she is not acting unnaturally, she at least appears healthy and happy. She is happy to see Isaac and helps him, but the two end up going their separate ways. Happy that his wife is alive, Isaac returns to his mission and attaches a communications system to a meteorite and throws it into space.

With the communications system installed, he goes to the bridge to activate it, but finds that a Leviathan has attached itself to the ship and must be removed manually. In a battle with a new monster, he finally defeats it and activates the communications. This allows him to contact a ship called the USM Valor. The rescue appears to be underway until soldiers aboard the Valar confirm that they have picked up Ishimura’s escape pod… the very same escape pod containing the Necromorph Corporal Chen that Hammond threw into space earlier in the game.

Shortly after, the Valar crashes into the Ishimura, and Isaac investigates, discovering that all of the crew are dead, replaced by newly transformed Necromorphs. Determined to find a silver lining in the situation, Isaac and Hammond separately venture into the ship and find the Singularity Core, bringing it back, but Hammond is killed by Necromorph Chen during the retrieval.

Returning to the ship, Isaac uses his last bit of strength to make his way to the crew quarters in hopes of finding a shuttle that can insert the Singularity Core. There, he comes face to face with Marcel and the red marker. After another confrontation with Mercer’s hunters, Isaac escapes, eventually meeting Dr. Terence Cain. Kaine is clearly under the influence of the Marker, but asks Isaac for help. He reveals that Ishimura’s mining operations on Aegis VII have uncovered a giant monster known as the Hive Mind. It appears that the Hive Mind is behind the Necromorph outbreak, but if the red Marker can be brought back to Aegis VII it could potentially be used to seal the monster away. Isaac is skeptical, but wants to end the situation once and for all and agrees to help Kaine bring the Marker to the planet. Isaac loads the Marker onto a rescue shuttle and encounters Mercer just before he is brutally killed by a large tentacle.

Dead Space Ending Explained

After taking care of Mercer and the Necromorphs, Isaac successfully loads the Marker onto the shuttle and returns to the docking bay, from where he wants to fly with Kainé, Daniels, and Nicole to Aegis VII.

However, when Daniels arrives, he kills Kainé and flies out of the hangar with the Marker. He reveals to Isaac that she has been working for the government all along. It turns out that Daniels was tasked with retrieving the Marker from Ishimura because her employers wanted to cover up the existence of the Marker.

According to Daniels, the red Marker was actually constructed by humans and is a direct copy of the black Marker that was discovered on Earth hundreds of years ago. When humanity discovered the first Marker, it became clear that the relic had supernatural properties worth investigating. So they made copies and sent them to other planets for experiments. Because of this, Aegis VII was put under quarantine.

The government eventually became aware of the Unitologists’ attempts to retrieve the Marker from Aegis VII and decided to thwart the effort. The USM Valar (the ship that was captured by the Necromorph Chen) was to aid Daniels in this attempt and help her retrieve the Marker from the ship. After Isaac finds out about all this, he is first abandoned by Ishimura to die. However, Nicole contacts Isaac and tells him to meet her at the hangar.

In a strange series of events in which Isaac repeatedly loses consciousness, Isaac and Nicole call Daniel’s ship back to the docking bay, forcing her to catapult to the planet’s surface in an escape pod. Isaac and Nicole then board the ship and fly together to Aegis VII, where they prepare the red marker to seal the Hive Mind away.

However, as the two place the marker in place, the marker fires a red energy beam into the sky. Soon after, Nicole begins yelling at Isaac to “make us whole again”, and the “Convergence” begins. Realizing that the marker does not contain the Hive Mind as intended, Isaac attempts to sever the bonds around the crater where the monster is located.

On the way to remove the shackles, he encounters Daniels who has taken Nicole hostage. Daniels tells Isaac that he has been corrupted by the influence of the Marker and shows him a video message revealing the truth. Nicole died long before Isaac arrived at Ishimura. This new Nicole is an illusion. The Marker used Isaac as a puppet and projected Nicole’s image onto Dr. Cross. Isaac, a scientist, helped him with hydroponics. Realizing that it is too late to stop the Marker, Daniels shoots Cross and flees the scene to hijack the shuttle that flew Isaac to the ground.

Realizing he is being controlled, Isaac escapes with Daniels back to the ship, but is stopped by the Hive Mind, who kills Daniels and captures Isaac. After a fierce battle, Isaac defeats the Hive Mind and takes off into space in a shuttle. After sitting in silence for a few seconds, he turns around to look at the passenger seat and sees a dead Nicole staring back at him. She stares for a few seconds before attacking.

Isaac defeats the Hive Mind and escapes, but is damaged. The Marker corrupted Isaac’s mind and drove him insane. As we see in Dead Space 2, he never recovers from its effects.

Dead Space’s Alternate Ending Explained

A normal playthrough will give you Dead Space’s classic ending, but if you play New Game Plus and collect all of the newly added items, you will unlock an alternate ending. It’s worth briefly explaining this ending as well, as it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, especially for those new to the series.

In this ending, everything remains the same until Isaac defeats the Hive Mind and escapes into space on the Executive Shuttle. Normally, at this moment, Isaac would be assaulted by an undead hallucination of Nicole, but in the new ending, he fully embraces the Marker’s influence. In this ending, Isaac speaks lovingly to the Marker-induced hallucination of his late wife, telling her that he intends to make something for her, though he doesn’t reveal what that is exactly.

This is clearly a reference to Dead Space 2, where Isaac announces his plans to build the Red Marker. As we see in the sequel, in the time between Dead Space 1 and Dead Space 2, the influence of the Marker has led Isaac to build a replica of the Red Marker found on Aegis VII. Isaac builds this new Red Marker with the help of Earth’s shady government and another patient named Nolan Stross who has also been influenced by the Marker. He is then housed in a government-owned space station called the Sprawl, and his influence eventually causes the place to be overrun by Necromorphs, leading to the events of the second game.

Dead Space’s Lore Explained

The above outline gives an overview of the story and the events that precede it, but we will soon delve into other lore that is never fully mentioned in the story and complements the main themes to give context.

Church of Unitology

So what exactly is the Church of Unitology? Well, in Dead Space lore, Unitology is closely tied to the discovery of the Black Marker on Earth almost 300 years before the events of the first game. It was the first beacon ever discovered by humanity, and it was located in the Chicxulub crater in Mexico. The investigation of the Black Marker is the subject of a book called Dead Space: Martyr, and its story is followed by Dr. Michael Altman, who is one of the first people to interact with the Marker.

If Altman’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s one of the most important characters in Dead Space. Unitologists often refer to Altman as the religion’s divine prophet, and even say goodbye to each other with the words “Praise be to Altman.” To Unitologists, Altman is a divine figure, but this was not the hapless scientist’s original intention. After his first interaction with the Marker, most of Altman’s colleagues and friends lost their lives, either insane or driven to insanity by the artifact. Altman, on the other hand, resisted its influence.

A few years after Altman’s death, the Church of Unitology became a widespread religion, but is considered rather a cult. Their central belief is that the Marker possesses infinite wisdom, reunites people with deceased loved ones, and grants them rebirth after death. Isaac even reveals in the 2023 Dead Space remake that his mother was a Unitologist, but the church corrupted her mind, which ultimately led to her death.

Convergence and The Truth Behind The Markers

You must remember that the word “Convergence” has been mentioned quite often, whether by Dr. Mercer or Isaac’s hallucinations of Nicole. While the true nature of the Convergence should not be entirely clear at this point in the story, Dead Space 3 will finally reveal what the Convergence is and what the Mark’s true purpose is.

Convergence is a catastrophe where enough organic material around the marker is converted into necromorph DNA, allowing them to evolve into their final form. This form is known as the Brother Moon, and absorbs all of the DNA of the converted Necromorphs and merges into a giant celestial body in the sky. From here, the creature is virtually unstoppable, capable of devouring entire planets of organic life.

As for the marker, it serves more or less as a reproduction vehicle for the Necromorphs. The Black Markers are implanted into planets habitable for intelligent life, and lie dormant for centuries until the lifeforms living on the planet evolve. Once the Marker becomes sentient, it sends out a signal that destroys any intelligent life within range. Not only does the Marker drive them insane, but it also forces the subjects to build copies of him. These copies are red Markers, similar to the ones found in Dead Space, and are distributed to other planets.

Eventually, the Marker will transform and begin to infect subjects, giving rise to Necromorphs. When enough Necromorphs are present, a conversion event will begin, creating a Brethren Moon. The cycle then continues, with new markers being sent to new planets. In Dead Space 3, this is shown to have happened to several other intelligent alien species as well, and one character even hypothesizes that this may be the reason why the advanced humans in Dead Space never communicated with alien lifeforms.

Who is Isaac Clarke?

Before the game begins, Isaac Clarke was an engineer working for a publicly traded company called CEC. He had earned a great deal of respect and managed to build a good reputation within the company. His mother was a Unitologist and dedicated her money and life to the religion, while his father was an architect and traveled frequently for work. His mother’s obsession with Unitology led to her death years before the Dead Space incident, where she took her own life and that of Isaac’s father. Since her death, he has hated Unitology and the worship of the Marker.

While working as an engineer, he met Dr. Ishimura. He met and married Nicole Brennan, who encouraged her to apply for a position at USG Ishimura. During the Dead Space remake, it is implied that the time apart has put a strain on their relationship. Isaac joins Ishimura’s expedition to meet Nicole, establishing his role in the events of the game.

Isaac’s story develops significantly in the next two installments of the series, Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3, as his life becomes intertwined with the destruction of the Marker and the end of the Necromorph threat.

How Does Dead Space Remake Lead Into Dead Space 2?

At the end of Dead Space, Isaac Clarke’s mind was warped by the Marker, as evidenced by the presence of Nicole’s creepy hallucinations. This leads directly into the sequel, where Isaac Clarke struggles with severe dementia caused by his interactions with the Marker.

Meanwhile, you can also find a small reference to the second game in the text log added to your New Game Plus rig. After starting a new save, go to the Side Missions tab in the Messages Database. In an exchange between two employees, you’ll find someone mentioning “The Sprawl,” the main setting of Dead Space 2. They also mention the Concourse Mall, which Isaac fights through during the events of the game, noting that it’s a “great place for kids”… well, probably not.