Dead Space 2

The Marker changes all.


"Isaac...we're all gonna burn for what we did to you."

Dead Space 2 is the sequel to the well-received Dead Space and the second game in the Dead Space series. The game continues the story of Isaac Clarke, the only surviving member of the team sent to the planet-cracker USG Ishimura. In search of his girlfriend, Nicole, Isaac quickly discovered that there was more to the outbreak than meets the eye, and was thrust into a life-or-death struggle against the undead creatures known as the Necromorphs.

Three years later, Isaac wakes on a hospital in the labyrinthine space station called Titan Station, or The Sprawl. Somehow, Isaac is still alive, but his mental state has deteriorated. The horror aboard the Ishimura may have been contained, but the Necromorph outbreak is about to begin all over again and Isaac is the only one who can stop it.

Gameplay was largely unchanged from the first Dead Space, though weapons were tweaked so they are all useful in some capacity this time.

Dead Space 2 was released on January 2011 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. The first trailer can be found here. Exclusively for the PS3, Dead Space Extraction, originally a Nintendo Wii release, was also bundled with the collector's edition of Dead Space 2. In March 2011, a DLC was released called Dead Space 2: Severed. It follows Gabe Weller and Lexine Murdoch, two returning characters from Dead Space Extraction as they try to get off the Sprawl. It is only available for the console versions of the game.


Tropes used in Dead Space 2 include:
  • Abandoned Area: Pretty much everywhere you visit is either already abandoned or will be in very short order...
  • Abandoned Hospital Awakening: The game begins with Isaac waking up in a hospital on the Sprawl. It's not abandoned at the time, but by the time you gain control, it's smack in the middle of the Necromorph infestation.
  • Actionized Sequel: While the original isn't lacking in action, the sequel ramps up the scale of the set-pieces and speed of the pacing a lot.
  • Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Present and prevalent as ever, with Isaac's survival dependent on the Sprawl's plentiful automated stores which happily cough up lethal weaponry and heavy armor in exchange for stolen credits, despite the unfolding crisis situation engulfing the station. You would expect the stores to at least let you run up a debt, but no.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: ANTI, the A.I. in charge of the solar array. While her attempts to impede Isaac are an aversion, since he's actively circumventing normal security procedures, she was very much malfunctioning before the Necromorph outbreak began. Just ask poor Howard Philips.
  • Air Vent Passageway: Isaac can climb into some Jefferies Tubes at certain points.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes
    • Multi-player unlocks for the Human Security team include a lot of variations on repainting the exact same Security Suit.
    • Single-player unlocks are scattered around levels, so one will have to play through the game at least twice to get a full set. All suits are re-skins of four types of RIGs (Engineering, Security, Vintage and Advanced) and have a wide range of bonuses.
    • Isaac also gets an extra suit for single-player: the Riot Security Suit—if you link the iPhone tie-in game to your EA account.
  • An Economy Is You: The automated stores which dot Titan Station sell the game's weapons, ammunition, assorted armor, and medkits. Likewise, emergency supplies consist of ammo, medkits (okay, this might be a logical emergency supply) and cash cards.
    • The store at least is a justified example. When you first access it, the store welcomes Isaac by name and job title—the items offered are customized to his exact preferences, and his security clearance as a CEC engineer permits him to purchase weapons and armor. Also, half the weapons are engineering tools anyway, simply applied in a way that is not how the manufacturer intended.
  • Annoying Arrows
    • If a telekeneticly-thrown spear-object doesn't do enough damage to kill a Necromorph, it will get up and continue trying to eat Isaac. Subverted in that Necromorphs can survive limbs being removed; an arrow won't stop them.
    • In the encounter with Tiedemann. Isaac pulls out two Javelins, one of which must've deflated his lungs. He can even heal after the final battle, meaning he literally shrugged it off, via the same first-aid magic that can heal him from within an inch of death after a Necromorph mauls him.
  • Anyone Can Die: This gets established in a fairly Anvilicious way during the intro. What's more, while Tiedemann's ultimate demise is somewhat expected, Daina's and Stross' deaths will probably catch most first-time players completely off guard.
    • If you watched the movies and played the original game. You'd know that plot armor is a rare commodity in this universe
  • Apocalyptic Log: Back in grand tradition.
  • Arc Words: "Step 1: Into the dark machine. Step 2: The screws go tight, all around. Step 3: Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye. Step 4: She'll be waiting."
  • Armor Is Useless: Isaac seems to have serious issues with his Collapsible Helmet coming off at exactly the worst times.
  • Artifact of Doom: Subverted by the Marker, which is revealed to be man-made!. This ambiguity probably started as a vanilla Retcon but by now the devs at Visceral have got to be feeding it on purpose...
  • Artificial Gravity: Isaac will have to solve several puzzles that can only be done through zero-gravity gameplay.
  • Ate His Spear: Fail to banish the image of Nicole in the ending sequence and Isaac loses it.
  • Author Appeal: This is the third Visceral game in a row to feature Undead Children. The first being the original Dead Space and the second being Dantes Inferno.
  • Awesome Yet Practical
    • You could literally spend the entirety of the game equipped with nothing but the Plasma Cutter Isaac crafts in Chapter 1. Ammo for it is easy to find, cheap to buy, and the thing is always accurate, leaving missed shots as your own fault. Even better, the SPC upgrade node causes shots to light Necromorphs on fire. What's not to like?
    • Many other weapons and abilities are awesome yet practical, namely the line gun, the pulse rifle and most importantly, stasis and kinesis.
    • And now, the Contact beam. Besides its main attack, it even does an AOE stasis with its alt fire while doing heavy damage! Perfect for the final battle.
    • Let's face it, the game's finely-tuned weapons loadout is probably its single best feature. Even the arguably boring but practical detonator launcher is so useful for covering your 6 that it begins to feel indispensable as the player gets used to using it.
  • Back for the Dead: You may remember Franco from Dead Space Ignition (which was released in the fall of 2010). He dies less than a minute in.
  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: Isaac keeps seeing a very hostile hallucination of Nicole that repeatedly gives him "The Reason You Suck" Speech, so this was inevitable. Subverted, when he seems to come to a milestone about accepting Nicole's death and she immediately becomes more helpful and normal-looking. Then double-subverted when she goes evil again at the end and he really does have to fight her! Poor Isaac can't catch a break.
  • BFG: Practically all of Isaac's ordinance feels this way, but the Force Gun and Contact Beam stand out.
  • Bilingual Bonus: For anyone who remembers how to decipher the Unitologist Runes from the cheat sheets in the first game, since well over half of the graffiti is scrawled in it.
  • Black and Black Morality: In this corner, the corrupt, dystopian government that destroys planets for resources. In the other corner, a bunch of crazed cultists who believe that the Necromorphs are the future of humanity. Isaac chooses to fight against both of them.
  • Black Dude Dies First: Franco (from Ignition) dies about twelve seconds into a new game.
  • Blood Is the New Black: One of the DLC suits is the Bloody Vintage Suit, which boosts damage to the Javelin Gun, Force Gun and Flamethrower, plus it comes with Bloody versions of those weapons.
  • Bloodstained-Glass Windows: An early segment of the game involves Isaac fighting through a Unitologist cathedral.
  • Blown Across the Room: A good Javelin or Kinesis-impalement will do this to a Necromorph, usually accompanied by them being stuck to the wall.
  • Blue and Orange Morality: The Marker Intelligence seems to function in this manner, as it attempts to enact its Assimilation Plot with Isaac's contribution a necessity, yet incessantly sends Necromorphs after him with lethal intent.
    • The Marker doesn't need Isaac alive...
    • A example that spans both games is the fact that the Marker was seemingly benevolent in the first Dead Space, manipulating Isaac into helping it stop the Necromorph infestation, while in Dead Space 2 the Marker Intelligence seems to be the driving force behind the Necromorphs. Although there are alternate explanations.
  • Body Horror:Franco is killed by a Necromorph Infector moments after Isaac wakes up. Not only does this showcase how fast the Necromorph virus infects dead tissue, but it demonstrates how horrific the transformation of a corpse to a Necromorph is in excruciating close-up as his face splits to reveal the howling musculature beneath. Isaac promptly headbutts it and escapes. The way he was transformed, you'd think he didn't quite completely die before the transformation began. It's really Fridge Horror if you think about it too much (imagine your face splitting like that).
  • Boring but Practical: The Seeker Rifle. Zoomed in it has the same damage as the Contact Beam without the charge up delay, and guarantees a kill in two shots on anything short of a Brute, but it's a one shot rifle in a game full of magnetically levitated chainsaws, industrial cutting tools, and flamethrowers.
  • Borrowed Biometric Bypass: How do you cheat an ID scanner? Odds are there's a nearby mutilated corpse with sufficient clearance...
  • Boss Room: It starts getting painfully obvious by the time you reach the tripod nest.
    • The areas where you encounter Stalkers also invariably give themselves away with their familiar array of peek-a-boo obstacles (which essentially function as waist-high walls for the enemy).
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: At one point a mentally deteriorating Stross begins shouting at Isacc to stop staring at him, after which he quickly glances at the camera shouting "Stop staring, stop it!".
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: There are several DLC packs with suits and weapons that can give you a leg up on the early parts of the game. Not only are they free (so your cash can be spent upgrading them), but the suits are superior to anything you can buy in the short term (a decent replacement doesn't come around for five chapters).
  • Bullet Time: A shootable version of it with the stasis module. Many enemies move much quicker now, especially Leapers, plus it regenerates at a slow pace (about one shot per minute), giving you all the more reason to use it. This is what the developers were aiming for, since most players only used Stasis for puzzles and rarely for enemies in the first game. That said, they severely scaled back the charges (start with two, four at most) compared to the first game.
  • Call Back: Isaac's initial running sequence ends with him being attacked by a Necromorph that gets itself sliced in half by a pressure door, just like the first one that pursued him in the original game, until the elevator doors destroyed it. Thank goodness No OSHA Compliance works both ways in this game!
    • An entire chapter is based on the Ishimura, where you must ride the tram to fix the main centrifuge...again. Isaac even lampshades this and visits the Medical Deck where two levels of Dead Space took place.
    • When Isaac flies away in the ship with Ellie at the end, it begins the same as the ending of Dead Space 1. Slumping up against the chair, exhausted, and typing in a few commands before some overdue rest. Then the ominous music starts up, and Isaac is obviously freaking out, knowing what happened last time, looks to his right to see...normal, helpful, human Ellie.

Ellie: (looking confused) What...?

  • Cat Scare: Dead Space 2 takes this trope and runs with it. Lights flickering, balloons popping, blaring commercials appearing on TV screens, loud machinery suddenly activating as you pass by, the list goes on and on...
    • One embarrassing variation has Isaac spooked by cartoon sun falling from the ceiling.
    • Another one is an alarm clock that goes off when Isaac leaves an apartment. There are several similar looking clocks but this is the only one that goes off in the whole game, and it goes off during a time when no enemies have appeared for a while.
  • The Cavalry: Ellie during the ending.
  • Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: Averted in the same fashion as the first game; literally changing clothes is a free action, everything else is not. The only other time you can't be attacked is at save stations.
  • Check Point Starvation: Hardcore Mode. It only allows you to save three times in the whole game, and there are no checkpoints.
  • Church of Happyology: Visiting a Unitologist community is a large part of the game; they put on a nice front, but you can find a document near their indoctrination center where a machine has analyzed exactly how psychologically vulnerable to manipulation a potential convert is.
  • Closed Circle: Isaac is confined to the Sprawl in the same way as when he was trapped on the Ishimura.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Isaac's Suddenly Voiced in Dead Space 2, and though most of his melee-attack grunts are the same, if you keep mashing the "Stomp" button, his grunts give way to a small flood of obscenities at whatever he's stomping. Doing so is incredibly cathartic after one of the little buggers gets the jump on you.
    • Tiedemann on the other hand seems oddly restrained, even with things going wrong and people dying around him the worst thing he calls Isaac is an idiot.
  • Collapsible Helmet: Isaac Clarke has various versions of his Resource Integration Gear, all of which have one of these helmets that can fold away and be stored in his suit. Often however, the helmet appears to unfold at points where it would not necessarily be a good idea, for example, when Stross attacks Isaac.
  • Competitive Multiplayer: Dead Space 2 features a new multi-player mode, a first for the series; it takes the form of team-based gameplay, with one side playing as the human engineers, and the other side playing as different types of Necromorphs: The Pack, The Lurker, The Puker and The Spitter. The humans will be tasked with completing a specific goal, and will be armed with the same kinds of weapons and tools Isaac uses, while the Necromorphs have to stop the humans from completing that goal, and will receive help from several Necromorph NPCs spawned to assist them. It plays much like Singularity with even more gratuitous Body Horror.
  • Continuity Nod: When you're forced to go aboard the Ishimura, Ellie asks you, "Is it safe?" This was a very common piece of graffiti in Dead Space, often in places that might be safe for now, but just reading that message was Paranoia Fuel, given that it was ALWAYS written in blood.
    • Failing a particular action sequence results in Isaac being killed. The camera pans in for a close-up on his severed arm floating in space, looking just like the cover box art of Dead Space.
    • Isaac receives a video of Stross trying to kill Ellie with a screwdriver in the eye. The captain of the Ishimura died from being impaled through the eye with a sedative syringe. This time around, though, Ellie survives and returns the favor to Stross and winds up having to wear an eye patch for the rest of the game.
    • In the ending, as their gunship flies away, Isaac starts to relax and look at the seat beside him, only to see Ellie who gives a confused "What?". This references the first game's ending with Necro-Nicole.
    • Chapter 10 takes place on the Ishimura and you must visit the places where the first six levels of Dead Space occurred. Humorously, you have to fix the centrifuge again, which was notoriously frustrating in the first game because as soon as it was fixed, you had to outrun it, something Isaac even lampshades. Additionally, on that same level, Ellie says that the Necromorphs are coming in through a hole in the medical deck. This is probably the same place in Dead Space where Isaac had to travel through to get to "Zero G Therapy".
    • If you pay attention on the Ishimura, the room where he hallucinates Nicole's video is the Hunter room and you come from where Mercer was standing when his baby popped out.
    • The Ishimura escape pod located in the Captain's Quarters Isaac uses in Dead Space 2 is the same one that was jettisoned in the first game with a Necromorph inside, presumably replaced.
    • At least one poster on The Sprawl advertises zero G basketball, a sport which Isaac got to try his hand at in the original game.
    • And, of course, there's always Peng.
  • Cover Drop: There is one for both Dead Space 2 and Dead Space:
    • If the player is killed by The Tormentor, Isaac's arm will float in space resembling the cover of the first game.
    • After buying the Advanced Suit, there will be a close-Up of Isaac's helmet, the cover of Dead Space 2.
  • The Corruption: The official name of the organic goo that covers walls and floors during a Necromorph outbreak.
  • Critical Existence Failure: As with the first game, Isaac will limp and breath raggedly when he is severely injured. However, any final blow that does not provoke one of The Many Deaths of You, no matter how minor, can cause his limbs to fly off amusingly, despite his full body armor. It doesn't evoke terrifying mutilation so much as Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: You could start a gallery based just on this one game. And they have. And it's here.
  • Cut and Paste Environments: A variation. Titan Station was built Levittown-style; you travel through two or three apartment blocks and mall strips that look very similar in general layout, but have different damage, graffiti, bodies and other clutter in the area to differentiate them. For the most part, in Dead Space 2, there is no backtracking.
  • Cutscene Boss: Tiedemann. It consists of two action button mashings to pull two-foot javelin spikes out of your body and aiming the Javelin Gun you just stole at his head and pulling the trigger..[1] There's also The Tormentor, whose battle is essentially a series of aiming mini-games.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: Often averted: many of the large scale events such as when Isaac is rocketing towards the Sprawl at terminal velocity gives the player much control over your direction or your gun.
    • Played straight in one sequence where Isaac is beaten up in ways that would be easily be fatal or highly damaging in standard gameplay, yet he comes out with no health damage at all.
    • Played straight after the above-mentioned High-Speed Missile Dodge when the player has control. The following cutscene has Isaac breaking through a glass roof, through various bits of duct work, and landing with enough force to crack metal flooring. All this without a single scrape, cut or broken bone that he should have suffered from all this at the speeds he was falling.
  • Dangerous Windows: For tolerably obvious reasons, what with the Sprawl being a space station and all, though they sure are pretty selective about which windows are, in fact, dangerous. Close inspection of these windows reveals they're most often "temporary" glass for areas under construction or repair; the "permanent" glass is marked with a strong-man symbol and is bulletproof. The real question is why the emergency shutters don't always close automatically, but that can be filed under Rule of Drama.
    • Be afraid of any window that says 'For future expansion'. Be very afraid.
  • Death Course: Done spectacularly when Tiedemann turns on the CEC factory's processing plant with you in it, in zero-gravity, no less.
  • Destination Defenestration: There's an achievement for shooting a Necromorph with a javelin gun straight through a breakable window into space!
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: If at any time you use the Objective Marker system when you have no coordinates to your next objective,[2] Isaac mutters "No objective? What the hell...?"
    • If you destroy corpses completely by stomping on them, Infectors will fly around looking for a target, realize there are no corpses, and then target you.
    • In the room before the game's first zero oxygen area, you can step on an electronic weight scale to see how much Isaac weighs. It seems like a small Easter egg at first, but if you put on a suit and come back, as a clever detail, the weight actually becomes much heavier! And it's different for every suit!
    • The Cutscene Boss can be killed with alternate fire! He does have a javelin already in him, after all...
    • The metal detector at the security check point actually works.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Unitology, particularly as you're visiting their recruitment center, looks like the absolute distillation of absolutely every bad thing that has ever been so much as rumored about Scientology.
  • Door to Before: Used liberally in the Unitology church, which is one of the few places you can backtrack.
  • Drill Tank: For all your Fast Tunnelling needs.
  • Dungeon Bypass: Instead of looking for the door to the government sector, Ellie plows straight through its foundations.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: After all the horrible things Isaac had to go through over the past few three years and the events of this game, he finally manages to defeat the Eldritch Abomination / Cosmic Horror masquerading as his dead girlfriend. He simply sits down and waits to die when Ellie comes in on an awesome Big Damn Heroes moment. Is it over? Not by a long shot: Isaac's likely a fugitive, and while there are still other Markers, or whatever that thing that wants to be "reborn" is, Isaac finally seems to have a semblance of peace and has come to terms with Nicole's death. Out of ALL current Dead Space multimedia, this game probably grants the happiest ending to be seen in the story so far.
  • Dynamic Loading: You'll only see a loading screen when starting the game or restarting from death. Most elevator rides are the game's way of disguising loading times, but even those are livened up with a radio call, usually. This also results in cutscenes being unskippable, since they're all "in-engine" and live.
  • Easter Egg: A few, mostly in the form of stuff you can read on the walls. For example, you may notice that the X-rays of people's heads have a "V" watermark on them, making it the Visceral Games' logo. You may also notice that the elementary school is putting on a play about Kafka's Metamorphosis. (The hell?!)
    • The hair salon in the mall area features pictures of various hairstyle models out front, one of whom bears a striking resemblance to Dead Space 2's executive producer, Steve Papoutsis. It's fairly hilarious.
    • While exploring the elementary school in Chapter 6, the player may notice children's drawings depicting various familiar things from the Dead Space universe, including a slasher, the Peng Trophy, and a man in a Security Rig using the propulsion jets to fly.
    • There's a working scale in the room where you trade in your patient's outfit for an engineering space suit. Walking onto it before and after you get your suit shows off how much of a weight difference it is. The Dev Team Thinks of Everything.
    • In several areas there are notes on a notice board that say "Family killed by Necromorphs, need money for plasma cutter and beer. Another talks about free kitties with a picture of what appear to be two black panthers.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The final battle implies the Markers' purpose is to incarnate one somehow, presumably by using human flesh during a convergence event.
  • Elevator Action Sequence: Twice: all the way up to the solar array and up the mine shaft.
  • Empty Room Psych: Subverted: on the Ishimura, you enter a decontamination chamber and have to wait in near-darkness for the cycle to end. Savvy players or those who've played through the first game will be on-edge, waiting for the inevitable Necromorphs. They actually attack when you come back a second time.
    • The entire first half of the Ishimura, in fact. There are no enemies. Behind the corner... no enemies. A hallway that looks like an obvious place for an ambush... no enemies. Then suddenly a stack of boxes is seen to MOVE in the distance. And then you're attacked by a Brute. Twice.
  • Epiphanic Prison: In a way. Isaac is unable to accept and come to terms with Nicole's death, so her specter hounds him throughout the game. Only when he finally comes to terms with it, does she become normal. And even that is a brutal subversion (The Marker was using him all along). And then by the end, he's finally accepted and come to terms with her death and is free of it.
  • Everybody's Dead, Dave: Serves as The Stinger to possibly set up another installment.
  • Eye Scream: Implied multiple times, depicted twice. And the second depiction is a mini game! Succeeding is bad. Failure is even worse!
    • Eye paracentesis is a generally safe procedure and it's implied that all of the "key subjects" had it performed on them numerous times. Watch the vidlog with Stross in the hospital carefully, the doctor checks his right eye, mentions the procedure, Stross objects due to pain and the doctor states "First thing in the morning!".
  • Explosive Decompression: A risk in Dead Space 2, due to the game taking place in a space station. There's even an Achievement/Trophy for getting a number of Necromorphs blown out into space this way. Of course, you have to keep Isaac from being blown out, too!
  • The Faceless: Now that Isaac's got a voice, he also has a face to go with it: one of the last images of the first trailer was a shot of Isaac's face before his helmet covered it. Naturally, the game uses this to notch the death scenes Up to Eleven. For example, Isaac getting his helmet ripped off and a Necromorph Tripod's spike shoved down his throat.
  • Facial Horror: Depicted in glorious detail during the intro. You may also want to view (former) Unitology clergy corpses through the Seeker Rifle's zoom scope.
    • Happens to Isaac in the final battle if you get too close to Marker Nicole and she consumes you. See: Ate His Spear.
    • Also happens to Tiedemann before the final battle - he has had most of his face (including his nose) burned off and is horribly still alive.
  • Fake Difficulty: Hardcore Mode, only unlocked after beating the game once, is genuinely tough due to severely limited ammo/health and highly lethal enemies. The "Fake" part comes from only allowing you to save a grand total of three times in a 15-chapter game and deleting all checkpoints. If you die, you're kicked back to your last save. But since you're only allowed three, this means that one death could cost you literally hours of progress. Thank you, Visceral.
  • Fake-Out Fade-Out: At first, the ending heavily suggests that Isaac will die when the Marker explodes. Cue Ellie piloting the gunship.
  • Fan Disservice: The female spitter is actually naked, with visible breasts and nipples. It's far from arousing, however. Same for the Nests.
  • Five Stages of Grief: Marker-Nicole indicates that this is what Stross' "Steps" are, as well as a Build Your Own Cthulhu construction kit.
    • Bit of an odd case, though. Marker-Nicole states that "Step Four is Acceptance", indicating that Bargaining was skipped entirely. Also, since Stross' Step Three was to gouge people's eyes out with a screwdriver, Anger and Depression seem to have switched places.
  • Food Pills: Posters reminding children to eat their "Suplicaps" (namely fruit and veggies) can be seen in the school.
  • Forced Tutorial: Learn to run or die, learn to use stasis or die, learn to use telekinesis or die and so on. The stasis tutorial is quite a bit more forced than the other tutorials; after a short hacking minigame, Isaac equips his RIG with the stasis module. A split-second later, a Slasher drops out of the ceiling, and you literally only have time to stasis it and do nothing else before it kills you in one hit. This is especially jarring in Hardcore mode, where this single room can send players back as far as 3 hours at a time.
  • Future Spandex: Most of the truly advanced RIG suits look quite tight fitting.
  • Gaiden Game: One was released for the iPhone / iPad system, simply titled Dead Space (usually referred to as "Dead Space: Mobile"). It features a backdrop to Dead Space 2, where a mysterious protagonist codenamed "Vandal" is tricked into releasing Necromorphs into the Sprawl at large by the Church of Unitology, and struggles to correct it. Some of Vandal's logs can be found in Dead Space 2, minus the voice filter disguising the fact that she's a woman.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: The Hacker Suit (an Old Save Bonus from Ignition) leaves Isaac's neck and ears exposed. Even when he goes extra-vehicular. "Space Is Cold" nonsense notwithstanding, this should cause depressurization problems, as your ears are connected to your lungs. (Then again, Titan does have a nitrogen-based atmosphere. Ahh, who knows.)
  • Gas Leak Coverup: The deaths of everyone on the Ishimura and its illegal mining colony were explained away as a "terrorist attack," and since this was in a remote area of space they could get away with it. They're going to have a lot harder time explaining away losing a major metropolis in the Sol system. Additionally, the coverup is a literal coverup; when you get to the Ishimura, most of the areas that have been cleaned up are covered in taped-up plastic sheets with the bloodstains washed away.
  • Goomba Stomp: With gravity boots.
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: An enhanced gameplay feature: using kinesis on a Necromorph will automatically pluck off one of their blades/claws to be hurled at another, whereas in the original it was of limited effectiveness. You can also throw regular bodies, though this is not nearly as effective.
  • Guns Are Worthless: Not anymore! The Pulse Rifle has better limb-cutting power and a much more useful grenade launcher alternate fire now.
  • Hacking Minigame: Used when Isaac is fiddling with gizmos to make them work (or to make them stop working).
  • Half the Man He Used To Be: Most of The Many Deaths of You leave you in this state.
    • Which can glitch and lead to a Good Bad Bug. In this case Isaac is only a pair of disembodied legs running around with a gun floating and firing.
  • Hallucinations: A common occurrence thanks due to Isaac's Sanity Slippage. The ones on the Ishimura let the design team reuse old animations.
  • Ham-to-Ham Combat: The final boss fight between Issac and The Marker, as seen here.
  • Harder Than Hard: Hardcore Mode, which must be unlocked, grants you minimal ammo and med packs, and only allows you to save three times. If you die, you do not continue from the last checkpoint, but from the last time you saved (so make sure you save when you need to!) You'll need to play very carefully and make full use of the Stasis and Kinesis Modules' abilities to impale enemies to save yourself. The reward? The ultimate Lethal Joke Item: a red foam hand you put over Isaac's hand. It doesn't shoot bullets: instead, he makes "Bang! Bang!" and "Pew! Pew!" noises with it. It's a guaranteed One-Hit Kill on Necromorphs.
  • Harpoon Gun: the Javelin Gun
  • He Knows About Timed Hits: Early on, Isaac gets a message from Daina reminding him to kill Necromorphs by dismemberment. His response is simply, "I know: I've had a lot of practice."
    • However there are three more reminders, a message in blood, a panicked marine on the radio and a recorded message.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Issac is convinced that Redemption Equals Death when it comes to making up for causing Nicole's death, and thus forces Ellie to escape while he goes after the Big Bad and be a Big Damn Heroes
  • Hide Your Children: Very much averted. The first game had reanimated toddler corpses (Lurkers) with Combat Tentacles, and Dead Space 2 isn't any different. In addition to the Lurkers, we now have Crawlers (exploding babies) and the Pack, which are five-year-old, screaming Glass Cannons that will attempt to Zerg Rush you.
    • Visceral Games isn't even trying to hide it this time. While before it was hinted that the babies who became Lurkers were in fact clones used for growing lost limbs and were little more than vegetables in vats, this time around they've actively shown that these were normal human children, namely by having them appear near daycares, schools and children's shops.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: You wind up killing Tiedemann with his own Javelin Gun. Additionally, try catching the projectiles spat out by Pukers or Spitting Slashers and throwing it back at them—it's a one-hit kill!
    • It's also interesting to note that Isaac fixes the Solar Array in Chapter 7 only to have it used against him in Chapter 9.
  • Holographic Terminal
  • Homicide Machines: Many and varied, as mentioned in the No OSHA Compliance entry.
  • Human Popsicle: The frozen bodies of Unitologists and the stasis beds in the hospital. Isaac has also spent time in stasis.
  • Human Resources: What the Necromorphs run on.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Dead Space 2 introduces a new weapon called the Javelin Gun which pins anything straight to the nearest wall.
    • And it's disturbingly realistic in the end when Isaac uses it on himself.
    • The Kinesis Module is much stronger than before, and grabbing hold of any rod-like object or a Necromorph's claw allows you to easily hurl it straight through any Necromorph.
  • Implacable Man: The appendage-regenerating Necromorph makes a return appearance. This time, it looks much less like the Hunter and more like a true alien creature in its own right. Worse? It's only barely glimpsed before you encounter it,[3] and drops through vents to follow you.
    • It also looks like a Necromorph tribute to a Big Daddy, which doesn't help. At all.
  • Infant Immortality: While you never see it happen, it's averted in that it's made completely unambiguous that certain Necromorph types are infested Infants, Children, and even Fetuses.
  • Infinity+1 Sword: The fully-upgraded Contact Beam. It even gets a damage bonus from the Riot Security Suit. The final boss battle can be completed in just a few shots, and alt fire is perfect for keeping away the swarming demon children.
  • Ink Suit Actor: Nicole's redesigned appearance (which even extends to the flashbacks to the first game) looks suspiciously similar to her new voice actress. Stross and Ellie look just like their voice actors, too. In the case of Ellie they made her hair longer and changed her eyes to blue.
    • Isaac has also be slightly redesigned to resemble the likeness of Gunner Wright, his voice actor.
  • Insane Equals Violent: Subverted with Isaac, who acts only out of self-defense on the Necromorphs and to destroy the Marker. Played straight with Stross.
  • Insurmountable Waist High Fence: You gotta wonder how Isaac can get through life without learning to jump.
  • Ironic Nursery Rhyme: As if "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" wasn't unnerving enough for the original, the devs have given "Ring Around The Rosie" the same treatment for Dead Space 2.
  • It Makes Sense in Context: You are forced to fight the memory of your dead girlfriend who is the psychopathic embodiment of a man-made 'ancient' alien artifact's will. Did we mention this all takes place in what might or might-not be your own psyche? ...Yeah.
  • Jet Pack: Isaac gets this along with rocket boots in his armor. They only work in zero gravity.
  • Kill It with Fire: One of the most item-drop efficient ways to face off the Pack. The Pack all die in one hit, and swarm in numbers of up to a dozen at a time, but the game de-spawns enemy corpses if they are too numerous, and you won't have time to stomp on all of them to get all the items. Enemies that are killed by the flamethrower, however, automatically drop their item (because the lingering flames continue to damage their corpse).
  • Killed Mid-Sentence: Franco, who is killed less than 30 seconds after waking Isaac up. Just to mess with you even more, the subtitle shows the full text of his speech, leaving you to suspect nothing as you read along.
  • Kinda Busy Here: Played straight during the first stalker encounter.

Daina: "Isaac! I..."
Isaac: "NOT NOW!!"

    • And later:

Ellie: Isaac, they're swarming all over the ship!
Isaac: (fighting off half a dozen necromorphs) I KNOW! I'll call you later!

  • Kleptomaniac Hero: Isaac once again takes anything he can find, even when a PA message makes it clear evacuation teams will shoot looters on sight. Of course, the government's already trying to kill him, so what's a few more stolen health packs, right?
  • Laser-Guided Karma: No sooner than 5 seconds after gloating about her Batman Gambit, Daina is gloriously gibbed by an EarthGov Gunship.
  • Late Arrival Spoiler: If you didn't play the first game, promotions for Dead Space 2 often spoil the fact that Nicole is dead. However, it rarely includes the fact she was dead by the start of the first game.
    • For Dead Space Extraction, confirmation on upcoming DLC will feature Gabe and Lexine, meaning they did survive the Gaiden Game's ending. Tragically, this means Nathan may have been the Necromorph from the ending of that game. Cutting off his arm to escape after being stabbed in the arm didn't help.
    • Another Late Arrival Spoiler for anyone who played Dead Space Ignition: Franco (the nice guy who wakes up Isaac) is a Unitologist spy who's just very good at acting nice. No surprises, then, that the woman he's working for, Daina, is also a Unitologist with an agenda.
  • Land Mine Goes Click: Or "vroo-oo-oo- BEEP!" in this case. There's also the Cysts, little Necromorph land mines that spit out an explosive bouncing-betty-like thing; the cysts aren't always easy to see, but betray their location by the constant gurgling noise they make.
  • Late to the Party: Less so than in the original game, but enough that it makes no real difference. In the final chapters you bring the party with you.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Stross is hallucinating on the tram before Tiedemann cuts the colony in half and you re-board the Ishimura, he apparently sees an unidentified "he"—presumably his murdered son—and yells at this apparition to stop staring at him. From the camera angle, Stross seems to be staring right out at the player.
  • Lethal Joke Item: Your reward for beating the dreaded Hardcore Mode is the Handcannon, a ridiculous foam finger...that just happens to completely decimate whatever it "shoots".

"Pull Right Trigger/R2 to go Bang Bang, Press Right Bumper/R1 to go Pew Pew Pew."

  • Lost in Transmission: In the Unitology church. Doubles as Paranoia Fuel when Daina warns Isaac about the crypt.
  • Made of Iron: When Isaac is doing his space flight back to the sprawl from the solar array, he crashes into a glass roof on top of a building and fires his reverse thrusters for a few seconds before landing on his feet. By all rights the amount of force that he is using (which causes the metal to develop cracks where his feet land,) should have shattered his bones on impact, even maybe outright killing him when crashed through the glass. Then again, it was awesome.
  • Made of Plasticine: Any corpse you come across can have its limbs cleanly removed through careful application of Isaac's boot, as if he were wearing heavy metal skates. This even applies to corpses whom you talking with 15 seconds ago. Fan Wank assumes that Isaac activates his gravity boots as he stomps For Massive Damage.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: Ellie's "You owe me an eye, you bastard!" And this was right after she smacked Stross with a length of pipe.
    • Isaac gets his left hand and torso punctured with two foot long javelin projectiles, and seconds later he seems to have forgotten this ever happened as he has a relaxed sit down during the Fake-Out Fade-Out then rocketing to salvation rather than messily bleeding out through his collapsed lung.
    • He also recovers from a needle in the eye rather quickly, but maybe the game is simply accommodating the fact that Isaac can take ludicrous amounts of punishment and heal himself with simple med packs... but then again he is never seen medicating any of his Cutscene injuries and his rig doesn't indicate an increase in well-being.
  • The Many Deaths of You: Just as varied as the original. There's all the Press X to Not Die sections, plus failure to hit the switch on blown-out decompression windows causes Isaac to be smushed messily by the pressure door when it automatically closes. See all of them here. (Warning:Contains spoilers)
  • Mind Rape: This is the Final Boss' finishing move to Isaac.
  • Mind Screw: Since Isaac's close proximity near the Red Marker during the last parts of the first Dead Space, his brain hasn't been in the right place. At several points in the game, Isaac must face hallucinations of Nicole and come to terms with her death.
    • After you use the needle machine, when you kill one Necromorph, it suddenly screams "NOOOOOOOO!" in a human voice.
  • Monster Closet: Not content with the vanilla version of this trope, the game will now happily spawn Necromorphs from thin air while your back is turned.
  • Mood Dissonance: The game ends on a Continuity Nod joke instead of a Jump Scare or Bittersweet Ending. You're unlikely to get this if you haven't seen the first Dead Space ending.
    • Also embodied by the numerous upbeat posters/announcements/messages you come across, as well as by EarthGov's ubiquitous catchphrase (Good things are happening!)
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: One part of the game has Isaac needing to infiltrate an area cordoned off by the military and blocked by an energy barrier keeping the Necromorphs away. After Isaac disables the generator the barrier is swarmed by Necromorphs...who then move into the area that Isaac needs to get into. He also inadvertently triggers a Convergence event by letting them get to the Marker.
    • Also, though he has no control over it, Isaac was responsible for creating the Marker in the first place.
    • If he had just gotten on the ship with Ellie, hundreds of people might still be alive.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain
    • When Daina betrays Isaac and is about to shove him into stasis, the EarthGov gunship that's been trying to kill Isaac inadvertently saves him by killing all the Unitologists present and giving him a chance to escape.
    • Immediately afterwards he gets chased by a giant, rampaging Necromorph Tormentor. Isaac is quickly cornered, but the gunship shows up again and causes the two of them to get blown out into space -- hanging onto the gunship! Then the Tormentor knocks loose some of the gunship's fuel pods, which Isaac detonates. This blows up both of Isaac's problems and throws him back onto the station. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!
  • No-Gear Level: The very beginning of the game. In a straitjacket (thanks to Isaac being in a mental institution), and with an alarmingly low health bar. Have fun!
  • No One Could Survive That: The game offers a clever example which spans both the single player and multi-player campaigns. When playing as the Sprawl Security Forces in multi-player, the engineers can attempt a mission in which they send firing coordinates to the solar array. The fire mission being depicted is actually the one ordered by Tiedemann at the end of Chapter 9 of the single player campaign. If the engineers succeed in their mission, thus enabling the energy beam attack which cuts the Sprawl in two, one engineer can be heard to say "The Array is firing. He can't survive that," referring to protagonist Isaac Clarke at whom the attack is directed. Naturally, Isaac survives.
  • No OSHA Compliance: The Game: Part Two. Justified like the previous game: Isaac either climbs into places unfit for human passage or has to deal with damaged safety devices. All the more reason to show off those (no longer off-screen) engineering skills!
    • Still plays it straight a few times though. Probably the worst example is the giant rotating laser grid room in the Government Sector, where literally the only way to reach the controls that shut them off is to outrun the incredibly lethal spinning laser arrays that entirely fill the circular room. That, or crawl under them, but then all the Necromorphs doing the same would get you.
    • Also played straight with the breakable Expansion Planned windows. Why aren't they made of the same bulletproof glass as the rest of the windows? In fact, why do they need to be windows at all?
      • They're temporary windows put in for construction, and will be replaced with better ones later. It's like putting a plastic pane over a car window after it's broken.
      • For that matter, why does the metal shutter designed to seal hull breaches need to be manually activated, and why is the activation switch placed in such a manner that it needs to be shot to trigger it?
  • No Ontological Inertia: Off-screen, but you find a log stating that all of the Necromorphs remaining on the Ishimura just melted after the Hive Mind and Red Marker were destroyed.
    • But, their remains start to reanimate in the presence of a marker signal.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: The first several minutes of the Ishimura is agonizing.
  • Notice This: This game isn't as blatant about it as the first one. Collectible objects do still glow, but not nearly as brightly. It is entirely possible to not notice some items without a close inspection. For a more subtle example, most of the rod-shaped items that you can pick up to shoot with kinesis have a tiny shine or glow on one end, similar to a fiber-optic cable.
  • Nostalgia Level: You revisit the Ishimura to get the tram moving again, and come across locations from the original game, as well as experience flashbacks to the original infestation. The Sanity Slippage pours a hefty helping of Paranoia Fuel onto the fire.
  • Not-So-Imaginary Friend: In the final quick time event with the hallucinatory Nicole, she grabs you by the throat and demands that you tell her what she is and why you can't let her go. Then a Quick Time Event starts. Fail it, and she snaps your neck like a twig. No hallucinatory suicide attempt, the "delusion" you thought was just Isaac's brain playing tricks on him is real, at least real enough to physically kill Isaac.
    • Most likely, in keeping with her other attacks, she somehow gets Isaac to snap his own neck.
  • Not Using the Z Word: Of course, only Isaac knows the creature's proper names, so he's pretty much the only one to call them "Necromorphs." Everyone else calls them "those...things!"
  • Old Save Bonus: If you have a Dead Space save, you get a free "refurbished" plasma cutter from the first game. If you have an Ignition save, you get the Hacker RIG suit.
  • One-Hit Kill: You can be hit by several, mostly triggered by standing too close to dangerous objects like the Guardian and the Drill Tank's cutting blades, but Isaac can dish them out as well—the Contact Beam's primary fire will instantly de-limb anything human-sized or smaller, regardless of the difficulty level. Very useful against the fast, deadly, and tough-as-nails Elite Necromorphs.
  • Only Smart People May Pass: The Marker infects almost everyone with a special form of dementia. According to one log, if you're smart you get to learn the process required to make a Marker replica; if you're not, enjoy going stark raving mad whilst drawing incoherent nonsense everywhere before you kill yourself to make it stop... and if you're really unlucky, proceeding to be resurrected as a screeching beast rampaging against your friends.
  • Pater Familicide: Nolan Stross murdered his family after being mind raped by the Aegis VII Marker.
  • Personal Space Invader: Par for the course with the Necromorphs, but now there are more variants with ranged attacks to harry you at a distance.
  • Pet the Dog: Tidemann orders the Sprawl to be evacuated against direct orders from his superiors in Earthgov, and risks losing his career because he does not want everyone under his governance to be killed.
  • Playing with Syringes: In an odd twist, you are forced to do it to yourself at one point. Arguably the most squick-worthy moment of the entire game.
  • Post Dramatic Stress Disorder: Happens to Ellie, though she manages to pull back from the brink of the Despair Event Horizon.
  • Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner:

Isaac: "Goddammit, I trusted you! Fuck you, and fuck your Marker!"

  • Press X to Not Die: Certain events require the player to fend off Isaac's Sanity Slippage, or risk Isaac suffering life-ending consequences.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: YOU WILL ALL BE MADE ONE! MAKE! US! WHOLE!
  • Rear Window Witness: The game grants you a front-row seat for several deliciously gruesome scenes, including the first appearance of a Creeper where its interaction with a distraught nurse results in the room getting a nice red paint job, and -- later on -- Ellie's (failed) attempt to rid herself of the Stross problem.
  • Refuge in Audacity: The newest advertising campaign. Some serious stones are at work here—they plop down kindly-looking mothers (many of whom seem old enough to be grandmothers) in front of gameplay footage and record the reactions for a commercial. Whether it's real or not, some of the reactions are 14-karat solid comedy gold.
  • Retcon: The Red Marker suppressing the Necromorphs by design has been retconned out, more or less; it was a byproduct of being on its pedestal, but Dead Space 2 downright states the Markers are the true source of the problem. Word of God admits to this Continuity Snarl.
    • Word of God subsequently stated that while the Marker affects Necromorphs, it doesn't cause them, and this will be elaborated on in the future.
  • Respawning Enemies
  • Rewarding Vandalism: Most of them are already smashed up, but you can find a couple of vending machines or ATMs that are in pristine condition. Busting them up may give you money or medpacks.
  • Room Full of Crazy: Returns with a vengeance in this game, especially in the Church of Unitology, who, being a corrupt cult, were already one foot in the crazy camp.
  • Running Both Sides: The Red Marker is responsible for the Necromorphs and guiding Isaac, making Isaac believe that Nicole is the product of his guilty subconscious and, sicking the Necromorphs on Isaac to reinforce the illusion, all to make him believe that he is destroying the Marker, when in fact he is helping it. Furthermore, a log reveals the Marker has been influencing the Unitologists to constantly make more Markers to spread its influence, by making them think Necromorphs are the next step in human evolution.
  • Sanity Slippage: People have been exposed to the Marker (either another replica, or these are more survivors scrounged from the Ishimura) and a recurring problem with them is being haunted by symbols. One such subject deteriorates throughout the game as a foil to Isaac's more grounded state.
  • Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: The Handcannon: primary fire causes Isaac to say "Bang Bang", secondary causes him to say "Pew Pew".
  • Sequel Difficulty Spike: Isaac's abilities are slightly better than they were in the first game. This is to make up for the fact that everything else is a lot tougher, too. Enemies only drop items when they take postmortem damage instead of dropping them instantly, which means that the game despawning corpses after a particularly long battle actually robs you of needed supplies. This, coupled with enemies dropping less ammo on higher difficulties, means that no matter how well you hoard you'll always be a bit short on ammo and using kinesis a lot. Certain weapons were nerfed slightly and alongside the larger variety of enemies, old enemies have been given noticeable boosts in speed and strength.
  • Sequel Escalation: Actual play time may vary, but unlike in Dead Space there is virtually no backtracking, so there's a lot more new-content-per-time. Apart from reusing maps from the first game on the Ishimura. A sneaky move on behalf of the game designers, seeing as reviewers can't point this out on without spoiling the plot. However, this is more of a deliberate Nostalgia Level, and most of the areas have undergone changes (unsettling plastic sheeting everywhere, for starters).
  • Shapeshifter Baggage: Present as always, and the close-up view of a Necromorph transformation only confirms the physical impossibility of the alterations they undergo. And if that really bothers you, well...
  • Short-Range Shotgun: The Force Gun is effectively this, mixed with a little Magikarp Power. Unupgraded, it mostly pushes enemies over unless you're at point-blank range. Upgraded, you can tear enemies completely apart in one hit, provided you're close enough. No matter the upgrade level, it's still murder on the pack (provided you don't get caught reloading, of course).
  • Shout-Out
  • Space Is Noisy: Once again, averted; you hear nothing but sounds that travel through vibrations, such as your own weapons fire or large shocks striking the ground you're standing on. Even the music that plays for thrilling outer-space sequences is muted and understated.
  • Space Is Slow Motion: Isaac's RIG thrusters in Dead Space 2 are not terribly fast when navigating in interiors, but really, you wouldn't want to move fast in a zero-G environment because you'd be banging into the walls like crazy. When you use the dash button, you can go a good bit faster.
  • Spring Loaded Corpse: Common enemies use this as a tactic, just as they did in the first game. However, the Warmup Boss also does this after you've "killed it". Made worse by the fact that it even drops an item beforehand, which is a common sign that an enemy is going to stay down.
  • The Stinger: During the end credits as Isaac sits on the ground, exhausted and defeated, his videoscreen activates:

Ellie: You complete bastard! Was this your great plan? Dump me off and die?
Isaac: I'm full of bad ideas, remember?
Ellie: Yeah, well here's another one. I'm crashing through the roof to get you. Now move your ass!

  • Stop Helping Me!: Isaac invokes this when he claims he doesn't need Daina's help in the hospital after he misses her planned escape route... until he's attacked by a wave of Necromorph Slashers. Isaac quickly changes his mind. This being even if Isaac manages to thresh through them without any difficulty, but that could be because he's trapped.
  • Sniper Rifle: The Seeker Rifle, which does more damage when zoomed in. Make sure to target the enemy's limbs, of course, since headshots in this series are of limited effectiveness.
  • Space Station: The Sprawl, a massive cityscape the game takes place in. It's formed from when they mined almost all of Titan until nothing was left but the space station they built around it.
  • Stopped Clock: All clocks are permanently stopped at 12:00.
  • Summon Bigger Fish: Isaac's method of clearing a path through the government facility's blockade.
  • Survival Horror
  • Suspicious Videogame Generosity: A big empty room with lots of ammo pickups is never good news...
    • Neither is a room with a save station, a store, and a workbench.
  • Swiss Cheese Security: Security checkpoints occasionally use R.I.G. scanners to limit access. They're unable to tell when an authorized R.I.G. is connected to a corpse, however.
  • Take My Hand: The Stinger. Failure to do so is... unpleasant.
  • Tears of Blood: Isaac momentarily has these from his right eye after he drives a needle into it.
  • Technology Porn: Whenever Isaac exchanges his RIG for another at one of the in-game stores, it's always accompanied by a short sequence of him flexing his arms, sections of the suit moving, and the helmet closing into place.
  • Teleport Spam: Nicole does this when you fight her, though she uses it offensively because letting her grab you doesn't end well.
  • Tempting Fate: Done to you, but still unpleasant.

Ellie: At least you won't have to go through the Medical Deck.
Computer: Obstruction ahead. Stopping. Welcome to the Medical Deck.
Isaac: Oh Crap.

  • That Thing Is Not My Child: Horrifically averted the first time you encounter the baby Necromorphs.
  • Throat Light: A certain recurring hallucination has this.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: In the trailer with The Smashing Pumpkins song, after seeing Ellie talking to Isaac, there is a cut to a ship pulling away from a dock, and if you look in the background, you can clearly see an upset Ellie talking to someone. Then it cuts to Isaac standing in the same room wearing the same color suit as the person Ellie was talking to, and the ship gone. He then looks upset and slides down the wall. Granted, knowledge of the ending helps, but it's still not exactly subtle.
    • Also done frequently in several trailers; EA frequently used the same clip of Stross lunging at Isaac with an eye on a screwdriver, sort of hints that things don't go too well for them.
  • Turbine Blender: The only way to permanently kill the regenerating Ubermorph is to force it into a giant fanblade. However completely optional to those too busy running for their lives.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: The Javelin Gun impales Necromorphs upon walls for its primary attack. Its secondary attack electrocutes the target, then explodes inside it. The Rivet Gun fires explosive bolts into the enemy, and its secondary fires rivets that ricochet wildly, damaging all nearby Necromorphs.
  • Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Most of the returning weapons in the game have completely identical stats compared to the original game. The flamethrower is the exception, as it has been rebalanced to address complaints that it was completely useless in the first game. It now does quadruple damage compared to the first game, making it more useful for bringing down Necromorphs. It still chews through ammo at an insane rate, though.
  • Wall Slump: Isaac, twice. He's had a long, hard day.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: According to Tidemann's logs, the only reason that he wanted to study the Marker was to get research grants for Titan Station and breathe some life into it. Also, he hoped to eventually use the Marker to bring about a new era of peace and prosperity for humankind, though that probably wouldn't have worked.
  • Wham! Line:

Isaac: Daina... you're a Unitologist?

    • Also:

The Marker: Thank you, Isaac. Now... time to die.

    • And then after the credits:

...Marker Site 12 is a total loss.

  • What Happened to Mommy?: Early on you will encounter a young couple fleeing an apartment complex. The woman doesn't want to go, claiming that she "can't leave mother behind", but the man eventually drags her away. If you decide to make a detour and visit their apartment, you will find out what happened to mommy...
  • What Happened to the Mouse?
    • After chasing Isaac around the final stage like a lethargic bloodhound, the regenerating Necromorph just up and disappears when he reaches Tiedemann.
      • There's a conveniently placed fan blade just before the end that allows you to avert this trope if you make use of it.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Tiedemann unleashes one of those at Isaac after he cuts the power to the Goverment Sector compound. To be fair he had a damn good point as Isaac became guilty, by proxy, of murdering the only group of humans with any reasonable chance of surviving the Necromorph outbreak. Sadly, he didn't have much choice as he needed to destroy the Marker and those soldiers were in his way, and actively trying to kill him..
  • With My Hands Tied: Isaac wakes up in a straitjacket, and the only guy who could help him has just been necromorphed. So what does he do? Headbutt him and run away. He even manages to push an attacking slasher into a high-pressure door and open doors without using his hands before finally getting out of his bonds.
  • You Will Be Assimilated: Possibly the true goal of the Markers, if evil Hallucination Nicole's words are to be taken this way, where her Boss Banter screams "YOU WILL ALL BE ONE! MAKE US WHOLE!" One log you find suggests that the compulsion to build more Markers, even for justified reasons such as technological study, is all some sort of long-term alien mental influence.

Dead Space 2: Severed provides examples of

  • Adult Fear: A husband searching for his pregnant wife in all this mess? Uh-oh.
  • Continuity Nod: Gabe short-circuits a power cell that Isaac must replace, and Gabe later sees the corpse of Isaac's first Boss Fight.
  • Cut and Paste Environments: Levels 1 and 11 from the original game are where Gabe travels through, but in the other direction. At first, you're there before Isaac, and then later you are there after he left.
  • Downer Ending: Gabe dies and his corpse is taken for research, and Lexine is now a fugitive.
  • Face Heel Turn: Gabe's teamate, Vic, betrays him and attempts to kill him. He succeeds.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: After losing his leg, Gabe stays behind to open the hangar bay doors and allow Lexine and their unborn child to escape.
  • Thrown On A Grenade: After a quick fight, Gabe manages to take Vic's grenade and throw him onto it. It doesn't help much.
  • Just Following Orders: Vic claims that he doesn't really want to kill Lexine, but that he is just doing his duty and following orders.
  • Last Stand: Gabe gets one of his legs blown off, and must hold off Necromorphs while shooting the safeties off an airlock, so his wife can escape.
  • Meaningful Name: Severed refers to the series' main mechanic and Gabe's leg being blown off from a grenade.
  • Official Couple: Gabe and Lexine are married now. He even got her pregnant.
  • Pair the Spares: For Dead Space Extraction, Lexine and Weller got married.
  • POV Sequel
  • The Power of Love: Gabe shot his way though hundreds of Necromorphs and disobeyed direct orders to get to Lexine. Even getting his leg blown off from a grenade still doesn't stop him from defending his wife until his last breath.
  • Someone to Remember Him By: Gabe died defending Lexine, but she survived bearing their child.
  • Super Speed: The Twitchers, Necromorph security guards which can move very fast, make their return after being absent in the main game.
  • Taking You with Me: Vic arms a grenade and attempts to blow up Gabe with it. He succeeds.
  • What Happened to Nathan?: The only other survivor from Extraction isn't seen, or even mentioned. Word of God states he was the Necromorph that attacked Lexine at the end of Extraction.
  • Xanatos Gambit: The Sprawl scientists wanted Gabe and Lexine to have a child so they can study the child for Marker immunity -- It's implied that these men are actually the Oracles that were hinted at in the main game and shown in Salvage.
  1. ↑ And if you miss, he dies anyway, since you punctured his throat
  2. ↑ (such as when you don't have access to a Voice with an Internet Connection)
  3. ↑ when you cut the power to the Government Sector
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