The
Dead Space games franchise follow the
survival horror genre, with the
player character visible at all times. All menu interfaces are
diegetic, produced by the character's "Resource Integration Gear" spacesuit for ease of communication with other characters. For instance, the character's
hit point meter, built into the spine of his suit, is intended to allow co-workers to monitor his health, and when the character moves into depressurized areas, a readout on his back displays his remaining seconds of oxygen. All sound is removed from gameplay during these segments, save those which would be transferred to the character's ears by the vibrations of his RIG, such as rounds fired from his weapon. Since the menus are diegetic, opening them does not pause gameplay. The character's RIG can be outfitted with two special abilities for use in combat and puzzle-solving. The "Kinesis" module allows the character to retrieve, levitate and transport objects, often heavier or more distant ones than could be accessed normally. These objects may also be expelled at high speed for use as improvised projectiles. The "Stasis" module causes its target to undergo an extreme slowdown for a short period of time, allowing characters to dart through rapidly moving obstacles such as fan blades, or hinder onrushing enemies. The RIG also has a slot-based inventory for carrying weapons, ammunition, healing items, and other objects. Gunplay is influenced by the franchise's antagonists. Because Necromorphs are re-animated and re-purposed corpses, lacking dependence on nervous, respiratory, and circulatory systems, the conventions of
stopping power are largely irrelevant to them. Thus, instead of targeting foes' heads or center of mass, players are encouraged to engage in "strategic dismemberment" by shooting off their arms and legs. Some Necromorphs can be easily defeated in this manner, but others may change attack patterns or even spawn entirely new enemies when slain. Relatedly, the game's weapons are characterized as being repurposed power tools or mining implements, such as plasma cutters, rotary saws, and gravitic repulsion tools, though an increasing amount of dedicated military ordnance becomes available as the franchise progresses. Ammunition tends to be uncommon, thus necessitating careful usage of the tools at hand. In the first two games, RIGs and weapons can be upgraded at bench workstations. Players can also visit vending machines to buy or sell items for in-game currency, and upload new schematics to those stores in order to unlock new items. This was changed in the third installment, where the store was scrapped entirely; new "Suit Kiosks" allow the player to upgrade their RIG, and bench functionality was expanded to allow players to craft their own weapons, often by cobbling together parts and resources scavenged through gameplay. Each type of Necromorph has a unique way of slaying the player character, customized to whatever claws, blades, fangs, or probosces they happen to possess.
Plasma Cutter The Plasma Cutter is a fictional energy weapon from the
Dead Space franchise. It is used by the protagonist, engineer
Isaac Clarke, to fight the
undead creatures known as
Necromorphs. An
industrial tool repurposed into a
pistol-like weapon, it is able to fire energy beams in a precise horizontal or vertical line by changing its shape, making it uniquely useful against the Necromorphs, who are highly resistant to conventional weaponry and vulnerable to having their limbs severed. While the first weapon the player receives, it is nonetheless powerfully effective throughout the games, and the One Gun
achievement requires the player to beat
Dead Space and its
remake using solely the Plasma Cutter. Unlike the other guns in the remake, the Plasma Cutter was purposely kept as similar as possible. The Plasma Cutter's design and function have been praised by critics, and it is regarded as one of the most iconic video game weapons of all time. The gun is first found in the original
Dead Space, held by a dead engineer alongside bloody text urging Isaac to cut off the Necromorphs' limbs. This is later reinforced by an audio log saying as much. The Cutter next appears in
Dead Space 2, where one is jury-rigged together by Isaac using a medical laser. It returns in
Dead Space 3, albeit with weakened power. Carrying over a save file from
Dead Space unlocks the Plasma Cutter for immediate use in
Dead Space 2. The developers of the
Dead Space remake,
EA Motive, believed that while the game was reprogrammed from the ground up, the Plasma Cutter should be kept as similar as possible in appearance and behavior to the original, citing its iconic and memorable nature. However, they added numerous visual details reflecting a more realistic operation of the weapon if it was an actual tool. An upgrade system was added, similar to that of
Dead Space 2, so that the game's guns, including the Plasma Cutter, would visually change as modifications were added to improve its performance.
Reception Heather Alexandra of
Kotaku described the Plasma Cutter as representative of Isaac Clarke's status as "just a ship engineer in a bad situation". Calling it "surprisingly strong for a default weapon" and "incredibly suited to cutting off limbs", she compares it to
Resident Evil 4, in which pistols lose their effectiveness later in the game, requiring protagonist
Leon Kennedy to amass a "huge arsenal", while the Plasma Cutter never loses its effectiveness regardless of what new Necromorph is introduced. She went on to praise the weapon's sound design, saying that "its booming report makes every attack feel meaningful". Describing it as "an improvised weapon", she states that, similar to how the
Gravity Gun from
Half-Life 2 demonstrates
Gordon Freeman's scientific skills, the Plasma Cutter's ability to change shape reflects Isaac's ability to adjust to each new complication, and his status as "misplaced but dangerous".
Edge magazine called the Plasma Cutter a "
signature weapon", saying that its industrial nature is representative of the game's depiction of "the big black as a blue-collar frontier", similar to
Alien. Describing it as "the deep-space equivalent of the hastily snatched kitchen knife", the publication calls combat with the gun "marked by deliberation over angles of incision, and also by a search for efficiency", with the player seeking to kill enemies with as few shots as possible, especially on higher difficulty settings where ammunition is scarce. The magazine called it even more useful thanks to the ability to upgrade it using the Bench, saying that beating the game solely with the Plasma Cutter for the One Gun achievement had "a purity [...] that echoes
Dead Space's wider style and sense of purpose". They criticized
Dead Space 3 for making the Plasma Cutter less effective and forcing the player to use a larger assortment of conventional weapons, saying the game was "poorer for it". Petra Jarrett of
Screen Rant praised the
Dead Space remake for preserving the functionality of the Plasma Cutter, while Padraig Cotter of the same publication described it as "gaming's most underrated handgun". Matt Purslow of
IGN commented that "it's rare a pistol gets to be the star of the show in a video game", but said that was the case with
Dead Space. == Development ==