Dead Space at 15: ‘We wanted to make one of the scariest games ever’

With its frequent dismemberments, repulsive creatures and total immersion, Dead Space spliced horror and sci-fi to make a truly classic video game - even though it initially tanked

It's one of the more memorable intros in video game history: as part of a five-person team sent to investigate a communications blackout aboard the mining ship USG Ishimura, engineer Isaac Clarke boots up the vessel's computer while his colleagues pace around nervously. Suddenly, the lights go out, and shadowy monstrosities appear from the walls, spearing two of the team as Clarke watches helplessly before they turn on him, chasing him unarmed into the bowels of the Ishimura, where even more horrors await.

Fifteen years, two sequels and countless books, comics and spin-offs later, and Dead Space has become synonymous with video game sci-fi horror. Its enemies, the zombie-like Necromorphs, are hideously metamorphosed humans, perverted by the machinations of the Marker, a strange alien artefact that has engendered a worryingly familiar religion known as Unitology. It's an experience that few players forget, and is being discovered by new fans this year thanks to Motive's remake - but it almost didn't get made.