Nearly the entire ship’s complement of 1,300 crew members were either killed or transformed into monstrous creatures called Necromorphs.

Once the crew was exposed to this unusual substance, a zombie-like outbreak ensued. As the Dead Space comics revealed, strange organic matter found near the Marker was brought aboard the ship. Then, during a routine missions to the planet Aegis VII, the Ishimura uncovered the Red Marker – a giant curved obelisk covered in alien script. The USG Ishimura was the first planetcracker, and it performed its function admirably for over 60 years. Giant vessels called “planetcrackers” travel the galaxy, mining the universe’s nearly inexhaustible resources. In order to feed the beasts of commerce and industry, humanity turns to the stars, searching for new raw materials on other planets. In the 26th century, humanity has exhausted most of the Earth’s natural resources, bringing its population precariously close to extinction. The core premise of Dead Space is simple. With that in mind, we combed through the game logs and grilled the franchise's creative team to unearth a few clues that hint to where the franchise is headed next. “Everything that happens in Dead Space 1 is relevant to what happens in Dead Space 2,” Visceral Game’s senior production designer Ben Wanat told us. Dead Space 2 incorporates all of this material and moves it forward. With two games, a comic spin-off, and an animated prequel, several sources feed into and expand the lore of Dead Space. The Dead Space franchise is only a year old, but the universe has already amassed a sizable backstory encompassing ancient alien artifacts, covert government experiments, and underground religious operations.

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