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Games Like Dead Space: Sci-Fi Survival Horror

Dead Space puts an engineer on a dead mining ship with a plasma cutter, scarce ammunition and a crew turned into monsters that only stop when you take them apart. These games share its mix of science fiction and survival horror, from the series' own sequels to stations, prisons and planets of their own.

The games

15 of the 29 games in this guide are outside your choice (GOG) and are left out. Show them all.

  1. Dead Space key art: Isaac Clarke's bloodied hand in a torn glove and armoured cuff, raised against a field of stars SurvivalDead Space (2008)The 2008 original the remake rebuilt: the Ishimura, the Necromorphs and cutting off limbs with mining tools.
  2. Alien: Isolation key art: Amanda Ripley's face inside a space helmet lit green against black SurvivalAlien: IsolationOne alien you cannot kill hunts you through a space station built to look like the 1979 film.
  3. Prey key art: Morgan Yu in a red suit and glowing helmet stands beneath a huge black, smoke-like alien shape that holds the Moon and the Talos I station SurvivalPreyA space station overrun by shapeshifting aliens that can hide as any object, survived with scavenged and crafted tools.
  4. System Shock key art: SHODAN's glowing teal-green mask-like face with bright white eyes, over faint circuit lines on a black background Action horrorSystem ShockThe remade 1994 original: a station taken over by its rogue computer, its crew turned into cyborgs and mutants.
  5. Cronos: The New Dawn art: the Traveler's dented dome helmet marked ND-3576, with a shoulder lamp, before a ruined clock tower and a red rift under a red sky SurvivalCronos: The New DawnHeavy, careful third-person fights in an armoured suit against creatures that merge with the fallen.
  6. DOOM 3 key art: an armoured marine fires two pistols at a huge horned demon with red eyes Action horrorDOOM 3Dark, half-lit corridors of a Mars research base, possessed staff and demons stepping out of the shadows.
  7. SOMA key art: a dripping robot head with glowing blue lights and hanging cables beside a frightened woman's face and hand pressed to wet glass PsychologicalSOMAA failing research station at the bottom of the sea, with no weapons and horror that turns inward.
  8. The Thing: Remastered key art: soldiers in hooded snow parkas charge forward under a huge snarling dog-like creature in red and orange haze Body horrorThe Thing: RemasteredA squad in frozen Antarctic stations, never sure which teammate is the shape-shifting alien.
  9. Scorn key art: a rust-red face of cracked, veined flesh with one empty eye socket, framed by tube-like growths SurvivalScornWordless body horror in a biomechanical world of flesh and machines.
  10. Iron Lung key art: the title IRON LUNG over a grainy brown and grey image PsychologicalIron LungA short horror in a one-man submarine at the bottom of a blood ocean, navigating by instruments alone.
  11. System Shock 2 remaster key art: the metallic face of the AI SHODAN with glowing green eyes and wires spreading out like hair SurvivalSystem Shock 2: 25th Anniversary RemasterWake alone on a starship whose crew have become something else: one of the games Dead Space grew from.
  12. Duskers art: a beam of light picks out a red A1 hatch on the dark, ribbed hull of a derelict spaceship drifting among wreckage SurvivalDuskersPilot drones through dark derelict spaceships by command line, never sure what waits behind the next door.
  13. Moons of Madness key art: an astronaut in a blue and white suit falls through dark mist toward huge red-ridged tentacles PsychologicalMoons of MadnessAlone on a failing Mars outpost, with visions and tentacled things from beyond the stars.
  14. Teleglitch: Die More Edition key art: green title over a pixel-art scene of a blue robot and orange machines among a crowd of small mutants SurvivalTeleglitch: Die More EditionTop-down survival on a remote research planet: scavenge, craft and fight reactivated dead with permanent death.

If you finished the remake and want to see where it came from, the 2008 original, Dead Space (2008), is still sold and plays the same story aboard the Ishimura with its first design. For more of the same, play Dead Space 2. Isaac Clarke wakes on the Sprawl, a city-sized station above Saturn, as a new Necromorph outbreak tears through it; it is faster and more action-led, with a mind giving way to visions. Dead Space 3 moves to the ice planet Tau Volantis, adds weapon crafting from scavenged parts and online co-op, and is the most action-heavy of the three.

The Callisto Protocol is the spiritual successor, led by Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield: an inmate fights his way out of a prison on a moon of Jupiter as an outbreak mutates its people, with brutal close-quarters combat, scarce ammunition and a gravity weapon. Cronos: The New Dawn has the same heavy, careful fights and creatures that grow stronger by absorbing the fallen, in an armoured suit in a ravaged future.

For more fear and less shooting, Alien: Isolation is essential. One alien that cannot be killed hunts you through a space station built to look like the 1979 film, and you hide, sneak and improvise. Alien: Rogue Incursion goes the other way, made first for VR with a pulse rifle and motion tracker against an infested facility. The Thing: Remastered sends a squad into frozen Antarctic stations where any teammate could be the shape-shifting alien. ROUTINE is slower and quieter: a lunar base with an 80s idea of the future, no waypoints and machines that treat you as the enemy, so you run and hide more than you fight. System Shock, Nightdive's remake of the 1994 original, is one of the games this whole style grew from: a space station taken over by its rogue computer, SHODAN, its crew turned into cyborgs and mutants. System Shock 2, in its 25th anniversary remaster, is the other root: you wake alone on a starship whose crew have become something else. Aliens vs. Predator's Marine campaign is a dark fight with too little light against Xenomorphs that come from every side. Prey is the immersive-sim cousin: a space station overrun by shapeshifting aliens that can disguise themselves as any object, survived with scavenged weapons, crafted tools and alien powers. Endoparasitic is the strangest: a top-down game in which you drag yourself one-armed through an asteroid lab, loading your gun one bullet at a time against mutated monsters. Endoparasitic 2 continues it on an infested arcship, now crafting vaccines and ammunition, and Teleglitch: Die More Edition is an older top-down cousin: the last scientist alive in a research facility on a remote planet, scavenging and crafting through random levels of reactivated dead. Species: Unknown puts up to four mercenaries on an abandoned spaceship with a motion tracker, working out which of several monsters is hunting them. Space Beast Terror Fright is the arcade version for one to four marines, on one screen or online: dark, maze-like spacecraft, a motion tracker pinging what you cannot see and doors you seal to keep from being surrounded. Directive 8020, from Supermassive Games, crash-lands a colony ship on a distant planet where an alien that imitates its prey hunts the crew, and your choices decide who gets home.

If what you love is the atmosphere of a dead place in space or under the sea, Signalis is survival horror in a collapsing off-world facility with a six-slot inventory and very few bullets, SOMA is a failing research station on the sea floor where you cannot fight at all, and Iron Lung locks you in a one-man submarine at the bottom of a blood ocean. Duskers sends you into derelict spaceships without ever leaving your own: you pilot drones through their dark corridors by typed commands, scavenging to survive while a motion sensor tells you something is aboard but not what. Scorn is all body horror: a wordless, biomechanical world of flesh and machines.

Three more take the station somewhere else. DOOM 3 is the 2004 shooter that went dark: a Mars research base overrun by demons, fought through half-lit corridors where possessed staff wait. Moons of Madness leaves you alone on a failing Mars outpost, where a strange mist and tentacled visions arrive without guns to answer them. Mouthwashing has no monsters to fight at all: five crew on a wrecked space freighter wait for a rescue that will not come, and the horror is what they do to each other.

Two free ones run in a browser tab. The Breach, a 2010 Flash game by Berzerk Studio, sends a lone security chief aboard a prototype starship that has gone silent, shooting the creatures inside from the side through red-lit corridors. Outpost:Haven answers a distress call from a space station with a suspected radiation leak and turns into a top-down fight against aliens that come out of the vents and the dark.

If you only try one, play The Callisto Protocol for the closest feel of combat, or Alien: Isolation for one hunter you can never kill.

Questions

What is the closest game to Dead Space?

Dead Space 2 and 3 first, or the 2008 original if you played the remake; outside the series, The Callisto Protocol, made by a studio led by Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield, is the closest in combat and setting.

Is there a Dead Space game I can play with a friend?

Dead Space 3 has online co-op for two players. Outside the series, Species: Unknown is a co-op spaceship horror game for up to four players.

What are good space horror games without combat?

SOMA has no weapons at all, Alien: Isolation is mostly about hiding from an alien you cannot kill, and ROUTINE gives you one tool, used as a weapon only as a last resort, on a silent lunar base.

Is there a free game like Dead Space I can play in the browser?

Yes. The Breach and Outpost:Haven are free sci-fi horror shooters that run in the browser on Newgrounds.

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