Dead Space Iconic Engineering Suit and How it was Designed (The Art of Dead Space)

Take a look at the video thumbnail above.

You can probably guess what the real image truly represents.

It is the protagonist of Isaac Clarke in his iconic suit featured in the Dead Space franchise.

It was designed by Chi-Wai Lao, a concept and texture artist for Visceral Games and as of 2019 he is working on titles produced by Sledgehammer Games such as COD Advanced Warfare and COD WW2. He is an avid fan of anime that embraces classics like Gundam, Macross and so many other series that features Mechatronics.

What most fans of the Dead Space never knew is that his concept of Isaac Clarke took him not one, and not two, but 38 iterations before finally turning into the Isaac Clarke that we knew today.

We are going to look into how the storytelling theme and design motifs are able to make a huge impact on world-building and overall player immersion.

Hi, my name is Eddy from Angkasa Studio, and this is Critical Breakdown.

The design of Isaac Clarke in his iconic Engineering suit is one of the many other challenges faced by the illustrators and art designers of EA Redwood Shores in creating the world of Dead Space.

Early concepts of the protagonist suggest that he was designed to be wearing an Adaptive Biosuit, a Zero Gravity Combat armor, there is even one iteration where Isaac Clarke wearing a pressure suit, while wielding energy melee weapon and a small sidearm. From these descriptions, should the developers had decided to go forward with these designs – the main character of Dead Space would end up like many other generic action games.

But the iconic look of the Engineering suit did not happen by random any chance, it was only made possible by implementing design motifs and underlying themes that are suitable for the stories it meant to tell. And in some way or another, the Engineering suit owes its credits to the Ishimura.

The design motifs in the world of Dead Space are in some way made a huge reference towards gothic architecture. You would be able to see a visual motif called “RIBBING” in the design of the USG Ishimura, the environment, and eventually the Engineering suit. Ribbing mostly refers to a framework, structure or an arrangement of ribs which can be seen on classical buildings and primitive boats.

Dead Space, however, implemented the literal concept of ribbing – if modern building and ships use ribbing as a foundation, the USG Ishimura itself was designed and built to express tangible space with weight and believability through exposed ironworks and creaking steels that keep it together – and explicit rendition that is essential of being believable. It is that believability that gives the Ishimura its resonance, although it is a ship that is built four hundred years in the future, the players would be able to experience it as a true living, breathing space – which is why it often considered being one of the most immersive horror game in the last decade.

It is also worth mentioning that the Ishimura was made to look like a skeleton of a dead animal – a visual theme that is an intentional reference to the visceral world of dead space that focuses heavily on the living dead.

The Ishimura was designed to be grounded in reality, but in some form border on the fantastical. It is a hulking industrial ship with the whole idea of a “planet-cracker” which was designed to mine an entire planet to save a dying Earth. The underlying theme of death and decay, and the concept of an “oil rig in space” made a heavy influence in the conceptualisation of Isaac Clarke.

Early on, the design of the engineering suit is very random, but as their fiction slowly been built – the idea of having Isaac Clarke as an engineer who stranded on a mining ship struggling to survive, some of the concept designs are slowly taking its form.

“…some of the sketches I drew started to click with that Idea. I linked the unique “ribbing” motif with a lot of repeated blocky plates on top of a bodysuit.” Said concept artist Chi-Wai Lao.

The suit is meant to empower the players, but it is also important that it maintains some form of vulnerability. Art Director Ian Milham stated that they wanted to communicate that he is not a soldier – he needed to look tough and strong because he is a hero. (But) as soon as you put big plates on the front, it looks like that he was designed to be shot at.

Dead Space was developed during the transition from the sixth generation to the seventh generation of gaming – and technology has been one of their main focus when developing the game. The team at EA Redwood Shores had found that the design of the Engineering suit to be very beneficial to showcase their lighting technology – hence the repeated plates on Isaac Clarke would give a lot for the light in the environments to play around on.

“The players going to move through the lighting, and it gave the shadows a lot to do.” Said art director Ian Milhan

Overall, the design of the suit reinforce their visual motif and it is connected visually with the design of the Ishimura – it reflected to cold the steel of the ill-fated mining ship and the horrors that it foreshadows, a warren of dark corridors and deathly shadows that is home to one of video game’s best horror stories.