The secret to Dead Space’s intense horror? The way it controls your breath

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In the original Dead Space, it was very much the intent that you would live in Isaac’s big, heavy, stompy boots. From the second you took control of his tortured body and failing mind, the designers at Visceral wanted you to really embody him. To live through his horror, to see this ruined world in the same way he does. It’s not enough to subject you to what he sees – the plague of Necromorphs eating away at the heart of the USG Ishimura. No, Visceral wanted to go deeper than that. Through the eyes, and into the brain.

And it worked. In the original game, there was a system in place that mimicked Isaac’s breathing and heart rate. If there was a scripted scare coming up, or if you’d taken a lot of damage, or had run from some unknowable terror deep in the guts of the ship, his heart rate would increase and his breathing would become ragged.

In the original, 2008 release of the game, this system was rudimentary – but effective. There were only a few states for both heart rate and breathing that could be, more or less, organised into three distinct categories: resting, stressed, and extreme. Still, despite this fairly binary setup (where sound effects sometimes even played over each other in a kind-of sonic melee), you’d find yourself matching the breathing pumped into your headset, or broadcast from your speakers. If Isaac was on the brink of death, gasping for air with his heart rate unhealthily above resting, you’d probably find yourself getting physically excited, too. That’s what we’re like, as humans – you can’t help but empathise.

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