Ranking Dead Space Series

After the surprise success of the first Dead Space in 2008, EA went all in on the brand and within a very short period of time, there were six games. There were the three mainline entries, Dead Space Extraction, the on rails shooter initially released on the Wii, Dead Space Ignition, a puzzle based game which served as a prequel to Dead Space 2 and finally Dead Space Mobile that served as filling out the universe between 1 and 2.

With Dead Space getting a remake by Motive that is due out in January 2023, there seems like no better time to figure out what order the games rank in the series.

There are two ways to rank the series, the first would be the critical success and the second would be opinion based. Once we have those two methods laid out we can try to cross reference to find a middle ground. There is one small caveat and that is all versions of the Dead Space Mobile game were taken down in 2016, five years after its release, which means that we will only be able to use the critical rank.

Critical Rank

Dead Space Remake 2023 (Likely Rank)

Dead Space 2 89

Dead Space 88

Dead Space Mobile 88

Dead Space Extraction 81

Dead Space 3 78

Dead Space Ignition 36

Opinion Rank

Dead Space Remake 2023 (likely position)

Dead Space

Dead Space 2

Dead Space Extraction

Dead Space 3

Dead Space Ignition

End Results

For the most part the rankings are quite similar, with the main difference being that we have the original in the top spot and the critical consensus is that the second one ranks slightly better. Having never played Dead Space Ignition, I was interested to see if it got unfair treatment due to it being a spinoff, but after playing, it can be agreed upon that it’s easily the worst entry in the series. If you want to see our full thoughts, check here.

I ranked the first game higher as it has left a bigger impression on me and it felt much closer to a horror game. Dead Space 2 didn’t change much from the first but slightly iterated on everything the way a tradtitonal sequel should. The formula was already in place from the first game. The other reason that Extraction is ranked above Dead Space 3 is because it still felt like a Dead Space game despite its change in perspective to first person, it was still very atmospheric and tense.

The other thing is where the Dead Space Remake will end up in these rankings. The original Dead Space sits only behind Dead Space 2 by one point with an 88. Can it possibly get ranked higher than the original and the sequel. The possibility is actually pretty high as following the developer blogs during development they are adding plenty of modern touches like lighting, new characters, side quests and moving to one sequential shot. The most important thing is they are very aware of how beloved the original was, so they are making sure to keep the core intact.

It feels very reminiscent of RE2 Remake which ended up scoring a few points higher than the original and ended up with an average of 91 and was one of the best games of the year. In our opinion, RE2 Remake surpassed the original and I expect Dead Space Remake to do the same thing. Coincidentally, RE2 Remake was also released at the end of January. Something to think about.