For some time now, accessibility has been a more common feature seen in games. To reach as broad an audience as possible, it is important for designers to include features that allow players to customize the experience to their preferences.

From colorblind settings, aim assist, and even the ability to completely skip gory scenes, Dead Space provides players with a lot of accessibility options. For players who may struggle with button mashing during QTEs, there are options to either reduce them to a single button push or have them auto-complete. In addition to that, EA Motive has expanded the difficulty settings for the remake of Dead Space. This guide will help give players an understanding of what is different between each difficulty.

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How Many Difficulty Settings Are There?

In Dead Space there are five difficulty settings. The difficulty settings are Story, Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impossible. In the original version of Dead Space from 2008, there were only four difficulty settings (Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impossible). Story is a brand-new difficulty and there have been several changes to Impossible, which are discussed further down in this guide. The differences in difficulty are as follows.

• Story Difficulty - While Easy Difficulty in the original Dead Space was pretty easy, EA Motive created a lower difficulty to make the game even more accessible to players who are either new to survival horror games or are just looking to experience the story of the game. In Story Difficulty, players do significantly more damage while also taking significantly less damage. The oxygen tank also starts out with an extra 30 seconds worth of air. Not only that, but Isaac automatically heals whenever he takes damage and enemy grapples are easily escaped.
• Easy Difficulty - Easy Difficulty is a step above Story, and is tuned to feel exactly the way Easy was in the original Dead Space. Players will do slightly more damage and take less damage. The oxygen tank starts out with an extra 10 seconds worth of air. Enemy grapples are slightly easier to escape from.
• Medium Difficulty - Medium Difficulty is considered the default experience for Dead Space. Both players and Necromorphs take regular amounts of damage and there is no difference in how much air players have in the oxygen tank. Excluding accessibility settings, enemy grapples are unchanged in this difficulty.
• Hard Difficulty - In Hard Difficulty, players do less damage and take significantly more damage from Necromorphs.

As far as difficulty goes, the differences between each setting are pretty noticeable. With a single damage upgrade to the Plasma Cutter, players can potentially one shot Necromorphs on Story Difficulty. On the other hand, that same upgrade will not be as effective on higher difficulties since players will be doing less damage.

How Does Impossible Difficulty Work?

For players who truly want a difficult challenge in Dead Space, Impossible Difficulty is available right from the start. While Impossible Difficulty is tuned the same as Hard Difficulty, it has one major difference. Auto-save is disabled in Impossible Difficulty, and players can only have one save slot. To make this even more challenging, if players die they have to either restart the whole game or continue on Hard Difficulty only. Naturally, there is a special suit, weapon, and an achievement/trophy as rewards for players who manage to overcome this frighteningly difficult challenge.

Dead Space is available now on PlayStation 5, Steam, and Xbox Series X/S.