Dead Space interview: designing the USG Ishimura’s sound of silence

pcgamesn.com:

The USG Ishimura is a haunted place. The halls of the planet cracker mining ship echo with the sounds of the dead, monsters crawling through vents, and the heavy-set footsteps of an engineer having the worst day of his life. Whispers penetrate his helmet and melodic machinery whirrs in the distance, until it all comes rushing in and the sound becomes too unbearable to take, and that’s when the enemy strikes. This is what Dead Space is, and what makes a good horror game truly special.

With the release of Motive’s Dead Space Remake, one of videogames’ most iconic locations has undergone a facelift. The Ishimura is instantly recognisable not just for its visuals, but how it uses sounds – be they instrument or organic- to set a tone like none other, and the remake owes upkeep and revamps to many of these sounds to composer Trevor Gureckis.

“What [original composer Jason Graves] made was a great musical universe for Dead Space,” Gureckis tells PCGamesN. “So we were first really focused on key elements like narrative points and particular cutscenes things that we could expand upon, and the further I got along, the more I started to write more and more music for the bigger scenes.”

Throughout my discussion with Gureckis, it became increasingly apparent that his work was always supposed to mirror that of EA Motive, as the studio had made it clear from the start that it wanted to stay true to the original Dead Space while expanding on it in meaningful ways with mechanics from future installments, more character development, and extra content.

Gureckis played the original Dead Space trilogy as it released, and so working on the series’ revamp is a bit of a dream come true. He said it’s work he’d love to continue, and suggested to