Info

I know there are already people working on a mod for this game, and I don’t want to take away anyone’s motivation to keep going if they feel it’s needed. Dead Space is one of my all-time favourites, so this project was a personal matter — and after many requests I decided to release it.

In version 1.0 something may still pop up now and then that doesn’t belong there, but I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun with it :) Those who know me know I’m a bit of a perfectionist (a German habit), and I try to bring that into my mods as well.

Thank you to everyone who supports me — and I hope you “Make Us Whole Again”.

FAQ

Q: How does the alternate fire of the weapons work?

A: While aiming, click the right stick to switch between the normal and the alternate fire mode. The ammo display shows which mode you are in: it turns blue and shows “ALT” underneath. In this mode the right trigger fires the alternate fire — until you click the right stick again.

Q: How do Stasis and Kinesis work?

A: Both Stasis and Kinesis are on the left controller.

Stasis: hold the left trigger and a force field charges up in your palm, together with an aiming beam. Let go of the trigger to fire the stasis shot. Don’t hold it too long — it overcharges, the glove turns red and the shot fizzles out. You also need stasis energy left for it to work.

Kinesis: hold the left grip and an orb appears in your palm. Point it at an object to grab it, let go of the grip to drop it, or pull the left trigger while holding it to throw it.

Q: What is the “Disable Toxic Game Settings” option for?

A: Some of the game’s own settings don’t work well in VR or break the mod. With this option on, the mod sets them correctly every time the game starts:

• Sound effects volume stays at maximum — the mod’s own sounds don’t scale with it
• Inverted X and Y axes are turned off
• Vibration is turned on
• VSync is turned off
• Motion blur, blur and depth of field are turned off — they smear the image in the headset
• Shadows are kept on High — needed for the 4K shadows
• The controller layout is reset to the default, so the VR bindings always land on the right actions

If you turn it off, the mod leaves these settings alone from the next game start on.

Q: Why is there no upscaling (DLSS, FSR, XeSS)?

A: Modern upscalers like DLSS, FSR 2/3 and XeSS need motion vectors and a jittered camera from the game. Dead Space (2008) is a DirectX 9 game and simply doesn’t provide them, so these upscalers can’t work here. A simple image upscaler would be possible, but it isn’t worth it: the game is so light on today’s hardware that you can render it at a much higher resolution than your headset needs. That is supersampling — the sharpest and cleanest image you can get, without any upscaling artifacts. Just raise the resolution in the mod menu until the game stops running smoothly.

Q: Do you plan dual wielding, left-hand support, more holsters or manual reload?

Dual wielding: Games like this one live on their oppressive situations and their resource management. Putting a second weapon in your left hand breaks all of that and drifts the balance towards a first-person shooter. With RE4 I could still somewhat understand the wish, but here not at all.

Manual reload: For some weapons there simply is no mesh that could serve as a magazine. Just “pretending” doesn’t add any immersion for me. You know how much I would have loved to implement it.

Left-hand support: I can understand the wish 100%, but it is a lot of work without any benefit for myself, it would eat up a lot of time — and I already spend too much of it on modding.

Holsters: I thought about this for a long time. Technically it’s no problem, and four holsters would certainly fit the four weapon slots — but is Isaac someone who draws weapons from shoulder holsters? Here I will wait for your feedback. Again: just because something CAN be done doesn’t mean it’s always the right thing.

Thank you very much for your understanding.

Q: Why did you choose the original and not the remake?

A: The remake would destroy PCs left and right — VR needs two views at 90 frames per second or more, and the remake already struggles with one on a flat screen. True stereo rendering would again need a lot of voodoo magic, plus upscaling, AFW and so on. Frostbite is a barely documented engine, and DX12 deferred rendering doesn’t make any of this easier.

The original, on the other hand, can be pushed up to 7–8K and looks fantastic.

Q: Are the GOG or EA App versions of Dead Space supported?

A: Since I can’t tell whether the mod works with those versions — no. Only the Steam version is supported.