All Difficulty Settings Explained in Dead Space Remake

Are you ready to kill some Necromorphs in the Dead Space remake? We hope so — the crew of the USG Ishimura are just waiting to give you special hugs. But first, the game will ask you what difficulty level you want to play on. To help you make a decision, here are all the difficulty settings explained in the Dead Space remake.

Dead Space Remake Has Five Difficulty Settings, but only four are available to choose while you’re playing.

Like many games, the Dead Space remake allows you to change your difficulty any time you wish in the game’s menu. Here are the four difficulty settings you can switch between in-game and what you can expect from them.

Story: This is the easiest difficulty level, intended — as the name suggests — for those who are interested primarily in the story. You’re not invulnerable, but Isaac deals much more damage than on Medium and takes much less damage from the Necromorphs. Isaac also has 120 seconds of oxygen, enemy grappling attacks are much easier to escape, and he heals automatically.

Easy: Isaac deals a little more damage than on Medium and the Necromorphs do a little less damage. He has 100 seconds of oxygen, and enemy grappling attacks are a little easier to escape than normal.

Medium: This is the default difficulty level in the remake, which Dead Space refers to as “baseline.” Isaac Clarke dishes out normal damage and so do the Necromorphs. He has, by default, 70 seconds of oxygen to keep him alive when he’s in a vacuum.

Hard: Isaac’s attacks do much less damage than on Medium mode. Meanwhile, Necromorph attacks do much more damage. He still has 70 seconds of oxygen.

You can switch between the above difficulty levels at any time, if you’re finding the game too hard or too easy. However, there’s a fifth difficulty level, Impossible, which can only be accessed when you start a new game.

Impossible: Impossible sounds like it should make the Necromorphs so powerful they can punch you through the hull, reducing Isaac’s damage levels so it’s as if he’s tickling them with a feather — one that’s particularly light and flimsy, even by feather standards. But this isn’t so.

Instead, Isaac and the Necromorphs deal as much damage as they do on Hard, but Impossible also adds a few extra conditions, which are as follows:

• Autosaves are disabled
• There’s only one save slot
• You only have one life, and if you die, you have to either continue in Hard mode or restart.

In other words, this is a permadeath mode. Complete the game on Impossible and you’ll earn the Burnished Suit and the Hand Cannon, a very silly foam finger weapon. Yes, you could potentially “save scum” this mode, but we’re sure you’re much too honest for that. Right?

Unlike the original game, which required you to beat the game once to unlock it, the remake sees Impossible difficulty unlocked from the get-go, meaning you can jump right into the challenge. Remember, you can’t switch to Impossible difficulty mid-game; you can only start the game in this mode.

That’s everything you need to know about Dead Space remake difficulty settings explained.

Related: All Dead Space Remake Voice Actors on Twinfinite