Dead Space Remake Chapter 1
Image via EA.

What is the Intensity Director in Dead Space Remake? – Answered

No two playthroughs will be the same.

Dead Space Remake makes some sweeping changes across the board, bringing the title up to modern standards with new features and content, while also retaining what the developers originally intended the game to be. There’s a ton of new stuff to sift through, but the Intensity Director seems to bring people the most confusion. Here’s what the Intensity Director is in Dead Space Remake and how it affects your playthrough.

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How Does the Intensity Director Work in Dead Space Remake?

In the original 2008 Dead Space, the game was entirely linear with no ability to return to locations you previously explored. As one of the major changes to Dead Space Remake is the ability to explore the Ishimura freely, there needed to be variety when returning to locations you previously explored. Otherwise, it would get boring and become a waste of time quickly.

Enter the Intensity Director, which controls the pacing of the experience by bringing in random encounters depending on how you’re doing. As you explore the Ishimura and re-explore it, you’ll encounter random necromorphs that weren’t there earlier and that you often don’t expect. This forces you to stay on your toes, as every bit of the exploration could be hiding something nasty around the corner.

The Intensity Director doesn’t just spawn creatures depending on the situation, though. It can also change the state of a room to be completely different each time you traverse it. On one run-through things can be completely lit with very little darkness in sight. On the next, it can be pitch black, with your flashlight as the only light to lead your way.

Related: What Engine is the Dead Space Remake Running On? – Answered

While this exploration doesn’t make it sound too exciting, the Intensity Director is a major part of why so many of the game’s refreshed systems work. In practice, it creates a consistently tense situation where you don’t know what’ll happen next. Who knows what could be hiding around the next corner.


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About the Author

Shawn Robinson

Shawn is a freelance gaming journalist who's been with Prima Games for a year and a half, writing mainly about FPS games and RPGs. He even brings several years of experience at other sites like The Nerd Stash to the table. While he doesn't bring a fancy degree to the table, he brings immense attention to detail with his guides, reviews, and news, leveraging his decade and a half of gaming knowledge. If he isn't writing about games, he's likely getting zero kills in his favorite FPS or yelling at the game when it was 100% his fault that he died.