In order to feed the beasts of commerce and industry, humanity turns to the stars, searching for new raw materials on other planets. In the 26th century, humanity has exhausted most of the Earth’s natural resources, bringing its population precariously close to extinction.

The core premise of Dead Space is simple.

With that in mind, we combed through the game logs and grilled the franchise's creative team to unearth a few clues that hint to where the franchise is headed next. “Everything that happens in Dead Space 1 is relevant to what happens in Dead Space 2,” Visceral Game’s senior production designer Ben Wanat told us. Dead Space 2 incorporates all of this material and moves it forward.

With two games, a comic spin-off, and an animated prequel, several sources feed into and expand the lore of Dead Space. The Dead Space franchise is only a year old, but the universe has already amassed a sizable backstory encompassing ancient alien artifacts, covert government experiments, and underground religious operations.

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