Brute
The Necromorphs Isaac must fight are disturbing by themselves, but the Brute could be the strongest of the lot. A combination of multiple hosts fused together into one large being, it’s impossible to tell exactly how many bodies have been reanimated to create this monster. They are large, hardy, and like all necromorphs, extremely violent. They also possess nearly invulnerable natural armor on their front, though their back is completely devoid of armor. They are vulnerable to attacks from behind, but given their speed and sheer power, getting into position for a clean shot is indeed difficult. Fortunately, Brutes are quite rare.
They have an armored bone exoskeleton on their anterior body for defense, however , as aforementioned , the posterior of the creature is relatively weak and devoid of defense. Brutes attack Isaac with a decimating punch, and a headbutt that can easily knock him off his feet. They are amazingly quick for their size, and you should have Stasis handy to slow them down or they can quickly run Isaac over like a freight train. When attacked in its weak spots the Brute has been observed to contract within its armored plates to protect itself. This can be used to Isaac’s advantage for the back of the creature is still exposed.
Brutes are incredibly strong, and can tear a human apart with ease. Be wary of their counterpart, the Enhanced Brute, an entirely black version of the Brute that is far more resistant to damage.
Exploder
With its legs fused together in a strange fleshy mass and its body radically twisted and emaciated, it’s face vertically split in half, most likely a homage to “The Thing”, the Exploders are fortunately slow to move, but charge in surprisingly fast when they close in to close range and attempt to clobber Isaac with the massive pustule on the end of their arm that is filled with some explosive material that explodes on impact , thus making the Exploder the suicide bomber of the Necromorphs. Due to their “one use” nature and fairly slow movement they most often attack in large groups and attempt to overwhelm Isaac, but this group-swarm tactic also makes them dangerous to other nearby accompanying Necromorphs as well as to each other. Just don’t let them get too close and you’ll be fine.
Guardian
One of the most peculiar necromorphs Isaac encounters , Guardians are the result of the Necromorph infection anchoring a torso to flesh growing on the walls with its intestines dangling under it., and as a result this is what grows. You can tell when one is nearby when you hear moaning and groaning. Quite possibly, the groaning is a lure for unwary humans. However, some have been observed as being silent until engaged in combat. It wails and screams as little, tentacle-armed sacs comes out from its belly. Guardians cannot move, and while they can flail their viscera in a whip-like fashion, the little creatures they spawn are their primary offensive capability.
Guardians are sentries, set up by the Necromorphs to defend certain areas. Unable to move and attack enemies unless they move up close to the Guardian, the Guardians have been observed utilizing embryonic spawn that they spit out in front of themselves which will aid in attacking detected threats and such pods can even explode should an unfortunate soul walks near them. This “landmine-spitting” attack makes them quite like Tyranid Biovores, from Warhammer 40,000.
If Isaac gets too close, their squid-like tentacles can decapitate him, killing him instantly. Usually, as its name implies, a Guardian (sometimes two) is found near a door which the player must travel.
Variants of the Guardian Necromorph :
Immature Guardian :
A human torso that has just recently been attached to a wall infested with Necromorphic growth and just begun to mutate. The Immature Guardian still looks very human as it still has an unchanged head, arms and chest until the waist-down, where the abdomen is vertically split apart with the entrails hanging out. Extremely weak and lethargic, the Immature Guardian is incapable of performing it’s matured brethren’s lethal attacks and cannot host spawn. At the very most, they will play dead until approached close-up (or become irritated when a light is shone in their face), where they will attempt to cause damage by flailing out their (relatively-short) intestines. They can be killed by a single shot to the head, which shouldn’t be too hard, since like their mature counterparts, they are incapable of moving from the spot they were placed.
Mature Guardian :
A torso that has been given enough time to mutate and develop in Necromorphic growth, the Mature Guardian is the most dangerous of the varieties encountered. The only remaining human feature about them is their badly mutated head, and at this point, they look more like disgusting living, breathing mounds of flesh. They will not hesitate to continuously spew out Guardian Pods when detecting a threat, and will also utilize their whip-like intestines to unerringly behead enemies that get too close to them.
Guardian Pods :
Not really a Guardian per se , they are however created and stored within a Mature Guardian and spat out by the Guardian upon encountering a threat through a disgusting orifice with great strength to ensure a fair distance travelled from the Guardian, these pods are sacks with a vague shape resembling an embryo. They writhe and twitch, and having been utilized as a defensive tool, they are not made to grow and survive on their own in the long run. Instead, they are filled with dangerous chemicals and explode when a transgressor steps near them, and are also capable of ranged attack by sprouting out a tentacle and shooting a barb at the source of the threat, much like a Lurker.
Hive Mind
The source of the Necromorphs and their ultimate being. It is found on Aegis 7, where it nests inside a massive crater. The beast itself is nightmarish: it is a gigantic, segmented, worm-like monster, with tentacles growing nearly everywhere on its skin, comparable to a bole with limbs on its sides. Its sheer size dwarfs the player; Isaac himself is smaller than the creature’s orifice (which is located on the tip of its tongue).
Created upon the testing of the experimental Red Marker that had been reverse-engineered from the Black Marker for military purposes over a century ago on the remote planet of Aegis-7, then suppressed by the Marker as further experiments were aborted, the Marker proving itself to be too dangerous to wield as a weapon. A gargantuan being that is the source of all Necromorphs, this Necromorph telepathically controls all other Necromorphs. The Hive Mind is capable of spewing out Pregnants and organic bombs from its orifice, and utilizes it’s immense tentacles that run along it’s massive body to crush it’s prey. The organs lining its mouth and behind its ribs are vital to the Hive Mind’s survival. Destroying them results in the Hive Mind’s demise.
Infector
Infectors are the mutated bodies that help spread the Necromorph “infection”. They look like a human torso with the legs snapped backwards and skin stretched over them to create a “wing” effect. These creatures can fly short distances but prefer to crawl along.They possess a long proboscis ; this weapon is the delivery mechanism used to infect potential hosts, which is done quickly by swarming and enveloping the corpse until the infection takes hold. (The infectors turn dead crew into an enhanced version of the slasher.) They are more interested in the dead crew rather than Isaac and so they will only attack him if there are no bodies to infect.
In any room with the remains of crewmembers, these are the beasts that should be taken down quickly before you get overrun with newly created necromorphs.
Over to sidenotes comparing Infectors on Dead Space to Infectors on Dead Space : Downfall , in the movie the fall of the Ishimura was due to an Infector slipping onto a shuttle when a miner boards, with the corpse of his wife, who manages to crash it into the Ishimura docks past the closing bay doors. Unlike Infectors portrayed in the game that always crawl over the floor (with only one instance of an Infector seen flying), the movie’s Infectors rely on flying as their primary means of transportation. Infectors in the Movie also directly transfer the infectious agent into the corpse through their probiscus while Infectors in the game use the probiscus to hold the corpse closer to them while they force what seems to be a mass of writhing tentacles into the corpse’s mouth, transforming it into an enchanced Slasher.
Raising further questions more towards the prequel film than the game is to how it is possible for the Infectors in Dead Space: Downfall to stay airborne, while holding the corpse of a human in the air while infecting it, using only their wings to do so.
Curiously, when Infectors kill Isaac, they don’t attempt to infect his body.Even if Isaac dies on the action button minigame if an Infector pounces at him , the Infector decapitates Isaac , wether this means Isaac is somehow immune to the process of becoming a necromorph or not or simply an oversight from the devoloping team , its unknown.
The Infector supposably injects microscopic parasites into its victim’s corpse to change them into Necromorphs as hinted from the writhing tentacles protruding from either the mouth or joints where limbs were dismembered.
Leviathan
Initially described as a “ten-kiloton mass”, this is the first major Necromorph of the game. It is encountered on the Hydroponics deck at the finale of the chapter, but only after Isaac manages to eliminate every Wheezer contaminating the air in the Hydroponics department having made its nest in the enormous, cylindrical, zero gravity Food Storage room, where the beast has made its home. As its name suggests, the Leviathan is an enormous, writhing mass of flesh and muscles with a central mouth and three long, thick tentacles. It attacks by flailing its appendages and spitting organic spheres from its mouth, which explode on contact.
Despite killing the Leviathan, and The Slug, the giant tentacles that were body parts attached to them and seemingly directly controlled by them still made appearances afterwards to hinder and kill Isaac. This coupled with the distinct roars heard when injuring or being attacked by the tentacles strongly suggests more Necromorphs of gargantuan size on board the ship. When Isaac was retrieving the Red Marker the fact that tentacles were appearing right under all of the broken containers, and roars that were very clear and sounded very close by hints that one was directly below Isaac.
Pregnant
Similar to the Slashers in that they walk on legs and have scythe-armed appendages, Pregnants are hideously obese and sickly green in color, with scything talons that are almost twice the size of a normal Slasher. They are usually slow and walk at a very lumbering pace, but when prompted to attack they can make frightening bursts of speed. While they are indeed perilous, the greater danger comes from their bellies: given its name, a Pregnant that is shot in its bloated body will spew several Swarms, adding to the number of enemies to defeat. Later in the game, Pregnants begin to release two Lurkers from their bellies instead of the Swarms.
Hunter
The Hunter is a Necromorph logically engineered by Doctor Challus Mercer on the Ishimura. It was created by infecting a live human with the necromorph infection. Very little is known about the Hunter other than its ability to sprout out new limbs to replace what Isaac cuts off. Players should proceed with extreme caution. Unlike any other enemy in the game, the Hunter is incapable of being killed by Isaac’s weapons (many would consider the Hunter as the “Nemesis” of Dead Space); instead, the player must use the environment to defeat it.
The Hunter first appears during chapter five; when Mercer releases it to try and kill Isaac. Isaac has to avoid it several times throughout the chapter while completing other objectives. Isaac manages to trap and freeze it in a cryogenic chamber at the end of the chapter, however, Mercer manages to thaw it out by chapter ten – and a brief glimpse of its silhouette can be caught in chapter seven as the cargo elevator descends past the closed gates to the mining sub-deck for the first time.
The Hunter reappears in Chapter 10 once Isaac collects the third navigation card (or collects the card in the lowermost part of the deck); immediately thereafter Mercer contacts him about the creature’s rebirth. Towards the end of the chapter, when Isaac goes to test fire the engines of the shuttle, the Hunter, followed by a horde of Twitchers, comes out and attacks him; to defeat it, Isaac lures it towards the back of the shuttle and test fires the engines again, completely incinerating it to ashes; thus killing it off for good this time. The Hunter will drop a Power Node.
Effectively as aformentioned , the Hunter is very similar to the Nemesis Tyrant of Resident Evil, as it was genetically engineered through injection of a virus/infection into a live human host. It’s also nigh-unstoppable except with extreme measures.
Along with another Resident Evil enemy, the Hunter resembles a Regenerator. A creature experimented with a parasite that was enhanced with the ability to regenerate limbs. Although the Hunter does this at lightning fast speeds, the Regenerator does it at a more slow pace. Also a Regenerator can be killed by normal weapons, while the Hunter must be completely destroyed or incinerated.
Some tips when encountering the Hunter :
– Do NOT waste ammo if you can.The Hunter does regenerate, and under pressure you may not think about that. Use your ammo efficiently by removing his arms to avoid his one hit kill, his legs to knock him onto the ground and slow him down.
– Don’t even bother to try and tear him apart as most Necromorphs , the Hunter will regenerate but only after a certain time or after he’s been dismembered significantly. Taking off an arm and a leg while leaving the rest of him intact will slow him down while not forcing him to regenerate all his lost limbs. Even in this state, however he will eventually regenerate anyways given time or if you enter another room in which he is scripted to appear.
– Stasis is your best friend , keep a Stasis Pack or two in handy when in chapters encountering the Hunter. A quick way to escape is to take off most limbs (i.e. leg + arm) while he enters his regeneration stage. Freeze him And run! This is also useful in situations when he needs to be in a certain place (cryochamber or the back of the emergency shuttle).
– AVOID! AVOID! AND AVOID! ; when other enemies are near while confronting the Hunter, it’s a relatively good idea to eradicate them instead of focusing on the major threat. Keep moving, take out a limb or two, and freeze him, then attack the remaining enemies and repeat if necessary. This strategy is wonderful for those of you pack rats who enjoy collecting all items you can find in one rooms.
– Shape up on your marathon skills , If all else fails, you can conserve ammunition and health by simply avoiding the confrontation (most of the time) when things just seem too dark to handle! Remember, this is a “survival-horror” title. You are supposed to be outnumbered and extremely vulnerable.
Slasher
Slashers are the cannon fodder of the Necromorphs’ “army”, and the most obviously human of all. They stand upright on human legs, and their original human arms, which have been reduced to deformed, useless appendages, are located in a bloody hole in their bellies, through which you can see their viscera. From their shoulders protrude massive arms ending in scythe-like protrusions, hence their name, and attack by charging and viciously flailing their scythes.Slashers come in three variant forms : Slashers born from male bodies seem to rely entirely on melee combat. Slashers born from females seem to also have an acidic or some form of projectile attack that they spit at Isaac as well as having the typical Slasher melee capabilities ,and then theres Enhanced Slashers. Slashers’ melee and spit abilities combined with sudden bursts of speed against their victims makes them quite dangerous when they catch Isaac up close and in numbers. Slashers are normally seen in groups and are seldom caught alone unless they were just created by an Infector or in some cases chasing down an unfortunate victim. They also like to play dead to surprise their victims by seemingly be dead and then rising again to attack you from behind.
Slashers are easily recognized by their distinctive appearance and their loping and flailing gait when running, both of which also give them a distinctive shadow.
Interestingly, in the movie Dead Space: Downfall the creation of male Slashers differs in comparison to their creation in the game. In the game, the male corpse’s arms shift downwards to the abdomen while the bladed arms burst out at the shoulders, whereas male Slashers in the movie have the blades burst directly out of the palms of their hands while a new pair of grabbing claws burst out from the abdomen. However, some of the male and female Slashers in the game appear to have the blades coming out of their palms like the movie depicts them, though the lack the grabbing claws depicted in the film.
Super Slasher
The Super (aka Enhanced) Slashers created by an Infector corrupting a dead body. These are by far the strongest Slasher type creatures you encounter (as if “Enhanced” wasnt good enough to understand that at first). Enhanced Slashers are characterized as having louder growls and are black or dark brown in appearance with glowing eyes and look even more alien like then the others. Enhanced Slashers are stronger, faster, more aggressive and may even have the ability to regrow their limbs with time.
Lurker
One of the most controversial contents on Dead Space is that the Necromorphs have no qualms with killing human babies, and worse still, no hesitation in assimilating their bodies into their ranks. The result is a “Lurker”. These creatures attack using three spiked tentacles that grow out of their back either in melee when they ambush Isaac or using them to attack at range with some sort of projectiles jetting outwards from the end of the tentacles.
They are used as ranged support for other Necromorph forms and only melee as a last resort or to surprise. Lurkers are able to climb walls and stick to ceilings with suction cup-like appendages grown out of their stomachs. As a result, they’re found quite often in Zero-G environments along with Leapers.
They are commonly sighted either in small groups or with other larger Necromorphs. The Enhanced Lurker has the same body structure as a Lurker but is entirely black, far more resistant to damage and fires more lethal barbs.The Lurker shown in the film Dead Space: Downfall has contrasting behavior compared to the ones fought in the game. It aggressively seeks out P.S.C.I. Sec. Sarge Hanson and instead of firing it’s barbs, repeatedly jumps on him to stab him in the back. As a result, Hanson didn’t need to chase after it to slice it apart with his Plasma Saw.
The presence of Lurkers indicate that there are several families aboard the Ishimura prior to the infestation. Otherwise there would have been no children to infect, though this is just speculation. Another possibility, considering the number of embryos found in the medical bay is that a large portion, if not all, of the Lurkers came from the medical bay and then spread throughout the ship, though this is also just speculation. There are cases with embryos inside of them where the Lurkers first appear, but their purpose is unclear. Since these are in the medical bay, it is possible that these were used to assist in growth of cloned limbs (there’s even a poster on the walls of the Ishimura in game which advertises for “Limb Prosthetics” , perhaps related to said cloned embryos , but again this is also debatable) . Judging by the high amount of Lurkers, many of these (cloned) embryos seem to have been created.
Drag Tentacle
Drag Tentacles are tree-trunk-thick tentacles that are encountered several times throughout the game. These tentacles appear from holes in walls, or from large crevasses on the ship (the cargo hold for example). They attempt to drag Isaac back to their unknown source several times during the game. Some also attempt to simply crush Isaac. All tentacles have a glowing weak spot on their side that when breached, severs the tentacle in two and causes it to retreat. It is unknown what manner of Necromorph whose body they are attached to, but one confirmed host of Drag Tentacles is the Leviathan, which utilized three of them against Isaac and also the Hive Mind has them along the side of its body. When they whip out from a corridor, they use their harpoon-like tongue to grip your leg and drag you into its lair. It can only be killed by targeting the yellow sac on its midpoint.
Divider
Disturbing-looking and extremely tall, Dividers have elongated limbs tipped with claw-like hands. They are very thin, slow (but capable of bursts of speed similar to other Necromorphs) and strong, and attack with tentacles from their bellies and striking with their hands. Also, as their name suggests, once defeated their head, torso, arms and legs become independent creatures, continuing to stalk and assault the player. As divided monsters they are fast and hard to hit, but much weaker. Strangely, they seem to have been formed out of the scientists of the Ishimura as they are seen wearing the tattered remains of a white lab coat. Dividers tend to be loners, but it is possible to encounter a pair or a single Divider backed up by Exploders.
Appendages
When a Divider has taken up too much damage . it will activate a defense mechanism , and it will , literally , lose its head. And limbs. And these appendages will attack you. Appendages , even though they are weaker than a Divider , are much more harder to kill without the help of a splash damage weapon (Line Gun for example) . Make no mistake about it , do not presume the fight is won after a Divider as its name imposes , divides. Appendages are quite the nuisance if you do not swiftly dispatch of them and can in fact if not kill you , become more than what you bargained for.
Twitcher
Twitchers are the result of the corpses of Marines stationed onboard the USM Valor equipped with stasis modules in their body armor who have been transformed. They are physically similar to Slashers, but as they were created from Marines and not civilians they are much tougher. A disturbing side effect of the transformation is that the stasis modules the Marines were equipped that became fused with their flesh in the process of necromorphic mutation of the corpse , and the effect of the stasis module is strangely reversed, with terrifying results. Because of the stasis module merged into their body, Twitchers can react and move several times faster than any other necromorph variant making them very hard to hit before they close in to melee range. It also causes them to have highly erratic and spastic movements and their features seem to blur as they move when seen close up as they move about and they have a distinctive jabbering noise when they get close. Their name is derived from their constant twitching and spasmodic behaviour.
Twitchers are first encountered in the ruins of the USM Valor in chapter 9, Dead On Arrival. They continue to appear even after the USM Valor is destroyed as they have moved onto the Ishimura. Also they appear in the Colony on Aegis-7.
Leaper
Leapers are so-called for their ability to leap at their foes and just because they only have two arms doesn’t mean they are slow at crawling after you.
In fact, they are quite fast if you’ve ever seen one chase you with determination. This speed makes them nasty ambushers and running from them can be a little tense. Leapers have also been observed to be able to handle Zero-G environments, using their leaping ability to great effect at getting to you. However this speed comes at a price in that they seem to be about as weak, if not a little more so, than a Slasher which means that it doesn’t take much to bring one down if you catch it quickly enough. In Zero-G areas, Leapers are commonly accompanied by Lurkers, and they have been spotted traveling together with other Leapers, though there are times when they are alone.
Leapers are formed when an infected person, after about 2-4 days, starts to have visible reformation starting with the legs. The legs start to elongate then start flailing and twisting into a single appendage, resembling a scorpion-like tail. The face starts contorting, the jaw clenching and unclenching. Several jaw-like appendages emerge from the ever widening mouth. The mouth no longer appears to be able to accommodate the change, where the head is splitting and bursting at the seams. Almost instantly, it is now perched on its hands.
The Slug
The Slug is an exceedingly large Necromorph and the boss of the eighth chapter of the game. The slug was blocking the blast doors that allowed the Ishimura to broadcast out the message to warn the USM Valor to not open the escape pod they had retrieved.
The Slug had to be fought using one of the Ishimura’s anti-asteroid cannons, named ADS Cannon 47. During the fight, it would use its five tentacles to hurl objects at the tower, with each tentacle having a weak point appearing as a bulbous yellow mass close to the slug’s body.
Defeating the Slug required the destruction of all five tentacles; while at the same time using the cannons to destroy the incoming debris the slug throws at Isaac.
Immediately following the Slug’s demise, it releases its grip on the Ishimura and begins floating off into space, at which point Kendra is able to broadcast a warning to the USM Valor, telling them not to open the escape pod they retrieved. The return broadcast shows a Marine of the USM Valor being slain by a Necromorph, indicating that the USM Valor has been lost. The USM Valor then crashes into the Ishimura, causing considerable damage.
Wheezer
Wheezers are a type of Necromorph found only in the sixth chapter. There are only a total of 8 Wheezers encountered that are poisoning the air and all must be killed in order to access the food storage container the Leviathan resides in. They resemble humans more than any of the other Necromorph species, except for their lungs, which are now many times the normal size of human lungs and located outside of their body, taking up most of their backs. They are constantly in a kneeling position because their arms and legs are fused together, and as a result are incapable of movement. A distinct strained breathing sound can be heard in the vicinity of a Wheezer, hence the name. It is unknown if the infected person is still alive, and possibly too ill to react to Isaac’s presence or other Necromorphs.
Wheezers are virtually harmless; while being close to them drains the player’s oxygen, they lack any offensive capability and can be dispatched quickly. In fact, all of them (with the exception of one stuck in a nutrient vat storage chamber) can be killed with foot-stomps to conserve ammo. They are often alone, and the only true threat are multiple dangerous Necromorphs appearing after their death.
