Thoughts VS Opinions on Could Dead Space 3 Be The End For Isaac Clarke?
Being a Dead Space fan is like being an unusual breed of gamer. On the one hand you have two amazing games to currently experience in the franchise and a third coming out in just under seven months. Though on the other, you have the feeling of dread with every sequel it brings out as it initially begins to crawl away from what made the whole concept so great in the first place.
Funnily enough though I have stood by each game every step of the way, even to the point of dissecting each release trailer just to make sure I understood every aspect to the coming additions to the story. Something that I have always monitored from a distance though is the journey of the series main character ‘Isaac Clarke’.
See the main story arc to me has been following a certain narrative path that may seem familiar to anyone who watched 80s horror films. Now I am not talking about the Terminator trilogy or Hellraiser, but the Alien Trilogy. Now this theory popped in my head after the completion of 2011’s Dead Space 2. We find that in the original game, Isaac is faced with a threat he probably thought he could never comprehend. He is fighting to survive a nightmare he can’t wake up from, a nightmare where he must face with loss, betrayal and ultimately come face to face with a creature that he just wasn’t prepared to face. This may ring anyone’s bells to those of you who have watched the epic horror trilogy of Ripley’s battle against the Xenomorphs.
Now I want you to stay with me here as I begin to explain my theory. See in some ways each game that has come out has resonated in some shape or form towards each film in the Alien trilogy.
A warning before reading as there are a large number of spoilers below, so don’t read if you still need to watch the Alien Trilogy or play the DS games.
The First Phase- The Nightmare Begins
In 1989’s Alien, space rig pilot Ellen Ripley responds to a distress beacon on an unknown planet and her team go out to investigate. This is where she makes first contact with the xenomorph as it infiltrates Ripley’s ship through an implanted egg from within her ship mate’s chest. The creature then goes in a stealthy rampage picking off every other crew mate before being disposed of by Ripley in an escape pod hatch.
Moving onto 2008’s DeadSpace we see Isaac Clarke, a deep space engineer responding to a distress signal from the mining ship ‘Ishimura’ and as his team starts to investigate, all hell breaks loose. While the plots of both franchises become different, it is the final sequences that begin to share some things in common. First is the betrayal by your fellow companion Kendra Daniels, who wants to take the mysterious Marker that has started all the chaos in the first place and place it into the hands of the Earth Government. This relates to Ian Holm’s portrayal as Ridley’s fellow crewman and ship scientist Ash, who ultimately decides that the deadly xenomorph must be brought back to Weyland Yutani’s facilities to be used as a weapon. The second part is the final showdown with the Hivemind and the escape of Isaac Clarke. Just like Ripley who must face her fears and final come face to face with her tormentor, Isaac is forced into a one on one battle with the colossal Hivemind that blocks his path into the escape shuttle. Both Ripley and Clarke ultimately become victorious and blast off into the vast unknown of space. The problem is, is their nightmare truly over?
The Second Phase – Facing Your Fears
We now jump to DS2 and ‘Aliens’ where both Isaac & Ripley are being held in their own medical facilities. While Clarke is forced to once again don the engineering rig and face his guilty burden for the death of Nicole, Ripley is invited to go back to LV-426 and be an information specialist on the xenomorph threat. Sure the plots begin to differ once again but this time something else relatable happens between the two, which is Action. Isaac and Ripley’s journeys both go into the genre of action horror for their second outings. Not only this but both Isaac and Ripley begin to notice strange happenings within the locations that they are traversing through.
While Ripley finds experimental labs on her mining colony filled with jars of face huggers, Isaac finds himself walking in on a Marker creation facility deep within the mining colony that he is in, Coincidence? Both lead characters are confident this time around when fighting their respective alien threats and ultimately both finally accept and destroy the nightmare that is pursuing them. Ripley faces the xenomorph Queen, while Isaac faces the Marker’s impersonation of Nicole which results in both Isaac and Ripley becoming victorious once again and escaping from the nightmare once again before both explode into oblivion. Both Ripley and Isaac are now totally sure that they have escaped the dangers of the two separate alien threats and begin to move on with their lives, or do they?
The Third Phase – Acceptance
The funny thing here is that the subliminal hints between both franchises become clearer this time as both Isaac and Ripley crash land onto unknown planets and must once again face an alien threat. While Ripley must bunker down in a maximum security prison with the help of fellow inmates, Isaac must travel through a type of mining complex in hope of killing the Necromorph infestation once and for all. Now this is where things get interesting.
As you know in Alien 3, Ripley ultimately comes to her demise as she sacrifices herself for the greater good but not before also confronting Weyland who gives her a monologue about what he plans to do with the creatures. This same confrontation could happen to Clarke because not only has he accepted the death of his former girlfriend Nicole, but he has also become a character without any real purpose just like Ripley.
Not only that but the official trailer for Dead Space 3 states that Isaac Clarke now has a fixation with Ellie a fellow survivor from DS2. This brings a moment of pondering to the possibility that Isaac might sacrifice himself to save Ellie to make up for the fact that he could never save Nicole. This would also make sense seeing as the theme of Isaac’s guilt has been developed heavy within the Dead Space franchise.
What do you think? Is this the final hoorah for our beloved engineer Isaac Clarke, or do you have your own theory?
For more information on Dead Space 3, click here.
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