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The voiceless protagonist of the Dead Space series, Isaac Clarke is one engineer that just can’t seem to catch a break. What starts as a career as a starship mechanic quickly turns into one of deep space pest control against an undead alien species that's set on wiping out all organic life in the universe.
He's one man with a lot of unexpected depth to him and he goes on quite the grand deepspace adventure. As multi-layered as the suit of armor in which he inhabits, here's everything you need to know about Isaac Clarke in Dead Space.
Who Is Isaac Clarke?
A dab hand with a Plasma Cutter, and a man that can fix almost anything mechanical, Isaac Clarke is a System Engineer for the Concordance Extraction Corporation (C.E.C) and the protagonist of the Dead Space series. He first appeared as a crewmate of the emergency maintenance ship the USG Kellion, which was responding to a fault in communications from the USG Ishimura mining vessel.
For Isaac, it seemed like another routine repair mission, and it came with the chance to see his girlfriend Nicole, who was the Ishimura's Senior Medical Officer. The two hadn’t spoken in a long time after having a huge argument, and this seemed like the perfect chance to mend some broken bridges. But the nightmare chain of events that transpired from the trip completely changed that relationship, Isaac, and the rest of the galaxy forever.
Before The USG Ishimura
Isaacs's life before the Ishimura incident was a fairly quiet if tragic one. He lived with both his parents - his father was a ship designer, whilst his mother was a member of the Church of Unitology. This choice was made therapeutically as she seemed to struggle with her husband's long missions away, something Isaac would keenly relate to with Nicole later in his life.
Following in the footsteps of his Father, Isaac trained in Engineering, and although he would make it to a prestigious academy, his mother would spend his tuition fees on donations to the Church of Unitology. Despite these difficulties, Isaac still managed to graduate and achieve his degree with honors, quickly beginning his career as an Engineer not long afterward.
During his time as a Starship Mechanic, he would form a relationship with Nicole Brennan, a Doctor at a specialist facility that focused on deprogramming ex-Unitolgosists. In this case, Isaac's mother Octavia. The two would grow close, and after Nicole took a job as the Senior Medical Officer on the USG Ishimura at Isaacs's encouragement, the relationship would become strained because of the vast distance that would be placed between the two.
Things took a further sour note when Isaacs's mother’s mental state deteriorated rapidly after she was released from Nicole's care at the facility after supposedly being on the mend. The decline of Isaacs's mother put a lot of stress on an already worn-down man. Octavia's decline would eventually culminate in a violent and bloody moment as she murdered her husband in a psychosis-induced event before taking her own life shortly after.
The fallout from this moment fanned a flame of hatred of the Church of Unitology in Isaac which would only be strengthened further when he found out the Unitologists not only took his parent's bodies but actively attempted to cover the situation up. This was something that Isaac would forever blame on Nicole. There was a furious exchange over a video call, and the two never spoke again. After receiving what looked to be her last message alive from the USG Ishimura, (though it would turn out to be a suicide note he never saw the end of) Isaac set off onboard the USG Kellion to investigate just what happened to the Ishimura and hopefully reunite with Nicole.
Warning: Spoilers for the plot of Dead Space, Dead Space 2, and Dead Space 3 below
Dead Space: The USG Ishimura Incident
Though their arrival on the ship was a little rough for the Repair Crew, they still made it successfully onboard. What welcomed them was a seemingly derelict ship. But beneath the cold steel decks prowled a world of mutant horrors made from the former ship's crew and confined hellscapes that were once hab quarters but were now twisted beyond recognition.
Before they had arrived, the Ishimura had brought onboard a strange alien device known as The Marker. Almost immediately the crew had been plagued by nightmarish visions and debilitating mental effects. Soon the dead members of the crew would reanimate and eviscerate their living comrades with similar events repeating in the colony below. After discovering the truth and a few survivors on the Ishimura, one of which appeared to be Nicole, the crew of the Kellion would be whittled down for one reason or another until only Isaac remained.
Nicole's Fate: Throughout Dead Space Isaac assumes Nicole is alive. Turns out she's not, and any encounter is a hallucination created by the Marker to manipulate Isaac.
After subduing the Hive Mind beast on the planet. Isaac would flee in a still operable escape ship as the giant piece of rock the USG Ishimura was in the process of Cracking slammed back into the colony. Everything, including the Marker, is presumed to be incinerated or at least buried under millions of tons of rock. Whilst aboard the escape shuttle, Isaac finally succumbs to the influence of the Marker as a hallucination of Nicole attacks him.
Secret Ending: In Dead Space Remake there are two endings. In the original Isaac is attacked by a Nicole Hallucination. But in the secret unlockable ending Isaac mentally resets and talks to the hallucination like she is alive.
Dead Space 2: The Sprawl
It's three years later, and things haven't gotten any better for old Isaac. After the events of the last game, he was found adrift in space by an EarthGov salvage team and taken to The Sprawl, a ginormous space station filled with thousands of people and utilized as a commercial hub for a large sector of space.
Here, Isaac was manipulated by the Church of Unitology into building a massive artificial Marker using the blueprints that were embedded in his mind when he encountered the device on the Aegis VII Colony. Their plan, to trigger Convergence on the station. But things wouldn't exactly go to plan for the church.
After breaking free from the Asylum wing and surviving attempt after attempt to kill him by either Necromorphs, EarthGov, and Unitologists alike, whilst also being constantly tormented by warped visions of Nicole. Isaac would neutralize the artificial alien obelisk. With Titan Station collapsing all around him in a climactic explosion, our hero would flee on a stolen gunship with his one ally, Ellie as the two went into hiding.
Dead Space 3: The Revival Of The Brethren Moons
Though Dead Space 3 starts with a flashback to 200 years prior, Isaac Clarke is still our leading man. Before the events of the new game and after the last, he and Ellie fostered a relationship in hiding. Though old Isaac still seemed to be suffering from debilitating side-effects of such long-term exposure to the Marker. Over time the romantic relationship would fall apart with Isaac ending up alone once more.
On the run, he was hunted by both the EarthGov and Unitologists as by this point in the timeline only Isaac alone knew how to both create and destroy the alien Markers. After being approached by Earth Defense Force members John Carver and Robert Norton, Isaac would finally come out of his hermitage to help them stop the Markers and their Necromorph constructs once and for all.
Isaac and Carver would head to Tau Volantis, the supposed homeworld of the Markers, where they’d be ambushed in space by remote mines that destroyed the ship. Through crisscrossing paths that lead them onboard multiple ships and debris fields in orbit, the two would finally make it to the frozen planet below. There Isaac would be reunited with Ellie as they took down Danik, the leader of a renegade group that was set on reanimating a frozen Hive Mind beast on the planet known as The Nexus.
This Hive Beast would eventually be awoken and then slain, but the events that followed allowed Danik to deactivate an alien machine that had frozen Tau Volantis millions of years ago in the middle of Convergence. The nightmare event immediately kicked back into action, allowing the creation of an even bigger beast than The Nexus, a Brother Moon. This gargantuan eldritch abomination was as big as the planet and was only stopped when Isaac and Carver managed to reactivate the alien device on Tau Volanti. Refreezing the world and causing the Brother Moon to come crashing back down to the planet, destroying both.
Seemingly now free from the Marker's influence, the two finally escape the ruined remains of Tau Volantis and make it to Earth. But, as they get closer to home, a shadow suddenly looms over the ship. Seems not only is it another Brother Moon, but there are several of them in close orbit around the Earth. One of which is close enough to take a big juicy bite out of the planet's crust. And there Isaacs's story ends, a cliffhanger ending that cuts to black as the series got canned shortly after.