While an early concept was for a rail shooter, the production team decided to recreate the atmosphere and gameplay of the main series within the technical and control constraints of the mobile platform.

Players can move and explore freely, interact with objects, collect items and currency, and buy upgrades in much the same fashion as the original game.

The action takes place on the Sprawl, a space station built in the remains of Saturn's moon Titan in a period where humanity survived near-extinction due to resource depletion by mining other planets.

Failing to contact Tiedemann, Norton leaves a final audio log, and Radikov informs Le Guin that the Necromorph outbreak was a success.

[9] A central part of the narrative was how Vandal is used by the Unitologists, continuing the recurring theme of examining how cults and corrupt religious figures could manipulate and harm people through their faith.

[7] Alongside recreating some environments from Dead Space 2, new areas and weapons were created, retaining the "gritty, lived-in feel" through reference to the main series art design.

[13] During its early development, Trudgen considered making the game a rail shooter similar to the console spin-off Dead Space: Extraction.

[9][14] Ultimately it was decided to stick to the survival horror gameplay of the console games, though this came with multiple technical challenges and problems with touchscreen controls.

The main challenge for the team was the platform's technical limitations, with everything being created for the game using concept art as a reference rather than porting existing console assets.

AppSpy's Andrew Nesvadba was extremely impressed, scoring it 5 out of 5 and writing, "Dead Space is a chilling experience that goes well beyond the normal expectations for mobile gaming.

"[28] Blake Grundman of 148Apps was equally impressed, scoring the game 4.5 out of 5, and writing "it is staggering to imagine that such a huge experience could be contained within the constraints of the iPhone, but not only does it succeed, it sets a benchmark that could be nigh impossible to match any time soon," and referring to the control scheme as "shockingly well constructed."

"[27] IGN's Levi Buchanan, scoring the game 8.5 out of 10, made a similar point; "Dead Space is not a cop-out, shoehorned experience – it's a real-deal chapter in the Dead Space franchise that fits right in with the console games even though it takes a slightly different tack by de-emphasizing shock-jumps and laying on action scene after action scene.

Rather than go the easy route with an on-rails shooter or a selection of banal minigames, Electronic Arts and IronMonkey Studios have instead opted to cram a genuine third-person Dead Space experience into your iPhone.

The weird thing is it more or less works [...] it really is impressive just how authentic a Dead Space experience has been crafted, and the generally high caliber of the game could at least justify an XBLA/PSN port.

"[3] Eurogamer's Kritan Reed also scored the game 8 out of 10, writing "This all-new Dead Space is surprisingly faithful to the full-fat versions in every sense.

It not only captures the intricate, moody visual signature of Visceral's originals with stunning efficiency, but manages to faithfully translate the gameplay.