Dead Space Characters: Every Major Character in the Series

Dead Space's characters are mostly the people around Isaac Clarke: the crew who die with him on the USG Ishimura, the survivors and Unitologists of Titan Station, and the expedition that follows him to Tau Volantis. Behind all of them sit the Markers, which drive people mad, raise the dead and push the living to build more Markers. This guide covers the characters people look up most, grouped by game in story order, plus the novels and spin-offs that matter. For the full plot, see Dead Space story explained. Full spoilers. (Dead Space; Dead Space 2; Dead Space 3)

The lead#

Isaac Clarke#

Isaac Clarke is a ship systems engineer who boards the Ishimura in 2508 to find his girlfriend Nicole. He survives the outbreak and returns the Marker to Aegis VII, which plants its blueprints in his mind. EarthGov holds him on Titan Station for three years and uses those memories to build a new Marker, which he destroys in Dead Space 2. In Dead Space 3 he goes to Tau Volantis, destroys a Brethren Moon, and comes home to find the others attacking Earth. He fights mostly with salvaged mining tools, and every weapon Isaac can carry is listed in one place. (Dead Space; Dead Space 2; Dead Space 3: Awakened)

Before the games: the novels#

Michael Altman#

Michael Altman is the geophysicist who in 2214 told the world that the Black Marker was proof of alien life. When an outbreak overran the research site, two believers in the Marker, Markoff and Stevens, murdered him and made him the martyr at the heart of Unitology. (Dead Space: Martyr)

Istvan Sato#

Istvan Sato is a troubled young man who heard a voice in his head long before he saw a Marker. Imprisoned on the colony of Aspera, his mind strengthened the Red Marker's signal and helped set off the outbreak that destroyed it. (Dead Space: Catalyst)

Jensi Sato#

Jensi Sato is Istvan's younger brother, who crosses the galaxy to reach Aspera and find him, and arrives at the centre of an outbreak he can't undo. (Dead Space: Catalyst)

Dead Space (2008) and the 2023 remake#

Nicole Brennan#

Nicole Brennan is the Ishimura's senior medical officer and Isaac's girlfriend. She tried to stop the outbreak and then killed herself before Isaac arrived. The Nicole who guides him through the ship is a hallucination, and in Dead Space 2 she returns, first to torment him and then to help him, until he destroys her inside his own mind. (Dead Space; Dead Space 2)

Kendra Daniels#

Kendra Daniels is a computer specialist on the Kellion crew, and in truth an EarthGov agent sent to recover the Marker. She shoots Kyne, steals the Marker, and reveals that Nicole is dead. The Hive Mind kills her on Aegis VII. (Dead Space)

Zach Hammond#

Zach Hammond is the Kellion's chief security officer, who takes charge after the crash and works with Isaac to save the ship. He dies on the wrecked USM Valor. (Dead Space)

Terrence Kyne#

Terrence Kyne is the Ishimura's chief science officer, a Unitologist and Marker expert who turned against the Church. He kills Captain Mathius by accident, convinces Isaac that putting the Marker back on its pedestal will end the outbreak, and is shot by Kendra. (Dead Space: Downfall; Dead Space)

Challus Mercer#

Challus Mercer is a fanatical Unitologist doctor on the Ishimura who experiments on the crew in the belief that Convergence leads to life after death. He creates the Hunter and sets it on Isaac. In the original he lets an Infector turn him into a Necromorph, which Isaac kills; in the remake a tentacle crushes him against the Marker itself. (Dead Space; Dead Space (2023))

Benjamin Mathius#

Benjamin Mathius is the Ishimura's captain, a high-ranking Unitologist who has Marker 3A brought aboard. The Marker drives him mad, and Kyne kills him by accident while trying to sedate him as the outbreak begins. (Dead Space: Downfall; Dead Space)

The Hunter#

The Hunter is a Necromorph Mercer grew from a living patient on the ship. It regrows lost limbs in seconds, so Isaac can't kill it by cutting it apart, and it stalks him across the Ishimura. (Dead Space)

The Hive Mind#

The Hive Mind is the huge Necromorph on Aegis VII that controls the others through the Marker's signal. It kills Kendra after she takes the Marker, and Isaac kills it in the game's final fight. (Dead Space)

Jacob Temple#

Jacob Temple is an Ishimura engineer who became acting chief engineer after the outbreak killed his boss. His logs show him holding the ship together and sheltering survivors on the Mining Deck, until Mercer lured him away with a false distress call and killed him. (Dead Space)

Downfall and Extraction#

Alissa Vincent#

Alissa Vincent is the Ishimura's chief security officer and the lead of the animated film Downfall. She fights through the outbreak, stops Kyne's sabotage, and dies launching the distress beacon that brings Isaac to the ship. (Dead Space: Downfall)

Nathan McNeill#

Nathan McNeill is a detective on the Aegis VII colony who survives the outbreak there and aboard the Ishimura. He escapes toward the Sprawl but dies of his wounds and rises as a Necromorph. (Dead Space: Extraction)

Gabe Weller#

Gabe Weller is a security officer who survives the colony and the Ishimura with McNeill and Lexine, and later marries her. In Severed he fights across Titan Station to reach his pregnant wife and dies so she can escape. (Dead Space: Extraction; Dead Space 2: Severed)

Lexine Weller#

Lexine Weller, born Lexine Murdoch, is a colony surveyor who is strangely immune to the Markers' signal. That makes her a target of both EarthGov and the Unitologists, and she survives Aegis VII, the Ishimura and Titan Station. (Dead Space: Extraction; Dead Space 2: Severed)

Aftermath, Ignition and Dead Space 2#

Nolan Stross#

Nolan Stross is an EarthGov scientist who studied a Marker shard on the USG O'Bannon and murdered his family under its influence. Held on Titan with Isaac, he helps him for a while, then loses his mind, stabs out Ellie's eye and is killed by Isaac. (Dead Space: Aftermath; Dead Space 2)

Ellie Langford#

Ellie Langford is a CEC pilot who survives the fall of the Sprawl and joins Isaac. He sends her away to safety before the end, and she flies back to pull him out of the collapsing station. By Dead Space 3 they have lived together on Luna and split up, and her search for the Markers' source is what draws Isaac to Tau Volantis. (Dead Space 2; Dead Space 3)

Hans Tiedemann#

Hans Tiedemann is EarthGov's director on Titan Station, who used Isaac's memories to build the Site 12 Marker. He hunts Isaac across the station and Isaac kills him at the Marker. (Dead Space 2)

Daina Le Guin#

Daina Le Guin is a Unitologist who lures Isaac across the Sprawl with the promise of a cure, then reveals the Church wants him to build Markers. An EarthGov gunship kills her. (Dead Space 2)

Franco Delille#

Franco Delille is a Unitologist engineer sent to free Isaac from the asylum. He's the lead of Ignition, and the man killed and turned into a Necromorph in front of Isaac in Dead Space 2's opening scene. (Dead Space: Ignition; Dead Space 2)

The Ubermorph#

The Ubermorph is a regenerating Necromorph that leads the assault on Titan's Government Sector and stalks Isaac through the labs around the Marker. (Dead Space 2)

Victor Bartlett#

Victor Bartlett is a security officer on Titan Station and Gabe Weller's commander. Under Tiedemann's orders to get rid of the key subjects, he hunts Lexine, and the Marker drives him to a violent end. (Dead Space 2: Severed)

Liberation, Dead Space 3 and Awakened#

John Carver#

John Carver is an Earth Defense Force sergeant whose wife and son died when Danik's Circle set off a Necromorph outbreak on Uxor. He drags Isaac out of hiding, becomes his co-op partner on Tau Volantis, and falls with him at the end. In Awakened the two of them jump home to Earth together. (Dead Space: Liberation; Dead Space 3; Dead Space 3: Awakened)

Robert Norton#

Robert Norton is the captain of the USM Eudora and Ellie's partner after she left Isaac. Jealousy and a deal with Danik turn him against the team on Tau Volantis, and he's killed. (Dead Space 3)

Jacob Danik#

Jacob Danik leads the Circle, a militant Unitologist sect fighting EarthGov to free the Markers. He chases Isaac to Tau Volantis, takes the Codex and shuts down the alien Machine, which wakes the Moon. A shard of debris kills him as he watches. (Dead Space: Liberation; Dead Space 3)

Jennifer Santos#

Jennifer Santos is an EarthGov Marker researcher on Ellie's expedition who leads the hunt for the alien Machine. She dies when a cargo cage falls on the mountain. (Dead Space 3)

Austin Buckell#

Austin Buckell is a scientist on the same expedition, recruited from the EDF engineers. He dies of his wounds at a waystation on Tau Volantis. (Dead Space 3)

Earl Serrano#

Earl Serrano led the Sovereign Colonies expedition to Tau Volantis two centuries earlier. He worked out the truth about the Machine and the Brethren Moons before he died, and Isaac follows his logs. (Dead Space 3)

Rosetta#

Rosetta is a perfectly preserved alien body found in the ice of Tau Volantis. Its unchanged DNA is the key to building the Codex that controls the Machine. (Dead Space 3)

The Tau Volantis Moon#

The Tau Volantis Moon is a half-formed Brethren Moon, a Necromorph the size of a moon made from the people of Tau Volantis. The alien Machine froze it in place, and its signal through the Markers begged for the Machine to be switched off. When Danik obliges, it rises, and Isaac and Carver bring it down as the final enemy of Dead Space 3. (Dead Space 3)