Every Isaac Clarke Suit: the RIG and Engineering Suits Explained

Isaac Clarke's suit is an engineering suit built around a RIG, short for Resource Integration Gear, the system that keeps a worker alive in vacuum and shows their health as a glowing bar running down the spine. Isaac Clarke is a ship systems engineer, so his first suits are Concordance Extraction Corporation work gear, from a thin Level 1 RIG to the heavily plated Level 5. Later games put him in security armour, a prototype from a Titan Station lab, salvage suits and two-hundred-year-old military kit. This guide covers what a RIG does and every suit Isaac wears, game by game. (Dead Space; Dead Space 2; Dead Space 3)

What a RIG is#

A RIG is worn equipment that tracks its wearer's life signs. The most visible part is the spine display, a segmented bar that drains as the wearer is hurt and changes colour as health falls, and gives a flatline tone when the wearer dies. Projectors on the wrists put holographic screens in the air in front of the wearer for video calls, logs, maps and a guide line to the next objective. Civilian RIGs are little more than the spine display and projectors on ordinary clothes. Engineers often add Kinesis and Stasis modules, and for dangerous work the RIG is built into a full sealed suit with its own air supply, magnetic boots and thrusters for zero gravity. (Dead Space; Dead Space 2; Dead Space 3)

Dead Space: the Level 1 to Level 6 RIGs#

On the USG Ishimura in 2508, Isaac buys better suits from the ship's stores as he finds their schematics. Each is a CEC-issue RIG. (Dead Space; Dead Space (2023))

• Level 1, Standard Engineer RIG: the most basic CEC engineer's suit, almost skin-tight, with an open-faced visor. It's what Isaac arrives in. (Dead Space)
• Level 2, Standard Miner RIG: a miner's upgrade with armour plates added for travel through hazardous areas. (Dead Space)
• Level 3, Intermediate Engineer RIG: issued to Class 4 CEC engineers for mildly hazardous work, bulkier, with plating on the helmet, abdomen and legs and a guard on the right forearm. This is the suit used in most of the original game's marketing, and with Dead Space 2's Engineering Suit it became the series' signature look. (Dead Space)
• Level 4, Intermediate Miner RIG: the miner's equivalent of Level 3. (Dead Space)
• Level 5, Advanced Engineer RIG: the highest standard engineer RIG, given to senior engineers who have proven themselves in hostile environments. It has the heaviest plating and narrower eye slits against flying debris. (Dead Space)
• Level 6, Advanced Soldier RIG: the Marine suit of the Earth Defense Force, with a Stasis module built in, available on a second playthrough. Its schematic is aboard the USM Valor, whose Marines wear a variant of it. (Dead Space)

Extra suits sold as add-ons included the red Scorpion Level Engineering RIG, two Advanced Hazard Engineer RIGs, an Advanced Unitologist RIG covered in Marker symbols and a Standard Astronaut RIG. At the end of the game, safe on the shuttle, Isaac takes off his helmet. (Dead Space)

Dead Space 2: from straitjacket to Advanced Suit#

Isaac starts Dead Space 2 on Titan Station in 2511 in a Patient Suit, a hospital outfit with a straitjacket and a basic RIG to monitor him, with no helmet, boots or thrusters and no way to survive vacuum. The CEC logo on its spine unit shows who made the health hardware. The suits he finds after that all have helmets that fold away into the suit and thrusters on the shoulders and legs. (Dead Space 2)

• Engineering Suit: the first real suit, described as a vintage CEC uniform worn by mining and engineering crews on the Ishimura, and one of the first with an integrated RIG. (Dead Space 2; Dead Space 3)
• Security Suit: the armour of EarthGov's Titan Security Force, with extra plating at the shoulders and neck. (Dead Space 2)
• Vintage Suit: an old, bulky brown CEC spacesuit with its oxygen tank mounted on the outside and a calculator on the sleeve. (Dead Space 2)
• Advanced Suit: the last and best suit of a first playthrough. Isaac finds its schematic shortly before Nolan Stross attacks him, and it became the look most associated with Dead Space 2. (Dead Space 2)

Other Dead Space 2 suits include the Riot Security Suit and Elite versions of the four main suits on a second playthrough, and the Zealot Suit, a Collector's Edition extra covered in Marker symbols. The Hacker Suit, a leather jacket and jeans worn over a RIG, unlocks with a Dead Space: Ignition save. In the Severed add-on, Gabe Weller wears an orange-camouflage Patrol Suit with his name on it. (Dead Space 2; Dead Space: Ignition; Dead Space 2: Severed)

Dead Space 3: salvage and Sovereign Colonies suits#

Dead Space 3's suits come from salvage crews and from the Sovereign Colonies expedition that died on Tau Volantis two centuries earlier. Their health bars sit in a shell-like pod on the spine instead of a flexible strip. (Dead Space 3)

• Hacker Suit: a stripped-down version, with no armour, is what Isaac wears at the start, in the New Horizons Lunar Colony on the Moon. (Dead Space 3)
• EVA Suit: a light salvage operator's spacesuit with a gold visor that slides down in vacuum, picked up as Isaac escapes the exploding USM Eudora. (Dead Space 3)
• Arctic Survival Suit: a Sovereign Colonies cold-weather suit woven with insulating fibres, which Isaac puts on after crashing on Tau Volantis and replacing his damaged suit. (Dead Space 3)
• Legionary Suit: a Sovereign Colonies armoured exosuit, decommissioned for two hundred years, first seen on the soldiers Tim Caufman and Sam Ackerman in the prologue. (Dead Space 3)
• Archaeologist Suit and Elite Suit: a padded orange suit for expedition scientists at the dig site, and the frontline armour of the Sovereign Colonies' 401st Division. (Dead Space 3)

Finishing the game unlocks the old Engineering Suit for Isaac and the Security Suit for John Carver, whose own suit is the black-and-red Special Forces armour of the Earth Defense Force. A Mass Effect 3 save unlocks an N7 Suit, a recoloured Security Suit in the style of Commander Shepard's armour. Before the final fight against the Tau Volantis Moon, Isaac rips his damaged helmet off. (Dead Space 3)

Dead Space (2023): the remake's suits#

The 2023 remake brings back the six levels of the original, from the Level 1 Standard Engineer RIG to the Level 6 Advanced Soldier RIG, redesigned but with the same roles. It also includes the DS-08 Legacy RIG, the 2008 Level 3 suit almost exactly as it first looked, and add-on suits including the Lone Survivor, Infected and Venture suits. Unlike the 2008 Isaac, the remake's Isaac speaks, and his helmet folds away in some scenes so his face can be seen. (Dead Space (2023))

Who makes Isaac's suits#

The games link Isaac's engineering suits to the Concordance Extraction Corporation, which issues them to its engineers and miners by rank, and the Patient Suit carries the CEC logo on its spine unit. None of the games names a manufacturer for the suits themselves, so any company name you see attached to them comes from outside the games. Security and military suits belong to EarthGov, the Earth Defense Force and the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces. (Dead Space; Dead Space 2; Dead Space 3)