Dead Space 1 and 2 are by far some of the best survival horror games out there, immersing you in a brutal sci-fi world against horrible abominations armed with nothing but a plasma cutter. The sound design is amazing, the lighting is spectacular, but perhaps the most unsung hero out of all these immersive elements is the HUD.
Although it’s often treated as an afterthought in most games, HUDs are one of the most important parts of breaking or creating immersion, and no game understood that better than Dead Space.
Diegetic Design
Diegetic refers to objects within the universe that just make sense, and it’s something a lot of games have a hard time conveying. The earliest iteration of Diegetic HUD design that comes to mind is when Metroid Prime put you inside Samus’ suit, making sure the HUD that the player sees is the same HUD that Samus would use in her suit. A more recent example of diegetic design is Resident Evil 7’s heartbeat monitor being used as a ready reference for the player’s health instead of just splashing a health bar over the screen. Both ways work, but only one makes sense to see in the world.
Dead Space perfected the design of its HUD because it rooted the designs so deeply in the world’s lore. For this, the team over at Visceral Games (RIP) designed the RIG, Isaac Clarke’s specialized mining suit that was made specifically to help monitor the wearer’s vitals. When I was first playing through the game, I never noticed how genius the design was, because you weren’t meant to notice it. You looked at the bars and meters on Isaac’s RIG and just knew that it made sense to be there. Not only did this make the HUD feel more natural, but it also meant you had the attention span left over to look at everywhere else on the screen. And the more time your eyes spent taking the scenery in instead of looking at your HUD meant better immersion.
Conveying Information
Diegetic design is only meant as the secondary aspect of having a good HUD, because the main goal of HUD design is to properly convey information. If your HUD is designed well, but can’t accurately deliver information to the player, then that’s not a HUD, that’s just a glorified graphic you pasted on. Conveying information is so important that some developers have chosen to ignore design completely, instead seeing HUDs as more of a utility and putting them on your screen in a minimal and easy-to-digest design. I personally don’t mind having some bland bars on the screen if it means I can get information, but Dead Space has once again set the standard.
Dead Space isn’t just a horror game; it’s also an intense action game where you’re forced to think on your feet and make tough decisions in the heat of combat. Xenomorphs won’t wait for you to count your ammo; they’ll jump in and do everything they can until one of you dies. Knowing this, the developers designed their HUD to be attached to Isaac, which meant that your focus was never away from the center of the action. Your health and stasis bar were all front and center, and your ammunition count popped up whenever you aimed down sights. Of course, that just covers the basics of what you should know during combat; everything else, such as healing items and ammo stock, is in a separate menu, encouraging you to prep for every possible turn.
Where It Does and Doesn’t Work
So now that we see Dead Space has HUDs figured out, why haven’t more games adopted this philosophy when it comes to their design? Well, actually, they have, just not as intuitively as Dead Space. Fighting games such as Tekken and Street Fighter have introduced small changes to character models to indicate that they’re entering rage or burnout, respectively, making sure your eyes don’t have to dart back and forth to check your meter. The Halo Series also has a famous example of diegetic HUD design when it comes to its iconic weapon, the Needler. Instead of relying on the ammo counter on your HUD, you could simply observe the needles on top of the needler to see if you still had enough ammo.
But one thing that you may have noticed from Dead Space and Halo is that they are sci-fi games that allow for technology to have that kind of utility. Games like Battlefield and Call of Duty that are built on realism don’t necessarily have that type of technological freedom when it comes to their HUD design. Then there’s also the issue of the type of game you’re playing. A third-person shooter has much more leeway when it comes to designing their HUD compared to something like an RTS or a MOBA.
But no matter the genre and no matter the theme, I still believe that Dead Space has perfected the art of HUD design, and it should be a level of design that other games should strive for. Too bad EA chopped down Visceral Games for some reason. Yes, I will always be salty for that, and I am still waiting for the next big entry into the series. For now, Cronos will do.
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