A splash of Survival Horror is still there courtesy of a few jump scares, but the core objective is driven by heavy portions of gameplay that will see you slogging through hordes that come at you in their masses as you attempt to progress, and it's arguably more prominent in this stretch of 3 chapters than it was at any point during the main game.
Awakened picks up from the immediate ending point of Dead Space 3. Isaac Clarke and John Carver are allegedly still alive, and their goal is to simply escape from Tau Volantis for good. They settle on a plan to locate a shuttle in order to find their way off the planet. A simple concept for a story, but complex in the sense that it just completely throws out even more ambiguity over the actual fate of Isaac Clarke.
The story expansion taps into the mental instability of Isaac Clarke that you see sporadically across the series, and you play out a handful of segments where you're physically fighting demons that only seem to exist in Isaac's mind. It makes you wonder - Is he actually dead and you're just living out a nightmare within a parallel universe, or is he actually still alive and these demons are being manifested through the power of his mind?
Way more questions than answers though, and even the ending of Awakened is shrouded in mystery just as much as the end of Dead Space 3 was. It makes you question what the actual point of Awakened was given the fact we didn't get any closure to anything. If you enjoyed the heavy action portions of the main game, you'll have a solid experience at your hands. However, you'll spend your time traipsing across the same environments, fighting the same enemies with the same weapons you had before. The addition of the Circle and their Cult Leader adds a bit of variety, but everything else is exactly the same. If you're looking for a bit more flesh to the bones from a story perspective, you'll also be left wanting. It's a very passable experience.
The package also adds 8 new trophies, and will require that you run through the episode at least twice. You'll need to beat it once under any circumstances, and again in Pure Survival mode, though there's no reason why you couldn't go straight into a Pure Survival playthrough and grab both trophies at once.
There is a key decision to make towards the end of the story that awards 2 trophies for each possible choice though - Which is the sole reason you'll need to play through the episode twice over, regardless of whether you choose to play Pure Survival from the off or not.
Pure Survival mode isn't really that tough here. The game still throws resources at you pretty generously, and your inventory carries over from the main game too, so if you were already stockpiling ammunition and health at the end of the main game, you'll start Awakened with a stocked inventory. It defeats the purpose of Pure Survival, and you should have no problems here at all. It is a hectic experience, and the segment throws alot at you, but you'll respawn from the last checkpoint in worst case scenario, which is never too far back anyway. Hardcore mode would have been a much tougher challenge.
There are collectibles present within the 3 chapters that span Awakened, but perhaps surprisingly, these are not accounted for in any of the trophies within this list. Nor is any requirement to beat the content on Classic or Hardcore modes.
Annoyingly, there is a single Co-Op trophy tucked into the list, requiring you to slow down the bleed out process of your Co-Op partner with statis - A really minor task, but one you're going to need to find a partner for. I had already forecasted this and grabbed it whilst I was going through the main game to save having to come back for it and tackle it at a much later date.
Even beating this twice should take no longer than 5-6 hours. Pure Survival mode might beat you up a little bit, but the consequences for death are nowhere near as severe as they are in Hardcore mode. It might be a good idea to tackle a playthrough in Co-Op, purely for the single Co-Op trophy - Just make sure you're making the right key decision at the end each time to effectively manage playthrough expectations.
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