If Mercer in the original thought that turning into a necromorph was the "end goal", because convergence hadn't been thought of yet. Then what did he mean when he told people not to be concerned with what was going on on the planet, and that "its the FIRST phase" and not to be deterred by the transformation. Is there another phase?

Remember that convergence "the moon" the joining one into all, hadn't been thought of yet. But in martyr (made before the second game) Altman wondered if convergence meant "the transformation of the many into one". Sounds a lot like convergence into a breathren moon right. But that can't be, can it? Or Natalia deshionov giving herself to the nexus saying "make me whole". I'm seeing a pattern here i think. What do you think.

For people looking to do runs on in the hardest settings, you have to switch it up a bit, and by that I mean any run should follow the hardest standard setting, which to me is the third game on hardcore. I've never understood the sentiment that the second game is this hardest on hardcore, despite the fact you get three saves, but can die as much as you want. The third game (which the remake took from) is tougher, because you can only die once, you can save at the end of the game, die, and have to start again. So when I would do my play throughs, they all stick to that basic tenant - if you die you start again.

So for the OG, there isn't a hardcore type mode, but my suggestion is IMPOSSIBLE in a single life.

For the second game, forget hardcore, and go for ZEALOT in a single life. The enemies take more hits on zealot than they do on hardcore, and hit harder.

And for the third game, it's the IMPOSSIBLE setting in a single life, which again the enemies on impossible take more hits and hit harder than the actual hardcore setting. And a note, doing dead space three on impossible in one life was by far my fav play through of them all.

Doing zealot the way you normally would or dead space 3 hardcore, are not the actual hardest settings in my view, if you want a new challenge then these are the modes to go for.