Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster hands-on preview - Frank appraisal (2024)

Frank West returns in another revamped version of the original Dead Rising, only with a more drastic makeover than you’re perhaps expecting.

At this point, Capcom’s hot streak of new releases is well documented, with Resident Evil 4, Street Fighter 6, and Dragon’s Dogma 2 proving how good the publisher is at celebrating its history and keeping its franchises relevant. Outside of those, we’ve had many Ace Attorney bundles, the Mega Man Legacy Collections, and a new Marvel Vs. Capcom due soon. As long as you aren’t a Dino Crisis fan, there’s arguably never been a better time for anyone raised in Capcom’s yesteryears.

Dead Rising, 18 years after it was originally released on the Xbox 360, has now officially come of age and become a new nostalgia vehicle for the studio. However, after the poor sales of the last mainline entry, 2017’s Dead Rising 4, this remaster of the original might be less a play for sentimentality and more the last viable option to bring Frank West back from the dead.

This deluxe remaster isn’t the first time the original Dead Rising has been revamped. An altered version, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, was released on the Wii, while a HD collection came out in 2014, but based on a hands-on preview session, this deluxe upgrade goes some way to blurring the lines even further between remake and remaster.

If you’re familiar with the original, this deluxe version is built on the same bones. Freelance journalist Frank West is back, albeit with a different face and (non-union) voice actor, and he’s on the hunt for a scoop inside the zombie-infested Willamette Parkview Mall.

In the main 72-hour mode, you have three days to investigate the mall until Frank can be rescued by a helicopter. Later games in the series stripped away this time limitation, but it’s perhaps the most novel thing about the original game – allowing you to do as you please, between main story objectives, saving survivors, or messing about with a chainsaw, until the time is up.

In the cold light of 2024, when most AAA games are about as refreshing as a sandbag, Dead Rising’s structure has aged well as an oddity in the oversaturated zombie genre. By design, you’re forced to choose what to prioritise during your time in the mall, with the death of survivors locking you out of specific quests after a certain time, while a run-in with some of the particularly tough optional bosses can easily distract you from the main objectives.

This made repeat runs a key part of the original Dead Rising, in order to see everything, although this deluxe upgrade smooths out some of the rough edges to make things a little easier. The most transformative addition is an autosave feature, so you no longer have to run back to the security room, or a toilet, in order to save your progress.

Some might bemoan the change as removing the cost of failure, but Dead Rising has always been a sandbox rather than a punishing horror simulator. During our session, the autosaves, which occur every time you enter a new area, allowed for a greater sense of experimentation with the various weapons and tools you find in the environment, with less concern over whether a brazen rush with a lawnmower will set you back an irritating amount of time to get back to the same spot.

Even with the lessened stakes, there’s still a sense of achievement in the escort missions with survivors, who have improved AI but still often need pulling out of dicey situations. Our run back with one survivor, who was badly injured with a limp, quickly turned sour when we stumbled across a truck filled with convict psychopaths, leading to a tough scramble to take out the gunner with very little in our inventory outside of a stun gun.

The autosave meant we could retry the encounter as many times as we’d like, but trying to overcome the situation with our limited toolset became a fun challenge within itself.

There’s other quality-of-life additions here too, to make Dead Rising less cumbersome. Every weapon you pick up now has a durability bar, so you know when the best time is to throw your 2×4 into a zombie’s noggin to clear inventory space. Frank can now move while aiming, and the user interface, which the developers have said can be switched off entirely, has also been overhauled to better track quests and survivors on the map.

If these changes are more typical of a remaster, the reworked presentation is closer to a full on remake. Facial animations have been completely redone, while the mall itself is more visually dense with some impressive lighting effects, even if the level of interactivity within it is the same. All the NPC dialogue outside of cutscenes is voiced now too, with Otis, who rings you regularly to provide updates on survivors, having an actual voice this time around.

The significant visual overhaul makes the zombie splatter more satisfying, but the combat is the area where Dead Rising shows its age. It’s clear the developers wanted to retain the spirit of the original in this regard, with the stiff jank of the Xbox 360 era in full swing, with every golf club thwack and haphazard skateboard ride. It has its charms but in light of the other improvements, it is a shame Capcom didn’t simply go all the way and overhaul this aspect too.

For many though, an Xbox 360 throwback is entirely what this deluxe remaster should be, and Capcom has only accentuated and heightened Dead Rising’s goofy qualities here. If you buy the digital deluxe edition for an extra £10, Capcom is bundling in 17 costumes and music tracks, including some from Resident Evil, Mega Man, Street Fighter, and even Darkstalkers.

Customising Frank was another key part of the original, and now any outfit you discover throughout the mall can be easily selected in a new storage locker within the security room.

During our session, the Licker became our unsettling skin of choice, with his elongated tongue rigidly suspended in the air during cut scenes to a hilariously silly degree. Even if you don’t gel with Dead Rising’s gameplay, there’s an unashamedly daft sensibility to the whole thing, best demonstrated by the cartoonish psychopath boss fights, that it’s easy to slip under its spell.

For those who have fond memories of Dead Rising, this is shaping up to be another great example of Capcom celebrating its IP with maximum flair. The core bones of Dead Rising might not be on the same level as Resident Evil or Marvel Vs. Capcom, but for a ‘remaster’ of a pretty decent 18-year-old Xbox 360 game, this is about as high as the bloodied barbell can go.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (previewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £44.99
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: 19th September (physical on 8/11)
Age Rating: 18

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