You just can’t keep a zombie game down, can you? Much like the undead that have invaded the land of the living, it feels almost inevitable that zombie games will spawn sequels, no matter how long and arduous the development becomes, receive lavish remakes and reimaginings, or at the very least end up firmly lodged in the games industry discourse for several years.
Launching on the 18th anniversary of the Willamette Incident, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is the latest in a slew of zombie games that are clawing themselves back into the public eye. We’re absolutely here for it.
Capcom has shown a mastery of classic game remakes over the past half decade, through the excellent reimagining of earlier parts of the Resident Evil series. Resi 2 and 3 were given a complete makeover with modern third-person gameplay at their core, and while Resi 4 was closer to the original in that it already featured third-person camera, there was still plenty of space for modernising the controls and feel of the game.
You could argue that Dead Rising, by contrast, doesn’t need anywhere near as much work to feel like a contemporary game. Coming out in the first year of the Xbox 360’s life, the sandbox setting and gameplay, the number of zombies being shown on screen, the menagerie of silly and playful ways to kill them, and the generally tongue-in-cheek tone all play well close to two decades later. Perhaps that’s why so much of this has been kept intact for Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, though I’d still argue that branding this as a remaster, deluxe or otherwise, is a huge misnomer.
For one thing, this is just as much of a remake as Resi 4 was. The game has been reconstructed within RE Engine, all of the character models have been remade, the shopping mall has been given a major spruce up and large parts of the environment redesigned, and there’s plenty of other tweaks and changes throughout. The core gameplay might be practically the same, but this is a remake through and through.
With this being a remake, Capcom has been able to go through and make several quality-of-life improvements throughout. The 72-hour in-game time limit and constantly ticking clock for missions remain, but if you find yourself stuck for things to do – let’s say you just want to race through the story and ignore rescuing survivors – then you can skip time back at base. Saving is similar, in that manual saves will still need you to nip to the loos dotted around the mall, but an autosave system will trigger as you go between areas and at key story moments, so you don’t have to retrace your steps anywhere near as much if you die. Oh, and radio calls and dialogue won’t be interrupted when being attacked or performing certain actions anymore, and all the dialogue is now voiced, so even Otis has a voice! Then there’s durability indicators in the UI to show the state of your weapons, and plenty more besides.
They’re all honestly great improvements to see, just rounding off the edges of the zombie-bashing original. This was my very first time playing the first Dead Rising – I had a fun time with the PC release of Dead Rising 3 – and the autosave in particular let me just barrel straight into the mess of zombies with barely a care in the world, wholeheartedly embracing the silliness of the zombie-bashing action.
You’re clued in on some of the game’s irreverent tone from the helicopter-based opening, as Frank gets a ride into town and snaps photos of what’s supposedly local rioting from the air. The camera is a constant companion through the game – Frank’s running animations always have him clutching the camera to his chest to keep it safe – and you can always switch to the viewfinder and snap a quick photo, while this remake is bringing new photo filters to add more creativity. Each photo, though, is immediately rated to judge the number of subjects in view, highlight any particular moments of action, like a zombie head exploding, judge the theme, like the comedic value of zombies with bear costume heads slapped on them, and then spit out a score.
Inevitably, I would keep forgetting to try and take photos, instead focussing on the opening day of the game’s 72-hour story, and just messing with the throngs of zombies that shamble around the shopping centre. There’s a simple joy to discovering what’s possible, quickly nipping into a shop to grab things off shelves to use as weapons, some of which are pleasant surprises. It took a moment for me to realise that the golf club isn’t just a melee weapon, but can line up a drive to power a golf ball into a zombie’s noggin, while throwing a pie at a zombie is just wonderfully satisfying for the cream that splatters across their head and blinds them, or you can ride a skateboard through the throngs of enemies. Oh, and I mustn’t forget about the lawnmower, or even just Frank’s eventual ability to decapitate zombies with a backflip kick!
It’s even goofier if you do all this in costume. Naturally, you can still pick up some new kicks and clothes off the racks of clothing stores, but there’s a bunch of new costumes, such as the oversized bee mascot, with antennae that will happily clip through scenery during cutscenes. The Deluxe Remaster’s digital deluxe edition – as if the game name wasn’t deluxe enough – will also bundle in some extras with the obligatory RPD uniform, the bizarre horror of a blood-splattered bunny, the long-tongued licker, and more.
On the surface level, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster just gives the 18-year-old game a fresh lick of paint, but as I’ve said plenty times already, there’s a fair bit more going on here than that. We’re just over a month away from the full release and, since I never played the original, I’m looking forward to diving in for more of the mid-2000s zombie-bashing shenanigans.
