Capcom will be bringingDead Rising Deluxe Remasterto the market on September 19. This version will be for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC only, and the visual improvements are to thank for that. There will be a physical release of the game at a later date, but the source material is staying close to home. The fanbase that loves the original title will be pleased to hear this, as the rest of the series never met the standard the first title set. Frank West is an iconic character for a reason.
The Dead Rising series, especially the first two games, come off as a true B-Movie to Capcom’s Resident Evil. It’s the setting that makes the original Dead Rising so special along with its characters. Frank West is a freelance journalist that consists of all the tropes and stereotypes that journalists in movies tend to have. What works great is blending the gray area of doing anything to get his story while also showing compassion. He comes off as a dirt bag and the visual upgrades to him in theDead Rising Deluxe Remasteralmost pushes that envelope more. He helps the game to truly portray almost a one-off horror movie.
Fans of the original Dawn of the Dead from George Romero are who this game is truly aimed at. Ironically, it launched two years after Zack Snyder’s remake of the movie, which is fantastic in its own right, although the game follows the setting and direction of the first movie more. In the game, it’s identified quickly that zombies are slow and stupid, much like the ones in the original Dawn of the Dead. Albeit, Romero was making a political take on commercialism in the movie and this game seems to touch that a bit, as well. Things don’t get serious until they are serious in Dead Rising. The setting is the Willamette Shopping Mall with plenty to explore as corridors narrow more and more as zombies continue to fill the hallways.
What made Dead Rising’s gameplay so attractive is that it was a sandbox game at the time where there weren’t many sandbox games. Players could have Frank West try on different clothes and use almost anything as a weapon. There will be DLC available for other costumes in this release. Eight of these were available for this preview which includes a Leon Kennedy outfit, an actual Licker from Resident Evil, Chuck Greene, Frank West 2006, Willamette Parkview Mall Bee, Creepy Rabbit, Rikuo and Mega Man from Battle Network. Leon, the Licker, Creepy Rabbit, Rikuo and Mega Man are included with the Digital Deluxe Edition and Chuck Green, Frank West 2006 and the Mall Bee are pre-order bonuses.
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What to Expect
Dead Rising Digital Remaster starts with the same dark introduction video of a mother and her child stuck in the midst of the zombie outbreak. This has also received the visual upgrades as players can witness the details on the faces of the models as well as the facial animations and the environments. These upgrades bring the series in line with the remakes of Resident Evil. The intro video (still arguably the greatest intro video to any horror game) provides an idea of just how dark this game can get, but the environment and the zombies counter that and introduce a sense of innocence that isn’t seen elsewhere. It makes players start taking things for granted and provides a false sense of confidence.
The preview version was played on PC as Capcom recommends either an AMD RX 6900 XT or NVIDIA RTX 3080 and above to play the game at 4K resolution and 60 FPS. Some visual options worth noting is that the game can be played at higher than 60 FPS and Capcom has included FidelityFX Super Resolution 3, Intel Xe Super Sampling and NVIDIA DLSS. There aren’t any ray tracing options for the game, however, but DLSS Frame Generation and NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency are options. Other detailed tidbits for visual options include screen space reflections, volumetric lighting, ambient occlusion, subsurface scattering, bloom, lens flare and adjusting the number of characters on the screen. The option to leave persistent corpses is also available.
There are other quality-of-life improvements that players can expect. The 72 Hour Mode, which was a big measuring stick for this game’s favorability, returns as players will need to keep track of their time to make sure they don’t miss their ticket out of here. Rather than dying and starting completely over, the game has the option to pick up from an autosave. Players can also play with aim assist and 3D audio will be included. Going back and comparing to Dead Rising HD from 2016, the difference in visual details are night and day.
Players will still need to take photos with Frank to help level up stats. Food can still be made and other attributes will still need to be upgraded throughout the journey. Boss fights will progress the story and saving people is still important to help with leveling up. Players should also expect quicker loading times on SSD or NVME drives for PC. While the PC graphics options are listed above, the graphical options that consoles will have are unknown. Fans returning to an updated look of Willamette Mall will be able to experience the nightmare all over again with a much more realistic look.
