The original Dead Rising was released as an Xbox 360 exclusive in 2006 and quickly became one of the main selling points for Microsoft’s second console. The game came out during a period when Zombie media was beginning to see a renaissance in popular culture. Releasing two years after the Dawn of the Dead remake and cult classic zombie parody Shaun of the Dead, and just a few years before The Walking Dead became a cultural phenomenon, Dead Rising holds its place as an important entry in the beloved Zombie fiction.
18 years later, Capcom has decided to re-release the game with Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster. The timing of this release is interesting, as it’s many years after the zombie craze was at its peak, and an entire console generation after Dead Rising 4 tried and failed to reinvigorate the series. It would have been easy to assume the franchise was on ice after years away, but the release of this remaster so many years later indicates to me that Capcom is at least testing the waters to see if a “modern audience” is still interested in this long-running series.
So then, is this remaster worth your time and money as either a veteran of the series or as a newcomer? The simple answer is yes, but it’s complicated. Let’s dig into why that is in the XboxEra review of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster.
Story and Characters
In Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, you play Frank West, a journalist who arrives in the town of Willamette to cover the story of what is going on in the town after being told that something serious is happening. Eventually after dropping in via helicopter, you arrive at the local mall and realize that the entire town is being overrun by zombies. You spend the next 72 hours of in-game time discovering exactly how this zombie infestation began, uncovering mysteries, and meeting new characters along the way. I think the story in Dead Rising is okay. The plot itself isn’t too memorable but the cast of characters you’ll meet are well done if not a little generic.
You are fortunately able to focus on the story as much or as little as you want to. You have the option to completely skip the main plot and focus on doing anything else and I think the freedom to choose how much plot you want to deal with is a strength of the game.
The story in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is mostly the same as the original 2006 release, but one of the main changes is the voice actor for Frank West. I will say that the change in the voice for Frank is a little jarring and I never quite bought actor Jas Patrick’s portrayal of the character. I’m not someone who has a lot of nostalgia for the original character, so I don’t think I’m judging the new actor too harshly, but he just sounds like he’s doing an impersonation of what TJ Rotolo brought to the character in 2006.
Frank West was voiced by a different actor in 2016’s Dead Rising 4 as well and I thought that was an even more jarring change than we see in the Deluxe Remaster. I’m not exactly sure why Capcom keeps recasting the character. Rotolo was not even asked to come back for this re-release, so it’s truly a mystery as to why this change even happened in the first place. It didn’t ruin the game for me but it never felt quite right and that’s a shame when the game does so much else to pay homage to the original release.
Visual Makeover
When jumping into this remaster for the first time, the thing that is most apparent right away is the visual upgrade. The game’s visuals feel like a massive jump up thanks to the RE Engine and outside of a few odd looking survivors or weird visual glitches the game looks really nice.
Frank West and the main cast all see a facelift and they look great. The mall has always been the star of Dead Rising and it looks better than ever, featuring completely retouched environments and new lighting effects. I think Capcom did an incredible job of making the setting look much better without changing the vibes of the original game. The Willamette Mall is such an iconic setting in video game history and it would have been a shame if they didn’t respect the original vision, so I’m glad they played it a bit safe here and just left the mall alone.
It’s easy to play Deluxe Remaster and forget just how much better this game looks compared to the original game, but comparing the two side by side is the only way to truly give this new release justice. I wouldn’t say the game looks as impressive as Capcom’s other Zombie re-release in Resident Evil 2, but Dead Rising Deluxe Edition feels like a game that was given a genuine budget rather than just a re-release cash grab.
While the visuals at a glance look great, there is a shocking amount of pop in that I had to get used to while playing. There are a lot of zombies on screen, but it was a frequent occurrence to see a horde of zombies completely pop into frame no more than 20 feet away. It’s yet another reminder that this game is built on the bones of a 2006 release.
Gameplay and QOL improvements
The gameplay is the main selling point of Dead Rising and I’m happy to say it still holds up well. It’s still insanely satisfying to roam the Willamette Mall and mow down zombies with a variety of objects that you’d expect to find in an everyday shopping mall. Dead Rising hasn’t lost its charm as you can still expect to throw a pie in a zombie’s face and then proceed to run it over with a shopping cart moments after taking out a crowd with an electric guitar.
The games over the top zombie survival fantasy is a nice contrast with the main plot which can get pretty self-serious at points. I found myself losing hours to the game via what I was making Frank West do on my screen and I think that’s a good enough sign that the game still has that magic.
While much of the game feels unchanged for the better, there are a few quality-of-life improvements in this remaster that add to an already excellent feeling gameplay experience. You level up much quicker in this game and are awarded new skills at a rapid pace meaning you won’t have to wait long to jump-kick a zombie or tackle them to the ground.
Capcom has also modernized the control scheme making the game feel great to play on a controller, including the ability to move while aiming a weapon, a small addition but it does make a difference.
The game’s UI and map have been nearly completely redesigned and they feel modern. I wouldn’t say I spent too much of my time in the game starting at the map or the stats screen, but they were easy to interact with and a big mechanical improvement over the original game.
Unfortunately, while much of the game holds up and has improved in this remaster, a few parts of the game-design that were not given much attention have aged poorly and dragged down the overall experience.
Stuck in 2006
The portion of the game that didn’t see any improvements are the human encounters you face when roaming throughout the mall. You will sometimes encounter human NPCs, Survivors who are friendly companions that you can rescue and bring back to your safe house, or enemy types called Psychopaths that have taken over sections of the map.
The Survivors are usually one-note characters that you can briefly interact with before you escort them to safety. They are incredibly dumb and often get stuck in zombie hordes or fail to keep up with you. Escort missions are rarely great in video games and they are especially bad here and something I wanted to avoid when possible.
The Psycho encounters are not much better and can be even more tedious. Some of these encounters are optional but some are unavoidable if you want to progress. The setup for these encounters are great, with well-done creepy cutscenes that truly build up the tension. Unfortunately, the actual gameplay is pretty poor. For most of the battles I had with these psychos, I was able to defeat them in less than a few minutes because of how poor the AI is in this game.
To call the Psychos dumb would be an understatement. These enemies which are supposed to pose a larger singular threat than any zombie posed almost zero challenge due to how poorly they navigated the space. Most psychos I encountered would either get stuck in geometry, fail to land attacks on me if there were any objects in between them and where I was, or just sit there as I pumped bullets into them. Every encounter was quick and thorough, not because I had mastered anything with the games mechanics, but because I quickly figured out how to break the AI.
Without going into story spoilers, one early encounter has you face a human enemy in a food court. This is supposed to be presented as a challenge because they have a sniper rifle, but because human enemies in this game are so poorly designed, I just snuck behind him and shot him a dozen times with a pistol until I defeated him.
Another Psychopath encounter took place outside where a group of three enemies were riding in a vehicle. The encounter was incredibly awkward mostly because the car slowly drove around and kept getting stuck on geometry. I just had to lumber around and hit the enemies a few times to take them down. These are only two examples, but each encounter during my play-through followed a similar formula. Huge build-up and subsequent letdown due to how easy it was to break the games AI. Much of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster feels like a modern game. Unfortunately, the Psychopath encounters feel stuck in the Xbox 360 era.
More than a Remaster, definitely not a Remake
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster lives in between a full-on remake like Resident Evil 2 and a simple remaster that upgrades the game’s visuals. It does more than a lot of games with the Remaster verbiage but doesn’t do enough to make it feel substantially updated over the original game. That is both a good and bad thing, the original game still holds up quite well in some areas but feels incredibly outdated in others.
It’s hard not to wish Capcom had gone just a little further with this remaster and focused on retooling the parts of the game that desperately need an upgrade, but it’s clear Capcom was not looking to completely remake the game. So much of this game looks and feels improved due to the tremendous efforts that went to it, leading to the parts of the game that didn’t see equivalent attention feeling that much worse.
Conclusion
I think Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is the best way to play the first game. It honors the 2006 release with updated visuals that don’t change the tone and there are enough improvements on the edges to make this feel like the definitive version of the game. The change to Frank West’s voice isn’t great and was a distraction throughout. The Human AI in Dead Rising is as bad as it was in 2006 and hampers what is otherwise a classic game.
If you are a fan of Dead Rising there’s a good chance you will really like this remaster. If you’ve never played the game before and want a fun zombie slaughter simulation, this game still holds up well, but you’ll have to look past some of the game’s flaws and remind yourself that it is still bound by 360-era design.
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Looks really nice
- Zombie slaying is as fun as ever
- Meaningful improvements around the edges
CONS
- Human AI is Dreadful
- New Frank West voice is not great
- Shocking amount of visual pop in
A lot of reviews hitting. Thanks for the hard work XboxEra team.
Thanks for the review! Very thorough and honest. By the way, there is a slip of the tongue at 8:27. You can hear ‘Dead Space Deluxe Remaster’.
I enjoyed reading that review, something I don’t do often anymore these days.
It’s a shame that Capcom didn’t bother improving AI, that would have gone a long way.
One thing, nothing about the timer in the game. Isn’t that in the game anymore? I don’t think I’ve ever fully played through the original, but were you always able to just fool around as long as you wanted in the mall without the timer running?