Right out of nowhere, with no leaks or rumors or even official teases, CAPCOM has published a trailer for Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster. It’s an updated version of the first game in the franchise, originally released for Xbox 360 in 2006. It will be released for ‘new generation platforms’, which clearly includes PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X (and hopefully PC, too), at some point in 2024.
It does seem to be more than your average remaster (hence the Deluxe moniker) since the visual uplift is pretty significant. However, the main character, Frank West, has clearly suffered a bit of a facial redesign, and I have a feeling it may be a bit controversial.
Anyway, as a long-standing franchise fan, I really appreciate the return of Dead Rising. The original game was very fun, and its time-sensitive mechanics also made it unique compared to many modern games. The last game in the series, Dead Rising 4, launched in December 2016 without any of those time-based systems and was the worst for it.
As you might remember, CAPCOM Vancouver was making Dead Rising 5 between 2016 and 2018, but the home office in Japan decided to ax it and shut down the studio after spending around $40 million on the project.
According to a report by Liam Robertson, the game would have taken place in Santa Catarina, Mexico, between the events of Dead Rising 2 and 3, and would have featured Dead Rising 2 protagonist Chuck Greene.
Dead Rising 5 would have been powered by Epic’s Unreal Engine 4, which wasn’t nearly as refined then as it is now, and reportedly posed some serious development challenges for CAPCOM Vancouver as they tried to make an open-world title with massive zombie hordes roaming around, as is customary for the Dead Rising franchise. At one point, the developers even considered switching from the usual bombastic and cheesy Dead Rising atmosphere to something much more serious.
Perhaps CAPCOM, which is in a much rosier financial situation nowadays, is testing the waters with this Deluxe Remaster to possibly greenlight a brand new installment in the franchise. One can hope, anyway.
