Easily one of the best purveyors of remakes and remasters in the games industry today, Capcom looks set to continue that streak with this month’s Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, a full-fat remaster of 2006’s zombie-mashing odyssey that few would have expected. Thankfully while Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster keeps the core design of the original title fiercely intact, Capcom has nonetheless made great strides to make a remake that feels appropriately refreshed on current-generation gaming hardware. So without further ado, here is everything new that Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster brings to the table for new and old fans alike.
Completely Updated Visual Presentation Brings The Undead To (Un)Life
As with just about any remastering effort worth its salt, one of the marquee selling points of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is the substantial visual uplift the game has received over its 2006 source material. Taking full advantage of Capcom’s immensely scalable and capable RE Engine, Frank West, the thousands of zombies surrounding him and Willamette’s favourite mall have all arguably never looked better. Not only does the shift to Capcom’s latest iteration of the RE Engine result in smoother and more detailed visuals, but a lot of attention has been given to subtle details such as increased facial detail, more realistic physical materials and of course, much better blood splatters than what we saw in the original Dead Rising.
Fully Voiced Characters – At Last
A world away from the frequent silence of the original Dead Rising (an odd set of circumstances considering how loud and brash the game otherwise was), Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster brings a fully voiced cast of characters to the fore. Though characters from the original are now given a voice where they didn’t have one previously – such as mission giver Otis, for example – his witterings can be skipped if you so choose. Notably as part of this voice acting refresh, other previously voiced characters have been recast, including main protagonist Frank West.
Auto Saves Are Here To Save Your Controller (And Your Progress)
I dread to think how many poor OG Xbox 360 controllers were crushed or ruined in the hands of rightly aggravated players when after dying, they realised that Dead Rising hadn’t saved their progress automatically beforehand. Now a thing of the past, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster employs a checkpoint system similar to the one seen in Dead Rising 2: Off The Record. What this means for the uninitiated, is that should Frank die, players can just continue after the most recent cutscene or area transition. Happy days all around.
You Can Run And Gun Without Worry
Though it might seem like a small thing that is easily missed, in the original Dead Rising, our boy Frank could hold and shoot a gun, but couldn’t run while doing so. That changes for Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster where our intrepid journalist can blast and dash with ease, though ammo should still be used frugally wherever possible.
A Smarter, More Deadly Undead Horde To Contend With
Despite what the majority of popular culture might tell us about zombies and their seeming lack of intelligence, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster runs contrary to that line of thinking, bestowing the vast, festering horde with a cleverness that was almost completely absent from Dead Rising’s original outing. Now, zombies not only have improved pathing, so they can find their way around furniture and other such environmental obstacles easier than before, but they will actively try and force Frank into corners and other difficult-to-escape nooks and crannies to boot. Oh, and cop zombies will occasionally decide to shoot their firearms too, which is something else that they didn’t do before, so that’s nice.
Survivors Also Gain A Grey Matter Upgrade, Too
It’s not just the zombies who have gotten smarter for Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, the numerous survivors that you’ll encounter in the game have too. No longer will they dumbly run into a horde of zombies if one exists between them and their objective, but instead they’ll look to skirt around the horde rather than just stumbling into it. Simply put, survivors are now much more aware of their mortality which is objectively great for your stress levels.
Survivor Affinity Gives You More Reasons To Care
In Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, survivors aren’t just a monolith of sometimes clumsy, randomly effective companions. Thanks to the new survivor affinity system, if Frank gives each survivor various items according to their unique preferences, they will reward him with improved efficiency in combat, not to mention the ability to find valuable PP stickers for our granite-jawed hero, too.
Expanded And Refined Environments
It’s not just the visuals that have had a significant overhaul in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, the environments have also been meaningfully updated. Ranging from the significant to the not-so-significant but still neat, changes to Dead Rising’s mall include handy yellow paint that helps to direct you to your next objective and a new rooftop staircase that makes shepherding survivors to freedom easier than ever before. Elsewhere, there are additional elements in the environment that can be used to smash the undead hordes, such as the fruit hanging on the trees at the plaza entrance and a shiny new blender which can be discovered in the security room.
Get All The Endings Much More Quickly
One of the most thoughtful additions that Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster brings to the dance is a fast-forward feature. Now, while such a feature might not seem especially great on its own, it does mean that when you’re pursuing one of the seven different endings that the game boasts, you can skip forward precisely to the point in time where you need to do something different in order to trigger it. No more waiting around, then. Huzzah!
A Change Of Threads
Taking inspiration from Dead Rising 3, Frank can now change his wardrobe in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster by simply popping into a clothing closet and picking from any costume that he has on hand. Hey, if you’re killing zombies and psychopaths, you need to do it looking your best, right?
Reworked Camera Functionality
One area that has been quite heavily reworked for Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is the camera mechanic that sits at the core of the game. For a start, the number of photos that Frank can snap leapt from 30 to 100, and the camera itself can now be upgraded, allowing Frank to use things like flash photography to stun enemies. Finally, the erotica category of photos has been replaced with outtake photos.
Can’t wait to experience these changes for yourself and spend many happy hours taking on the undead in a myriad of creative ways? Then why not grab your copy over on the Green Man Gaming store – you would be braindead not to!
