Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster review – a mixed bag of changes to this zombie classic

Since its debut in 2006, Dead Rising has built its reputation as the zany zombie sandbox game about making your kill counter constantly tick up while using everything and the kitchen sink to smash rotting brains. But as you went about depriving the zombie masses of their putrefying faculties, it quickly became clear that Dead Rising wasn’t just another mindless action game, as it tackled themes and issues around US consumerism smartly and seriously.

As you’d expect, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster carries that forward. As cocky photojournalist Frank West flies into Willamette Parkview Mall to investigate why the military’s locked off the small town, the game literally congratulates you with ‘Perfect!’ and ‘Great!’ stickers for snapping pics of a man getting eaten alive or a gas station exploding – and that’s before we get to the titular undead, now even grosser with their 2024 graphical polish, who act as the physical embodiment of this undying, destructive, occasionally cartoony need to consume, flocking to a what was probably 2006’s biggest monument to capitalism: the shopping mall (though if Capcom was ever to make a new Dead Rising, they’d probably have to update the setting to an Amazon warehouse).

Still, the Willamette Mall remains a powerful canvas even now for Capcom’s zombie adventure, as it gives Frank free rein to add everything (and the kitchen sink) to his shopping cart. Everything’s available to grab free of charge, and everything can be turned into a zombie-killing machine. A shiny new TV? That’ll definitely crush some skulls. Some CDs? I could probably pull off a Shaun Of The Dead trickshot with those. An actual shopping cart? Sure. There are so many options here that even Like A Dragon’s Ichiban and Kiryu would balk and salivate at such potential prospects for violence.

All of that satire is still intact in this new version, but it’s also not lost on me that Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is also technically the second Dead Rising remaster Capcom has served up in less than a decade – the first being the tenth anniversary remaster from 2016 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. This ‘Deluxe Remaster’ brings it up to date for modern consoles (including PS5 and Xbox Series X and S) with improved 4K visuals and a 60fps frame rate, but it still might not be the definitive way to play this classic zombie-masher. “And yet he complained that his belly was not full” indeed.

First things first. Despite the name, this incarnation of Dead Rising occupies that awkward middle ground between a straight-up visual remaster and a full-on remake. Willamette has been wonderfully rebuilt from the ground-up in Capcom’s RE Engine, including all the cash registers, hangers, and people that fill up its walls, but unlike Capcom’s more recent Resident Evil re-releases, its structure and story beats are fundamentally the same as before. Nothing has changed on that front – which is totally fine in and of itself, but don’t go in expecting any big sweeping changes here.

Of course, if this is your first time playing Dead Rising, then there’s plenty to savour here. Environments have tons more detail this time around, and even as a returning player, poking around its familiar plazas to see what had changed filled me with a joyful kind of nostalgia – particularly since I didn’t have to deal with its awkward tank controls any more, which have been blissfully relegated to an optional control scheme. The lighting is gorgeous, too, and when it bounces off the freshly-mopped floors at nighttime, I almost felt slightly guilty that I had to spoil them so much with freshly splattered zombie chunks.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster doesn’t just remove the friction from simply moving around – rewards feel much bigger than before now, too, making certain encounters easier thanks to your larger pool of experience points. Autosaves are also present, so you won’t accidentally lose 45 minutes of progress because you forgot to stock up on juice before a big boss fight. A useful bit of modernisation, no doubt, but I dunno – part of me quite enjoyed the grind in the original Dead Rising, and I have fond memories of racking up experience and prestige points, dying to an insurmountable enemy and then restarting with all my progress – and knowledge about where to find the best guns – carried forward. It may have been slightly laborious, but it gave you the freedom to steamroll through parts that were extra tricky to save on your limited countdown timer. Deluxe Remaster still lets you restart with all your stats and skills in the same way, but there’s little need to do so now when you can effectively rewind to your last autosave and grind for points much faster.

That’s probably very much a ‘me’ problem, though, as on the whole, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster still has an enjoyable rhythm to it. In softening those punishing saves and awkward controls, I was able to drink in all of its absurd humour and biting satire without the tedious headache that accompanied it previously. Your mileage may vary if you’re a returning player that knows Willamette’s mall zones like the back of your hand, but it’s certainly more approachable than it’s ever been before.

Buffed up concrete walls are one thing, but Deluxe Remaster’s updated character models are sadly a little more hit-and-miss. Dead Rising was always a little bit cartoonish in tone, but at certain angles, some of its characters look like unusually porous Play-Doh figures. That wasn’t a problem in earlier versions of the game when those mushy faces felt like they were exaggerating Dead Rising’s already off the wall humour (let’s not forget this is a game where a murderous clown who speaks like Mickey Mouse accidentally chainsaws himself in half, so I can suspend my belief for goofy-looking characters), but it’s a little jarring to see them exposed against these newer, more realistic backgrounds.

Frank himself gets a bit of a rough ride, too, and there are times when his tired face show every bit of those almost-20 years between now and 2006. He loses some of his youthful arrogance and wild thirst for a scoop in the process, and he looks like more of an everyman character now. It’s a small gripe in the grand scheme of things, but occasionally it’s enough to take you out of the experience rather than pull you further in.

Thankfully, Capcom has avoided the worst of these immersion-breaking moments by smoothing over some of its rougher edges elsewhere. For instance, I’m glad that The Butcher boss is no longer a stomping Asian caricature that looks like a Buddha statue come to life, and I’m relieved to see it’s excised the ‘erotica’ category from Frank’s photo repertoire, meaning players can no longer earn extra points by exploiting its female characters. The seedier side of the internet will no doubt say the latter feels hypocritical when Frank can still earn points by exploiting other moments of ‘perversion’ – catching the moment of someone’s brutal demise, say – but let’s be serious. There is simply no need for having an entire side mission dedicated to upskirting, zooming in on cleavage, and that goes doubly so when the original Dead Rising’s critique of the exploitation of women’s bodies never went any further than that anyway. It was simple titillation back then, and it’s reassuring to see Dead Rising moving with the times like this.

All this probably goes some way to explaining some of Deluxe Remaster’s other tonal modernisations, though the decision to remove all references to Vietnam from veteran psychopath Cliff Hudson’s storyline is arguably the most curious one of the lot. Rather than insisting Frank belongs to the Viet Cong when he first encounters him, Cliff now simply calls Frank a ‘mole’, and is traumatised by an unnamed conflict. For a game that seems so at ease with criticising other parts of the American machine, it’s an odd change, to say the least.

Taken altogether, the appeal of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster ultimately comes down to how familiar you are with the original. On the cynical cash grab to celebratory love letter spectrum, I reckon it leans closer to the latter, as aside from its visual facelift and combat overhaul, there are tons of little improvements here that make it more approachable and easier to get into. Upgrades for your camera are now scattered around the mall, friendly escorts aren’t quite as idiotic as before, and the original’s scrapped rocket launcher is here too. Other changes will be more divisive for diehards of the original, such as that gentler difficulty curve, and whatever’s going on with Frank’s face. But that’s okay, because Capcom hasn’t caved in the skull of its 2016 remaster with this new release – that still exists for those who want a 1:1 recreation of Willamette Mall, warts and all, and it’s considerably cheaper to boot. But if you’d rather have those quality of life improvements, higher frame rates and beautifully lit floors to turn into your own personal red room, then Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is probably worth scooping up instead.

A copy of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster was provided for review by Capcom.