REVIEW: ‘Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster’ is a Fun and Finely Crafted Package (PC)

Capcom released the first entry in the Dead Rising series almost two decades ago, back in 2006, for Xbox 360. It became an instant fan favorite that spawned several successful sequels. Now, in 2024, the publisher has decided to release a remaster through Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, which offers a slew of new major and minor changes. The remaster also does a great job of overhauling the experience for brand-new players while fixing several of the original’s issues.

The plot of Dead Rising is relatively straightforward but offers a unique twist on the traditional zombie narrative. Players are put in the shoes of Frank West, a photojournalist who flies to the town of Willamette, Colorado, to investigate a sudden mysterious zombie outbreak. Armed with only his camera on a quest to get the scoop of a lifetime, Frank quickly finds himself trapped inside a massive shopping mall teeming with the undead.

Once he arrives, he meets several survivors of the Department of Homeland Security and helps them rescue and secure an important person of interest while trying to discover the true origins of the mysterious infection. He does all this while fighting off psychopaths who get in his way before 72 hours run out and his only chance of leaving arrives.

The game’s setting, the Willamette Parkview Mall, is one of the most iconic aspects of Dead Rising. The mall is a sprawling, multi-level location with stores, restaurants, and more. The environment is diverse and detailed, from toy shops to food courts, which provide tons of opportunities for exploration and combat. The mall serves as both a battleground and a playground, where almost every item you come across can be used as a weapon.

One of the best aspects of the remaster is the overhauled visuals, which look night and day compared to the original. Thanks to the RE Engine, models are more detailed and stand out more, colors are more vibrant, and character models look significantly less dated. As such, the remaster may be worth a purchase for the visual changes alone.

In terms of gameplay. Dead Rising‘s combines action, exploration, and time management. Frank can use nearly any object in the mall as a weapon. Baseball bats, lawnmowers, frying pans, katanas, and even toy swords can be used to fend off the endless and massive hordes of zombies.

The freedom to choose whichever method of dispatching zombies allows players to experiment with creative ways to eliminate the undead. However, it is worth noting that as this is only the first title, players unfortunately won’t have access to some of the crazier weapons, apparel, and vehicles seen in the sequels. Despite this, the combat is still chaotic and satisfying.

A highlight of Dead Rising is its many peculiar bosses and psychopath enemies. These enemies make the game incredibly entertaining and fun due to their zany actions in and out of combat. Whether you’re dodging a psychopathic supermarket clerk’s murderous shopping cart or rescuing a woman from crazy escaped convicts, you will never have a dull moment while playing Dead Rising. Additionally, some bosses can take quite some time to defeat, while some boss fights are almost comically short, especially if you know what you are doing. Regardless, they are all still really fun in their unique ways.

Another standout feature of the game is the time-based structure. Frank has 72 in-game hours (roughly six real-time) to investigate the zombie outbreak, rescue survivors, and complete story missions. Missions are time-sensitive, and failing to complete them within the given window results in missed opportunities or even a failed playthrough. This creates a constant sense of urgency as players must decide how to balance rescuing survivors, gathering resources, and advancing the main story. However, a problem that persists even in the remake is how harsh the time limits are for most missions.

Players will need to spend most of their time on main missions as the overall time limit is quite short. This means they have to ignore several side missions and rescue missions that often take time to ensure they see the full story. What’s worse is that if you run out of time, the game will inform you that “you’ve missed your scoop,” essentially meaning you cannot continue the story, but the story mission will not end. As such, some players may get confused when they find out they’ve ran out of time when they think they haven’t.

Furthermore, the game’s time skip system, which helps players jump to the next mission that occurs at a specific time, is really finicky. So, to get a precise time skip, they’ll have to fast-forward to right before the mission time and wait idly for the best result. Other than these issues, the overall gameplay experience is relatively painless. The game’s structure makes it significantly replayable, and allows each playthrough to be different from the last.

Performance-wise, the remaster sports several new quality-of-life changes, such as more save slots, autosaves at each checkpoint and loading screen, a UI overhaul, fully voiced characters and cutscenes, and more. The PC version also provides players with several new graphics settings, including FSR and DLSS options, ray tracing settings, adjustable refresh rates, a frame rate of up to 120FPS, and so much more. The game does struggle when a significant amount of zombies are on screen but players can adjust zombie numbers in the graphic settings.

It would also be a disservice not to highlight one of the game’s best features: its amazing soundtrack. It is jam-packed with amazing hits and catchy tunes that are shockingly dynamic and appropriate to whatever scenario they are played with. Songs played during boss fights are especially outstanding as they enhance the experience and make each of them memorable and fun.

Overall, while not without its issues, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is an impeccable remaster that feels more like a remake. It offers hours of great entertainment through a well-crafted and highly replayable experience that makes it perhaps one of the most fun games of the year.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster will launch on September 19 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam.