Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is the perfect setup for a new sequel

Dead Rising knew exactly what it was. Keiji Inafune‘s B-movie zombie smash-em-up is a quintessential Xbox 360 game. A relic of the transition from SD to HD, while some companies focused on hyper-realistic graphics that have aged terribly, Capcom focused on shoving as many zombies on screen as possible.

From a core gameplay perspective, Dead Rising is just as fun to play in 2024 as it was in 2006, a testament to its simple loop, and campy slapstick horror. If you’ve not had the pleasure of liberating the heads from the shoulders of the zombies of Willamette before, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster also serves as a great way to get into the series.

You play as Frank West, an Ant McPartlin lookalike-come-photojournalist who’s on the hunt for the next big scoop. Quickly he finds himself trapped in a mall, teeming with both zombies and survivors, and only three days to save everyone he can. Dead Rising’s gimmick is that every mission is on a timer, which is measured by an in-game clock that is constantly counting down. If you miss a survivor because you didn’t get to them on time, they’re dead for that run.

Frank can murder zombies with everything that’s not nailed to the floor, as well as dress up in dozens of lavish costumes. It’s a hugely silly, incredibly fun third-person action game that we were thrilled to have an excuse to go back to.

For veterans, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is Dead Rising as you remember it. It’s not a remake on the level of Resident Evil 2, 3 or 4, but it cleans up the grime and sands down the rough edges to make the game look modern enough and play much better.

While you can move while you aim, the save system is far more forgiving, Capcom hasn’t ripped the foundations out of the original game. You can almost see exactly where remake-style changes could have happened. The mall is still segmented, despite technology meaning a fully open mall would have been simple. The UI is still basic and blocky, almost like it’s still being designed to be read on an