There’s a certain charm to the Capcom of the PS3 generation; a time when its releases were just as likely to land as they were to heavily miss. For every Devil May Cry 4 or Dragon’s Dogma, there was a Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City to set it back to square one. Nowadays, those extreme gulfs in quality have been reduced to single-point differences between high Metacritic ratings, as the publisher reaches new heights with its Resident Evil and Monster Hunter franchises. Its curiosity to create something a little more “out there” has never quite gone away, though, which is what has allowed it to lovingly restore a fan favourite from that same era where it couldn’t decide if it was hot or not.
Dead Rising helped define the early years of the Xbox 360, and despite three sequels in the 18 years since, it has remained a unique experience to this day. In an attempt to recapture that magic, the Deluxe Remaster works essentially as a one-to-one remake with vastly updated visuals, better controls, and many quality-of-life improvements to make photojournalist Frank West shine once more. The end result is an undead undertaking born out of love for the source text that works purely to make it sing all over again.
It’s faithful in every possible way, restoring the original story, premise, and structure in a PS5 setting on the RE Engine. Main character Frank West is a photojournalist investigating a story that’s brought him to Willamette. Having touched down via helicopter on top of the mall at the centre of town, he quickly discovers a zombie outbreak has taken over the place. Frank then has 72 hours until his rescue helicopter arrives, during which time he needs to piece together the story behind the epidemic.
What made Dead Rising different in 2006 — and still does to this day — is its commitment to that three-day timer. The game is actively counting down towards the rescue helicopter’s arrival at all times, and you can only do so much in the time given. Cases (the main story missions) take place at certain times, and if you’re not around to witness their events, the core narrative is lost and you fail to see the plot through to the end. There are survivors spread throughout the Willamette Parkview Mall that are revealed at specific hours, and they die if you don’t manage to make it to them in time. With a seamless New Game+ option letting you keep all the character progress you made, the hardcore mechanic justifies itself over repeat playthroughs as you decide what sort of things you want to accomplish for that particular run. It’s borderline impossible to do absolutely everything in one go, so it becomes a choice of what you fancy doing in the moment.
This time-sensitive structure remains the same in the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, though many upgrades and improvements make it a smoother process. The controls have been updated to allow weapon aiming while moving, and some inputs have been remapped to buttons that make more sense for the modern era. You can now skip ahead in time from any bathroom or save point if you don’t feel like waiting around for the next story beat, and an auto-save feature squashes the risk of losing hours of progress if you die. Since the original title relied entirely on manual saving — which could only be done at select locations throughout the mall — the Deluxe Remaster takes great strides in this regard to relieve frustration.
It does the same for survivor AI, which was far and away the most annoying thing in the original. Every living person you find can be escorted back to the Security Room, which acts as a little hub area for those still breathing. However, it was the torturous trek to get them there that sent blood pressures racing. They never did what you wanted them to do, always getting caught up in groups of zombies and making the journey a lot harder than it needs to be.
Capcom has mostly addressed the problem in the Deluxe Remaster with a general pass on AI that makes survivors more intuitive and reactive to their surroundings, and then expanded the system with new ways to upgrade them. Now, each survivor has a preferred weapon you can give them to make them more powerful, and a food/drink item that’ll heal them. Giving them these preferred items increases their affinity for Frank, which makes them more likely to defend other survivors if you’re rolling in a pack, find more items for you, and even point out PP Stickers. You still need to babysit them to a degree, guiding them along the path you wish to take back to the Security Room. However, the process is overall much, much smoother.
The survivors will also talk to you along the way, as voice acting has been expanded to every role in the game. Significant characters like Otis — who talks to you over the radio — now have a bit of personality to them, and at least every living, breathing person has something to offer instead of on-screen text.
Frank West himself always spoke in the original game, but one casualty of the Deluxe Remaster is the replacement of his original voice actor, Terence J. Rotolo. Honkai: Star Rail and Octopath Traveler II actor Jas Patrick takes the role in the PS5 re-release, and while his performance as Frank is more than acceptable, it doesn’t quite match the personality of Rotolo’s. The change results in a slight downgrade.
The visual overhaul is a welcome example of the opposite, though. The Deluxe Remaster makes the game actually look how you always thought it did through nostalgia-tinted glasses, with significant improvements across all character models, environments, and lighting effects. It’s the latter that actually proves the most impressive, as the late evening sun casts its rays over the mall rooftop as you’re escorting survivors to safety. Or, how Wonderland Plaza glows with its neon-lit rollercoaster in the centre. Overall, it can’t quite compare to other purpose-built PS5 titles, but the work Capcom has put in turns Dead Rising into a pleasing looker all over again.
It’s just slightly disappointing the developer has chosen not to rid the game of its load screens, which trigger whenever you enter a new section of the mall or the Leisure Park in the middle of it. While they’re now incredibly short on PS5 — lasting maybe a second most of the time — it would have been nice to see the location turned into one cohesive setting where you could freely wander from one plaza to the other. At least the load times are the equivalent of “blink and you’ll miss them”.
All these individual enhancements come together to form the definitive Dead Rising experience on PS5, but at its core, the best thing about the Deluxe Remaster is it still is Dead Rising. Even without the graphical and gameplay improvements, the Capcom title remains a fantastic experience. Bringing it back almost two decades later, the game’s commitment to time management and how you reckon with that is still its greatest asset, but now it all looks and plays so much better. With extra content cut during development now restored, like the rocket launcher, the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster sells itself short: this is a stellar remake, not just any old graphical rebuild.
Conclusion
A substantial visual overhaul of Dead Rising is what will immediately stand out most, but where the Deluxe Remaster truly thrives is in all its gameplay touch-ups to make the classic play and feel like any other modern game. They all build to the definitive Dead Rising experience, where its time management feature can be properly appreciated.