Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster Review: Frank’s Big Return

It is shocking to me how well games from the Xbox 360 and PS3 era continue to hold up. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been replaying a lot of games from this period whether it be in their original forms or with new remasters/remakes. Every time I do, I come away wishing that modern releases felt as creative or unique as the titles that stemmed from this era. After playing Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, this feeling has only been amplified further as Capcom’s latest remake perfectly keeps intact the chaotic fun distinct premise of the original. 

For the most part, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is a faithful revamp of the first game in Capcom’s second most popular zombie franchise. You play as journalist Frank West, who finds himself trapped in the Willamette Parkview Mall in the midst of a zombie outbreak. Everything in the mall is then turned into a weapon for Frank as he’s forced to fight off the undead hordes and uncover the mystery behind the epidemic. 

This process of running around and mowing through zombie masses with whatever you can get your hands on in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is just as enjoyable as it was almost two decades ago. The gameplay has also received a number of quality-of-life changes in Deluxe Remaster and feels more fluid than ever before. Thanks to Capcom’s RE Engine, more zombies are able to fill the screen in Deluxe Remaster and can respawn more quickly as well. This latter change can be a bit of an annoyance, though, as I found that dozens of zombies I would have slaughtered would be replaced by a new horde far too quickly. This dampened some of the satisfaction of wiping out an entire section of the mall and being able to traverse about more easily as the fruits of your labor. 

Survivor AI has also been greatly improved in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster to where it’s no longer infuriating to escort civilians to safety. The original version of Dead Rising essentially forced you to babysit any survivors that you came across or risk losing them to the undead. This added a certain level of challenge to Dead Rising, but the challenge was often rooted too much in frustration to be enjoyable. Deluxe Remaster now strikes a much nicer balance and makes the process of saving every survivor much less grueling. 

The one thing that makes DRDR even more forgiving is the mere implementation of auto-saves. This might not seem like a big deal, but again, it eases some of the headaches that are often talked about when it comes to Dead Rising. Being able to immediately jump into a boss fight at the start of the encounter rather than having to reload a previous save from a fixed point was a godsend in Deluxe Remaster and eased the stress that I used to constantly have when playing Dead Rising. 

Despite my overwhelming positivity, some changes in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster have been made that I really don’t understand. Specific characters have had their dialogue or appearances completely altered for reasons that are never made apparent. None of these changes markedly improve Deluxe Remaster when compared to the original Dead Rising, which just has me questioning why some of it was done in the first place. I wouldn’t say these tweaks make Deluxe Remaster drastically worse by comparison, but it’s certainly puzzling. 

Frank West has also seen some notable overhauls in his character design and voice in Deluxe Remaster, both of which I don’t care for as much when compared to his initial appearance. This new iteration of Frank grew on me over time and I had him wearing such outlandish outfits while I played that it almost didn’t matter what Capcom turned his base design into. Still, I can’t help but miss the performance of original voice actor TJ Rotolo and I wish he could’ve been involved with this remake. 

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster hasn’t only been fun to revisit as a longtime fan, it has further proven to me just how much juice this series has left in it. Capcom made all of the right choices in Deluxe Remaster from a gameplay standpoint, and even if there are other alterations that I don’t care for, it’s hard to say that this is anything but the definitive version of Dead Rising. Despite pushing 20 years old, Dead Rising is still a blast to play and Deluxe Remaster should hopefully be the starting point for more to come from the franchise moving forward. 

Rating: 4 out of 5

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is available now digitally for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. A courtesy copy of the game was provided by Capcom for the purpose of this review.