Hands-On: Dead Rising 4

For years now, zombies have dominated the AAA gaming scene. Countless released based around the undead have hit store shelves in recent years, and even unrelated franchises like Call of Duty regularly incorporate some sort of zombie-hunting mode. Capcom was one of the first to the modern zombie party with the original Dead Rising back in 2006, and after multiple sequels, it’s clear that the company has no intention of stopping. Dead Rising 4 is the latest installment of the gory, zombie-killing action series, and this time around, original protagonist Frank West is back to stir up even more mayhem.

The Capcom representative guiding me through the demo gave us some insight into Capcom Vancouver’s creative process for this title. He said that the development team tried to focus less on the story and more on what makes Dead Rising fun in the first place – annihilating loads of zombies. To that end, expect less narrative and more ways to rain down on your enemies like never before. That’s a very good thing, because much like in Dead Rising 3, the game throws hundreds, if not thousands, of zombies at you at once. There’s too many to count, so you might as well tear them all apart, right? The usual litany of melee weapons make an appearance, with everything from baseball bats to electrified Viking axes at your disposal. Vehicles return from Dead Rising 3, and they’re even more absurd than ever – the one I drove had a chain gun strapped to the roof.

Another major inclusion are exo-suits, wearable power-ups that transform West into even more of a one-man wrecking-crew. Unlike the suits in Call of Duty, these suits make West a bit less mobile, but they also grant him incredible offensive power. The suit I tested out lets you swing his robot arms to strike everything nearby, and an Iron Man-esque ground pound clears space around you in a very satisfying way. You also have the ability to wield serious new weapons, like a chain gun that shoots out rounds obscenely quickly. These elements most heavily contribute to the game’s overall feeling of gleeful, violent mayhem, and I hope they are emphasized heavily in the final product.

That said, the experience was far from perfect. The demo, which the Capcom rep stressed was an older build, suffered from noticeable stutter and slowdown during the first two or three minutes, and I encountered a really interesting bug that removed the HUD in its entirety for the duration of my playthrough. The rep suspected that said bug somehow also placed me in a sort of “god mode” wherein I was more or less invincible. Although it was clearly unintentional, the ability to freely wander around and massacre zombies at my own pace felt oddly freeing in a loose, arcade-like way, and the lack of a HUD made the whole affair feel a bit less “game-like,” wherein there were no meters, stats, or objectives to worry about. I actually wouldn’t be opposed to something like this making its way into the final product – there’s a DLC idea for you, Capcom.

If the lengthy lines of players waiting to go at it are any indication, there’s definitely still an audience for the Dead Rising series. As the developers try to steer the franchise in a looser and more open direction, the changes they’ve made do give the game a fresher feeling, especially if you haven’t visited with the franchise in a while. It’s clear that Capcom Vancouver still have some work to do, but if the team can iron out some of the game’s performance issues, they’ll have another fun and frantic adventure on their hands.

Dead Rising 4 launches on Xbox One and PC on December 6th.