A trio of Dead Rising re-releases on the way

Believe it or not, t’s been 10 years since the first zombie shambled out of Dead Rising’s shopping mall. And now Capcom is re-releasing the first 3 games in the series.

Dead things come in threes

To be fair, this might be more like two and a half games since Off the Record is kind of the same game as Dead Rising 2. It stars Frank West, hero of the first game, instead of Chuck Greene. As I understand it, that’s pretty much the only difference outside of a few little story points. Still, it was enough to support a completely separate retail release at the time so, I guess technically this is three different games.

They’re three pretty good times too, with all three being crafted in the same mould. You can wear nutty outfits in all three. You’ll build weapons of the zany variety, most of which are capable of mass-slaughter in all of them too. Oh yeah, and all three games feature an open world where you’ll (re)kill hordes of the undead.

Each game kind of improved on that formula, culminating in the latest game, Dead Rising 3. That title had so many zombies on screen at once it almost got to be too much at times. And much like DR2 (the first DR2 that is) it doesn’t star Frank. That’ll be rectified in the forthcoming Dead Rising 4, which once again brings Frank back to the action.

In all, here’s what you can expect:

• Dead Rising
  Re-live the zombie outbreak that started it all and step into the shoes of freelance photojournalist Frank West. On the hunt for the scoop of a lifetime, a tip leads Frank to the small suburban town of Willamette that’s been overrun by zombies. It’s a true struggle to survive the endless stream of enemies, but with full reign of an entire shopping mall, Frank can use any items he can find to fight off the flesh hungry mob and search for the truth behind the nightmarish epidemic. Don’t forget to capture the insanity on film and show off those photo journalist skills along the way!
• Dead Rising 2 
  The sequel to the original Dead Rising introduces Chuck Greene, a professional motorcycle racer. Surrounded by a huge horde of zombies in the casino town of Fortune City, Chuck finds himself in a race against time to obtain Zombrex, a life-saving drug that will keep his daughter Katey alive. Dead Rising 2 also takes the series one step further with the introduction of combo weapons like the “PaddleSaw”, two player co-op and thrilling four player gladiator battles.
• Dead Rising 2: Off the Record
  Photo journalist and original hero Frank West takes center stage to find his biggest scoop yet, returning in a reimagining of the Fortune City casino town from Dead Rising 2. The added Sandbox Mode allows players to explore the city and participate in deathly challenges, while Frank’s photo skills and upgraded camera features capture all of the violent and hilarious action up close.

Updated gore

Of course these aren’t just re-releases. What’d be the fun in that?

All three games feature updates that take advantage of what current consoles can do. As a result, you can expect to get 60fps and a nice 1080p resolution from each.

The trio of zombie-smashers also have all the previously released DLC included. So you’ll get all the downloadable for whatever edition you pick. That’s a nice deal since, as I remember it, there was a fair bit of DLC for all of them with new costumes, weapons, etc…

As for when you’ll get to play these bad boys, September 13th will see the launch of Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, and Off the Record on the PS4 and Xbox One. The original Dead Rising will also hit the PC on that same day, via Steam. As for the aforementioned Dead Rising 4, it’ll be along pretty soon too, ringing in the Holidays exclusively for the Xbox One on December 6th.