Dead Risingwas released in 2006 exclusively on the Xbox 360. It was a new IP fromCapcom, a company that already proved its mettle with zombies inResident Evil. But where Resident Evil was like a horror B-movie funny through its self-seriousness, Dead Rising had a way more gross-out comical tone, and a unique focus on improvised weaponry, escorting survivors, and harsh time limits.
Being an Xbox exclusive didn’t slow down Dead Rising’s success, but as the series progressed, this exclusivity wormed around. Multiple sequels, a comic book, movies, and a mobile game caused Dead Rising to become Capcom’s 6th highest-grossing franchise.
So why is it that the franchise feels dead and buried?
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The last game was Dead Rising 4, which released for Xbox One in 2016 and finished its DLCs and PS4 port in 2017. Long-time fans like me don’t exactly have much praise for it, as many tried-and-true mechanics were gone and Frank devolved as a character to a massive douche canoe, but looking up the reviews, the game did do pretty well. It was sales that were a different story; Capcom expected 2 million and didn’t even break 1 million. This failure shut down Capcom Vancouver.
Sort of explains the story, right? Well, it would do Frank a disservice to leave this story without finding all the facts. I mentioned movies and there were three of them, though none of them made it to theaters. The first was released in episodes over Xbox Live Market, while the following two came out on trashy free-to-watch streaming platform Crackle. Apparently, Crackle was debating making a third film or a TV series, but this was back in a 2016 interview wi with actor Jesse Metcalfe (viaDigital Spy), not Crackle’s CEO, so that looks dead in the water too.
The comic and mobile game are one-note stories. The comic, Road To Fortune, was just there to fill story gaps between 1 and 2, while Dead Rising Mobile received poor reviews, which seemingly killed interest in further installments.
If you want to play Dead Rising on modern hardware, your luck depends on your console. Dead Rising 3 never came to Playstation, PC missed out on the Case: Zero and Case: West DLCs, while on Xbox you may play all entries in the series apart from the Wii port of the first game, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop.
The porting job just feels strange. Considering Dead Rising started as an Xbox exclusive, I sort of understand why only the Xbox has all the canon games, but since it’s not true exclusivity, it feels like a raw deal that PlayStation owners have to miss 3 before playing 4. Also, Case: West lost its signature mechanic of giving DR 2 fans early items and level experience up to level 5, as it doesn’t sync with the remastered version. Leaving those games as just part of the backward compatibility programs works, but feels incomplete at the same time.
As for the Wii port, that risks being lost to time unless it gets ported again. If there was an exclusivity contract involved with this version, it should still be possible for a Switch port like we saw with the Wii version ofStar WarsThe Force Unleashed.
What happened? How did such a successful moneymaker turn into something without a future? Well, the poor sales of Dead Rising 4 and subsequent closure of Capcom Vancouver were obviously a big factor, but there was a massive problem thanks to Dead Rising 3. No, not because it was anXbox Oneexclusive (it’s the best-selling entry), but because DR 3’s ending decided to cure zombification, which Dead Rising 4 acknowledged in its opening.
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Capcom wrote themselves into a corner with that. I love closure and think having it isn’t an inherently bad idea, but it did mean moving forward needed to not step on that, and Dead Rising 4 tried to do this by having a new variant of the outbreak occur. Fans have been divided on this, mostly because the explanation did make sense and called back to reasons being the original outbreak and even the same lead scientist, but a big criticism was that the game didn’t dive deep enough as the tone for 4 was even more comedic than the other numbered entries.
Then there was the ‘Frank’ problem. When Capcom put Frank inMarvel Vs. Capcomand especially when they remade 2 just to have Frank be the main character, it felt like Capcom was too in love with their previous lead. Capcom would always claim it was American fans demanding Frank, but I think they overestimated his allure,especiallyduring the launch of Off The Record. While Off The Record gets love now for adding many quality-of-life improvements to Dead Rising 2, the game’s original release was subject to criticism over feeling like pointless Frank West fan-service.
Although even that said, there’s something from Off The Record that carried over to Dead Rising 4 that hasn’t sat right with fans: Frank West’s character.
Frank West had his comedic moments in the original Dead Rising, and was rough around the edges, but his character was a photojournalist here for the facts and not satisfied until he got them all. Gruff and awkward, but he really did care. In Off The Record, they portrayed him as a fallen star who got full of himself and only wants to use a report on the outbreak to be famous again. Since it’s not canon, this was fine, but somehowthiswas the version of Frank’s character we saw in 4, along with a recast that brought a completely different line delivery.
In another controversial move, T.J. Rotolo was replaced as Frank West’s voice actor. Rotolo says Capcom never even approached him with an offer. This recast never really worked as the delivery and character writing were so far from established Frank that it only raised questions why he was the protagonist this time. Many fans have wondered why Vick Chu wasn’t granted main character status instead, who desperately needed more screen time for what they tried but failed to do with her.
The kind of funny thing is, Capcom has faced these problems before. Resident Evil 6 killed the franchise, but then Resident Evil 7 resurrected the franchise, and it’s arguably stronger now than it ever was before.Street Fighter5 launched broken and without a story mode, but now Street Fighter 6 has brought back all the naysayers. We are in a world whereMegaman11 exists. Franchises ebb and flow, yet Capcom didn’t seem prepared to work past the ebb of Dead Rising.
We covered the leaked gameplay of thecanceled Dead Rising 5, and looky there,Chuckwas going to be the lead! It actually seems like the game could’ve been on the right track, and yet. Dead Rising does seem dead, but if treated right, Capcom could wow us again.
