Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster Review — Frank West’s Face Lift

The biggest surprise release of the year for me was probably the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, or DRDR, a full graphical remaster of the original Dead Rising that spawned tons of fans and a franchise with three sequels. What was even more surprising was just how good the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster turned out to be, with Capcom making yet another faithful recreation of one of their classics in an era where some remastered games can be objectively worse than the originals. That being said, while the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is a pretty faithful and fun remaster of the original, it suffers a few controversies thanks to choices made by the developers, and I feel they missed a few opportunities to make the game even better.

For complete clarification, the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is a graphical recreation of the original Dead Rising using the RE engine, the same engine Capcom has used for its remakes of Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4. This is by far the most noticeable difference between the original Dead Rising and the Deluxe Remaster. While many aspects of the gameplay remain unchanged (though there are improvements we’ll touch on later), the graphics have been utterly redone.

It’s an interesting phenomenon to see an older video game character remade with modern graphics. Looking at Frank West’s face and seeing the wrinkles and mild imperfections of age, I think to myself that he has always looked like that. It is only when I look at old screenshots from the original Dead Rising that I realize that the graphics of the time gave the character a completely smooth face, utterly unrecognizable to my mental picture of the character.

While I can’t tell you exactly how the game was made, it does feel as though the game’s “code” was just injected into the RE engine, and every graphical aspect of the title was remade from the ground up. Far more than just new textures thrown on old models, everything in the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster feels new and comparable to any modern release. It’s practically like getting Dead Rising 5, just without the new story, new gameplay, and… well, without being a new game.

Alongside the graphical changes are a host of new costumes and outfits to put old Frank in, with up to 17 additional DLC outfits unlocked if you purchase the complete edition. In case you were wondering, that’s why Frank is wearing Raccoon City PD gear in my screenshots.

The entire game is now fully voice-acted, something I almost forgot wasn’t present in the original. While Frank’s original voice actor doesn’t return, the full voice acting is pretty cool and makes the game feel much more lively.

While less immediately noticeable, the game also makes some great quality of life improvements over the original gameplay.

I’m sure anyone who has played the original Dead Rising would agree that the gameplay feels a little dated these days. The Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster improves upon the original gameplay without drastically changing it. Very simple changes include smoother controls, the ability to move while aiming, the option to select which counter to use when grabbed by zombies, and smarter survivor AI.

The biggest change to gameplay, which will either be a huge relief or too drastic for series veterans, is the inclusion of autosaving. The game now autosaves every time Frank enters a new area. Gone are the days of forgetting to go to the bathroom for hours on end (in-game, of course) only to die from a cheap attack and be set back two or three cases.

A trade-off to these changes is that the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is not nearly the high-difficulty slog many consider the original game to be. If you ask me, this is totally fine; I still found myself dying pretty often. However, some die-hard fans may find the easier difficulty to be kind of a bummer and see it as Capcom being untrue to the original.

Speaking of being untrue to the original, these are some controversial changes to the game that came with the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster.

Several instances of sexual or sexualized content have been removed, along with politically and culturally insensitive material from the original. The inclusion of such topics in games is highly debated within the community, but here’s my general opinion: you should never censor art. If we want video games to be considered art (which I do), we should hold remasters to the same standard. To me, censoring this content doesn’t feel like Capcom is acknowledging and apologizing for its inclusion in the original, but instead trying to hide it to protect their public image.

Besides these changes, the game is very faithful to the original. I almost wish it wasn’t so.

I started my Dead Rising journey with Dead Rising 2, and I have to say, playing a DR game without combo weapons feels sort of weird. It doesn’t feel like Dead Rising to me. While I know they weren’t present in the original, I feel like Capcom missed out by not making combo weapons present in the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster. It’s a bit of new content that I feel would have pushed this game up from its 80% positive rating to maybe 90%, but just short of 100%.

Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is available on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox.