Dead Rising devs on source material loyalty & why Dino Crisis remake hasn't happened

At Tokyo Game Show 2024, we spoke to the devs of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster about how important it was keep it as fun as the original.

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Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster was a pretty decent release in September 2024 this year. It didn’t reinvent the wheel and, in fact, I was impressed with how it kept the original vibe of the 2006 game intact while simply polishing it up to a shine and getting rid of some annoyances that limited the original game. At Tokyo Game Show 2024, we got to talk with Director Ryosuke Murai and Producer Kei Morimoto about the effort that went into making sure that classic feeling stayed intact.

For Capcom, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster was a unique opportunity. The team saw a game that was beloved, but held back at the time by some technical issues as video technology was shifting to the HD era. They saw a game that was still fun and just needed some visual TLC. And so the goal was to make the Deluxe Remaster in a way that was almost entirely faithful to the original gameplay loop, aesthetic, and environment. Everything, from the weapons you could use to the encounters you face, had to feel right.

The team were all huge fans of the original game, if they hadn’t worked on it directly, and one of the biggest undertakings of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster was rebuilding Willamette and the mall from the ground up. The mall layout, store placement, advertisement, and attractions are a huge part of Dead Rising and while the team had a lot to work with from the original game, sprucing it up to modern visuals was quite the exciting challenge. Ultimately, we’d say it paid off.

Inevitably, we had to ask about more remasters and remakes in the Capcom universe. Capcom has signaled it will continue to look for opportunities like Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, so we asked a burning question. Why hasn’t a Dino Crisis remake/remaster happened yet? To that, the team explained that the unique part of Dead Rising was how little the team had to change in progression or gameplay. It was already a great game and didn’t need to be changed functionally for a modern platform. The challenge of games like Dino Crisis is that they are bigger undertakings that would require much more development to adapt them to a reasonable new game.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC now. Want more videos like this Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster interview? Be sure to check out our YouTube channels at Shacknews, Shacknews Interviews, and Shacknews VODs for the latest reviews, gameplay, unboxings, and more on the latest games, toys, and technology.

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.

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