Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster’s survivors are still idiots, but at least they can die horribly in style now

The survivors in the upcoming Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster - itself an update of the 2016 HD version of the 2006 zombie open-mall action game - are still idiots. I’m starting to regret giving Burt a gun, honestly. Every time he bumps into a magazine rack he starts screaming like someone’s eating his face, and the little circle above his name turns red to indicate he’s in danger. That’s a mannequin, Burt. They can’t hurt you. They’re actually known for not being able to move.

Still, while I can’t exactly say I wouldn’t have it any other way, these rough edges have always been part of the game’s charm. If Burt had much instinct for self preservation, I wouldn’t need to place that pistol in his hands like a parent doing the aeroplane thing with a spoonful of mashed swede. Dead Rising put oceans of weeping, pallid flesh front and centre, but it was the fainter wrinkles that made it such an idiosyncratic gem: time limits, non-linearity, and an almost quasi-roguelike loop. It was pulpy and glossy and crass, sure, but it was also frictive and obtuse in ways that made it stand out. It felt like an anomaly.

If you're new here, here’s your orientation package. The game places you in the leather jacket and white shirt (you’ll soon find much more ridiculous attire) of freelance photojournalist Frank West. He’s covered wars you know! Frank’s fuckery sense is tingling, so he hires a helicopter pilot to take him to the town of Willamette, Colorado. Upon arrival, he finds an unusually high military presence, alongside an unusually high number of zombies eating people’s faces.

The strange happenings centre on the local mall, so Frank has the pilot drop him off on the roof and return in three days. There may be no more room in hell, but there’s certainly enough storage on his camera for a big scoop. It’s those three days - each two real-world hours long - that give Dead Rising its unique structure. If you want to gorge on coffee creamer and try on sunglasses the whole time, you can. But if you want that scoop, you’ll need to follow your leads. You’ll complete ‘cases’ step-by-step, each following a linear storyline throughout the Mall. Some steps are immediately followed by the next, and some don’t kick off until a fixed time later.

You’ve often got time to wander off between steps and explore. Maybe rescue a shop assistant who’s been stuck behind a stack of cardboard boxes since before the outbreak? Maybe take out the irate gun shop owner, or go to the food court and see which blended ingredients make the tastiest smoothies? You could, of course, just grab the silliest weapon you can find - a salmon, a guitar, some dumbbells - and work on getting that ‘zombies killed’ counter in the bottom right as high as possible. There's a guilty appeal to taking regular five minute breaks to test out your new weapon on the everpresent hordes, which tend to see-saw between threats and comedy stressballs depending on what Frank's armed with.

Each shop yields different weapons, but if you get distracted knocking over zombies with parasols or lobbing stacks of CDs, you run the risk of failing the main story. At the same time, while you’re often notified by radio when your mate back at the safehouse spots survivors on the CCTV, they’ll also perish if ignored for too long. The time limit actually ends up being very tight if you want to see everything, so the game is really designed for multiple runs. You can NG+ over and over, carrying Frank’s experience and abilities to the new run. Still, you’ll probably find that your level is less important than what you’ve learned as a player. Once you know where everything is, you can get comically overpowered within the first hour or so. Double mini-chainsaws and several durability magazines, anyone?

Again, none of this is altered in Deluxe Remaster. What is new, of course, are the visuals. I’m about as immersed in the nuances of tech specs as a giraffe’s neck in a paddling pool, but even I’ve learned to get visibly excited each time I see the RE Engine logo pop up. Deluxe Remaster isn’t a ground-up RE Engine title (most notable in some funky facial animations) but it’s still a very sharp glow-up. The engine's penchant for skin detail, especially, is a big leap - exactly what you want with so much rotting flesh on display. Some areas of the mall are completely reimagined. It feels vaster, with new lighting drawing out both vibrancy and gloom. It's a place you’d actually want to spend enough time in for Romero to seed a whole genre making fun of you for it.

Oh, hey. I was digging behind a bin for some supplies when I found this pamphlet with all a quick roundup of new features on! Wild how I'm able to do this while still being thematic! There are nine voiced languages, alongside 14 text options. Conversations that were previously just text are now fully voiced. The UI can be made to dynamically vanish. You can turn off licensed music if you’re streaming - although you will miss out learning what colour the grass was. There’s a wardrobe in the safe room, so you’ll be able to change into any clothes you’ve found without having to locate them in the mall again.

You’ll also be able to change Frank back to his original look and face, if you prefer it. This isn’t a default option though, so it could well be paid DLC. According to some ratings bits, you should expect “in-game purchases”, although I couldn’t access them. This might just be a menu to buy extra costumes, but it could always be something like Resi 4 Remake’s microtransactions.

You can also find new camera parts around the mall, which add things like a flash to help you get those experience-boosting money shots in the dark. As with the original, you’re rewarded depending on the quality of the shot across different categories like horror, drama and the like. Gone is the original’s ‘erotica’ category, which you scored by snapping bums and boobs, but you absolutely did not score by capturing pendulous bulges. It was entirely gendered and entirely vacuous, and the Remaster is better for its absence. There might be an argument to be made for preservation, but the 2016 version will continue to exist, so this is the next best option if they’re not going to democratise the process and let players amass an album of artful schlong shots. The experience points are literally called PP! It writes itself!

For me, a lot of the appeal with this kind of remaster is just being there to watch an old favourite get some time in the spotlight again. Dead Rising’s back! I felt how I did when I bought tickets to Sublime touring with a new singer following the frontman’s overdose years prior. It’s about celebrating something in public with other people who love something like you do. Ultimately, that's what the remaster is. Nothing too daring, nothing too transformative. It’s Dead Rising but prettier and more palatable. Less bumpy and, as a consequence, slightly less interesting. It's orange juice without the bits in. Doin' Time without the melancholy. There's no less blood, but there is a little less pain.

Sometimes - like the hurt in a singer’s voice - pain makes something what it is. The game frequently autosaves now, usually before story moments or as you’re entering a new area. The zombies can still kill Frank quickly if you’re sloppy, but they can’t hurt you in the same way anymore. I can get poetic about it, but it's honestly fine. I’m old. I’ve got emails finding me well and plants I could be watering. I can’t play stoned on the sofa for hours working on that ridiculous achievement, listening to 40 Oz. To Freedom, replaying long sections because I died. We all make concessions.

Frank’s got a new presence to him. He feels weightier and more compliant, even as melee itself feels less sluggish. He can move while aiming (guns still feel like cheap toys) and durability bars remove the creeping dread of anticipating your favourite baseball bat breaking in the middle of a flaky moshpit.

You know what? Doin' Time without the melancholy is still a bop, and unless there are some nasty surprises the preview restrictions hid from me, this’ll be my go-to when I fancy revisiting the Willamette mall, which happens more often than you might expect. And, yes, I did carve out preview time to go wreck the jeep-driving convicts with a sniper rifle, then drove around the garden for ten minutes running down zombos. I’m excited for a whole new audience to get to sample such sweet revenge.