![]() ![]() ![]() In short, the writing is painfully bad, characters are bland and forgettable, and events are familiar and tedious. Frank thinks he’s being stealthy, then we cut to a villain seeing him sticking out like a sore thumb. Some time goes by, and Frank is asked to help investigate a zombie outbreak that happened several months earlier back in Willamette, and things continue to spiral disastrously downward from there.Īnd while the plot beats can feel overly rote to Dead Rising fans, the game’s tone has shifted wildly from past games to being incredibly jokey, with comedic cutaways where someone says “I’m never doing that”, before cutting to them doing it. One of his students tricks him into breaking into a government facility with promises of mini-golf, they learn some evil zombie research is afoot, get discovered while escaping, and Frank is then labeled as a fugitive. ![]() Taking place 16 years after the events in the first game, Dead Rising 4 sees an aging Frank West working as a college professor, and having nightmares about the horrors he’s experienced (albeit dressed up in Christmas clothes). Dead Rising 4, on the other hand, was sticking to its most basic, “beat-em-up in a slightly open world” roots, and ended up seeing most of its core experience carved away and severely hamstrung by a troubled development process (but more on that later). What Dead Rising 4 is, however, would make it the most poorly reviewed Dead Rising game of the series, which is always a disappointing way to see a franchise go out for longtime fans, but even more so when, comparatively speaking, 2016 alone had already seen wildly inventive and successful relaunches of old series, like with IO Interactive’s Hitman (which leaned into its replayability by building elaborate sandboxes where, like the original Dead Rising pitch, everything was a weapon) and id’s Doom (which leaned into its linearity by making rooms fast, explosive, and responsive action puzzles). The game was pick up and play fun for casual players, and rewarding for those willing to contend with its disempowering design philosophies. Its players could have fun doing nothing but exploring and playing around in the sandbox, or experience a challenge when trying to “survive” the game’s main story. It found further grounding by supporting and giving players almost two entirely different ways to “play”. The original forged a strong balance between the two by being situationally silly (in how a skateboard could be useful in traversing a mall, and a big umbrella could functionally push away zombies for crowd control), yet serious in tone and what it demanded of players with its difficulty. The problem with every additional Dead Rising release has been in the push and pull between supporting its serious survival horror side (and the punishing difficulty associated with the first game) and its zanier, action-comedy leanings. ![]() While the watering down and diverging from of the original’s core experience had begun showing with Dead Rising 3’s stretched out in game timer (which felt like a compromise due to map size more than anything), its overly large world map filled with icons and repetitive tasks (which made moving through the world more of a rote requirement than exploration for fun or survive), and more empowered player character (with its super combo weapons, experience trees, and posse of survivors), Dead Rising 4 would see the removal of the in-game timer entirely (although it returned for one episode of DLC), and, while the photography system from the original returns (with the added ability to have Frank join the shot to take selfies), the game’s overall direction has devolved further into a linear, action-horror slog of shooting galleries, but now with forced photography puzzles that desperately try to mirror the detective sections of Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham games. However, neither the fan service or window dressing would be enough to salvage what’s ultimately the thinnest, least-like Dead Rising game in the series. The heavily Christmas themed game would bring back Frank West, the original’s protagonist, and take him back to the shopping mall in Willamette Colorado where the zombie outbreaks began. The emergent magic is gone, and these aren’t the characters or the kind of Dead Rising game you remember, but…zombies at Christmas is its own thing.ĭead Rising 4 was released December 6th 2016 on Windows and Xbox (with a Steam Release coming in March 2017, and a PS4 with all the DLC titled Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package, on December 5th 2017), and was meant to be a return to form for the franchise. ![]()
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