Today we return to the zombie-infested shopping mall of Capcom’s Dead Rising via the Deluxe Remaster – a brand new take on the 2006 original, built on RE Engine. The visual upheaval is as dramatic as you’d expect, but the original framework of the game is faithfully intact – right down to every mission objective, the layout of each segment of the mall and even the framing of its cutscenes. Still, in looking at PS5, Series X and Series S, almost every facet of the original’s visuals has been rebuilt from scratch – including character models, textures, lighting, vegetation – and there’s an optional modern controller scheme for moving and shooting simultaneously.
It’s an expansive remaser then, but how does it stack up to the 2006 original as played on Xbox 360 hardware? And perhaps more importantly for players new to the game, what does the transition to the modern RE engine mean in terms of performance on each of the three target platforms?
To set the scene, it’s worth looking back at the Xbox 360 original. Despite being very much a game of its era in terms of its character and environment rendering, that first game still managed to impress thanks to its hundreds-strong zombie hordes and physics-based interactions, all rendered at or near 30fps for much of play and dropping the 20s with screen tearing at worst.
Two console generations on, the Deluxe Remaster keeps the original Willamette Parkview Mall, even down to its segmented design and fade-to-black loading screens. Cutscenes sync up impeccably and uses the same body motion capture data as the 2006 original. However, facial animations have seen a much-needed update and there’s been a huge boost to each character in terms of geometric detail. Where RE engine makes a particularly big impact is in its material rendering, with skin and fabrics in particular showing huge improvements and reacting more realistically with light. Of course, the nostalgically-inclined might prefer the original 360 designs – which arguably fit better with Dead Rising’s satirical tone. In terms of the detail level though, it’s hugely satisfying to see such an upgrade presented using the same capture data so many years later.