Main series The game displays the
health bar, the level, the number of zombies killed, depleting bars telling how much time until each mission becomes unavailable, and the current item (which turns red when the weapon is about to break). The games work within a 72-hour schedule which happens in an in-game time, every event happens within a specific hour. The story happens within a city infected by hordes of zombies and various hostile survivors, and each subsequent game has allowed for more zombies to be displayed on screen, at the same time. The melee combat system consists of using everything as a weapon, most of the items in the game can be used, as some weapons are very effective, but others are comedically inefficient, in addition weapons constantly break forcing the player to constantly use different weapons.
Dead Rising 2 introduced a "Combo Weapons" system, where the player can combine certain items into more powerful weapons, some of which are over-the-top, such as a
lightsaber, made by combining a flashlight with jewelry.
Dead Rising 3 enhanced the mechanic by introducing "Combo Vehicles" allowing players to combine items with vehicles and even vehicles with other vehicles to make more powerful vehicles, for instance a motorcycle with a
chainsaw creates the "slicecycle", a motorcycle with two chainsaws at the sides. Players can
level up by performing mission objectives, which consist of progressing on the main story, rescuing and leading survivors to safety by guiding them to the safe house, and also fighting psychopaths whom are civilians who either have become criminally insane after the zombie outbreak or are taking advantage of it for their own purposes. Leveling up increases the health bar, walking speed, unlocks melee combos, and reveals weapon combinations. Customization allows the player to use different clothes, spread all around the mall, which vary from a sports fan attire, to pajamas, to dresses, to a male stripper outfit, to a
Mega Man cosplay. All games feature
multiple endings, completing all the missions in the main story is the only way to get the true ending. Since the second game, all games except for
Dead Rising 4 feature two player
co-op online multiplayer in the story mode, with the fourth main game only including a competitive multiplayer mode.
Dead Rising (2006) The first game in the
Dead Rising series. The game centers on Frank West, a photojournalist who ends up trapped in a shopping mall in the fictional town of Willamette, Colorado, that is infested with zombies. Players can use everything as a weapon. The game story works in a 72-hour clock, with another in-universe 24 hour post game chapter. In total, there are six endings, titled F through A, with Ending A being the only one to unlock the aforementioned post-game; rendering it the game's canon finale.
Dead Rising 2 (2010) The second game in the
Dead Rising series. Set in the fictional casino town of Fortune City, Nevada, five years after the events of
Dead Rising, the game follows former motocross champion Chuck Greene trying to clear his name after being framed for starting the outbreak in Fortune City, while simultaneously trying to keep his daughter alive with a drug called Zombrex that prevents an infected individual from turning into a zombie. The "72-hour" system returns. The major gameplay improvement over its predecessor is the Combo Weapons system, allowing Chuck to combine certain items by using crafting tables. In addition survivors
AI was also improved. The Main story can be played in 2 player online co-op, with the second player controlling a second Chuck. Players can earn money by playing the online multiplayer mode "Terror is Reality". • Standalone downloadable games: two downloadable standalone expansions were released for the game, for
Xbox 360. Since March 2017, both are backwards compatible with Xbox One, although unlike the main game, none of the expansions were remastered.: The first
Case Zero (2010): Released a month before the main game,
Dead Rising 2: Case Zero serves as a prologue and "demo" to the main game. Set a few years before
Dead Rising 2, Chuck Greene is stranded in a small town named Still Creek and has to fight his way out with his daughter Katey. While the second,
Case West (2010): The downloadable content serves as an epilogue for
Dead Rising 2, Chuck with the help of Frank West, go to a Phenotrans facility to get evidence to clear Chuck's name.
Dead Rising 3 (2013) The third game in the
Dead Rising series. Set ten years after
Dead Rising 2, the story follows a young mechanic named Nick Ramos and his attempt to survive a massive zombie outbreak in the fictional city of Los Perdidos, California. The time system returns. Combo Weapons can be fused anywhere, as crafting tables were removed, and the crafting system was also expanded by introducing "Combo-Vehicles". While there is no sandbox mode, like in "Off the Record", similar challenges can be found during the Story Mode. Survivors were upgraded to be able to use "Combo Weapons". Like in the previous game, the main story can be played in 2 player Co-op Online Mode where the second player controls a character named Dick. • Downloadable content: There are 5 downloadable content packs, the first 4 are known as
Untold Stories of Los Perdidos. Each one focuses on exploring the zombie outbreak in Los Perdidos depicted in the main story, through the point of view of a different survivor, whom Nick met during the main story. The first,
Operation Broken Eagle, is the story of Adam Kane, a psychopath that is a Special Forces Commander on a mission to capture the president, (whom Nick kills in the main story). The second
Fallen Angel, is the story of Angel Quijano, an illegally infected survivor. She appears in the main story as part of Annie's group of survivors. The third
Chaos Rising, tells the story of Hunter Thibodeaux, a biker seeking revenge on the people who incarcerated him. He is a psychopath, whom Nick kills using a molotov cocktail in the main story. And the fourth
The Last Agent, is the story of Brad Park, a ZDC agent searching for the truth about the outbreak. Brad also appears in the side missions played through the Smart Glass companion application and returns as a supporting character in
Dead Rising 4. The fifth expansion is the non-canon
Super Ultra Dead Rising 3′ Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha. It focuses on beat 'em up action with four-player co-op, in it players can control Frank West, Chuck Greene, Katey "Annie" Greene and Nick Ramos, it also features exclusive costumes which serve as an homage to other Capcom franchises.
Dead Rising 4 (2016) The fourth game in the
Dead Rising series. Set one year after
Dead Rising 3, the game features an older Frank West, returning to Willamette, Colorado during the Christmas season, where the newly constructed "Willamette Memorial Megaplex" has fallen under another zombie outbreak. "Combo Weapons" and "Combo Vehicles" return, and camera mechanics from "Dead Rising 2: Off the Record" also return improved. The game introduces an exo-suit. Unlike previous games, the 72-hour timer system has been dropped, to encourage exploration. The main story does not support online cooperative multiplayer, making it a single player experience like in the original game. To address player complaints of the game being too easy, a month after its release Capcom released an update which added the much requested Hard and Ultra-Hard difficulties, in which the items break more easily and the food restores less health, bringing the difficulty closer to that of the previous games, five new
Street Fighter themed costumes were also included within the update. A further update was released on December 5, upgrading the game with a new game mode called
Capcom Heroes, the new mode allows Frank to don 17 new outfits based on Capcom's video game franchises, each with their own moveset. There is four player cooperative play, but it does not feature Frank West, as it features four characters from the main story and the cooperative mode is separate from the story. The cooperative mode has the player completing various tasks in the Willamette Memorial Megaplex, while working as a team, and earning scores by doing various tasks (e.g. kill zombies, plant bombs, etc.). The player must survive until 9 pm that night and make it back to the safe room. • Downloadable content: Three add-ons were confirmed within the game's season pass: the
Stocking Stuffer Holiday Pack only added holiday themed weapons, while the multiplayer
Super Ultra Dead Rising 4 Mini Golf added a
mini golf multiplayer mode. Released in April 2017, the third and sole story DLC titled
Frank Rising, continued the story after the end of the main game, picking up right after its ending, with an infected Frank West, trying to prevent his own zombification and helping survivors. The gameplay saw the return of the timer mechanic and have a higher difficulty than that of the main game.
Remakes Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop (2009) A reimagining of the original
Dead Rising for the
Wii. This version was built with the same engine used for the
Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition. While still set in a mall and able to save survivors, there is a greater emphasis on firearms and the game is structured around individual timed missions instead of free roam. Various elements were tailored to the Wii's weaker hardware or limitations of the different engine. These included smaller maps, reduced enemy counts and the removal of the photo system, but new enemy types were added.
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record (2011) A non-canonical remake of
Dead Rising 2, which replaces protagonist Chuck Greene, with Frank West (the protagonist of the original game), and also features some slight plot alterations. Fortune City remains mostly the same, but now adds a new place, a small alien thematic park called "Uranus Zone". The "72-hour" system returns, but the game also adds a "Sandbox Mode", where Frank can explore Fortune City without a time limit, and also complete challenges which require the players to use their creativity and crafting the necessary weapons to succeed. More Combo Weapons were added. Camera mechanics from
Dead Rising also returned improved. Both the main story and the sandbox mode can be played in two player co-operative online mode, with the second player controlling Chuck.
Dead Rising: Deluxe Remaster (2024) A remake of Dead Rising was announced on June 26th, 2024. It was released digitally on September 18th 2024 on
Xbox Series X and S,
PlayStation 5, and
Microsoft Windows with a physical release coming in November 2024.
Re-release compilations Dead Rising Collection (2014) Dead Rising Collection is a compilation for
Xbox 360 containing the games from the
Dead Rising franchise released on
Xbox 360:
Dead Rising,
Dead Rising 2 and its downloadable content
Case Zero and
Case West, and
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. It was released exclusively in Europe on March 7, 2014.
Dead Rising Triple Pack (2016) Triple Pack is a compilation pack featuring the original
Dead Rising,
Dead Rising 2, and
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. It was released for
PlayStation 4 and
Xbox One on September 13, 2016. Physical copies of the first two games were released on September 13, 2016, and September 27, 2016 (North America only) respectively. The ports themselves were praised; but the collection was criticized for not including
Dead Rising 2 expansions
Case Zero and
Case West. Each game includes all of its DLC costumes.
Mobile game Dead Rising Mobile (2010) A spin-off was released on iOS on December 9, 2010. It received negative reviews.
Canceled sequel An investigation into the series by game journalist Liam Robertson revealed that a fifth game in the series,
Dead Rising 5, was being developed at
Capcom Vancouver between 2016 and 2018 for Windows and Xbox One. The game was planned to be set between the events of
Dead Rising 2 and
3, and would have focused on Chuck and Katey Greene who are caught in the middle of a zombie outbreak in a fictional Mexican city during the Day of the Dead. The project entered early development alongside
Dead Rising 4 and was canceled when Capcom Vancouver was closed in September 2018. ==Films==