Frank West is back in a mall, and the mall is full of zombies again. Dead Rising 4 arrived on December 6, 2016, for Windows and Xbox One, built by Capcom Vancouver and published by Microsoft Studios. It is the fourth game in the Dead Rising series and the direct sequel to Dead Rising 3. It is also the safest one.
The setup is pure fan service. Frank, the photojournalist who survived the original Willamette outbreak, returns to a rebuilt Willamette, Colorado, during the winter holidays. A new outbreak has overrun the Willamette Memorial Megaplex Mall and the town around it. Frank picks up his camera and an arsenal of whatever he can grab, and the killing starts.
That pitch sold the series the first time. In 2016 it sells a game that has sanded off almost everything that made the earlier entries tense.
Trailer, via XBOX.
Frank West Trades His Deadline for a Camera
The original Dead Rising ran on a clock. Dead Rising 4 removes the timer system entirely. It also cuts story co-op, which the source confirms as a break from its predecessors.
What is left is an open world sandbox with separate buttons for shooting and melee attacks, a streamlined control scheme, and a rule that any item can be picked up and used as a weapon. Some items work better than others. Frank levels up through an experience system called Prestige Points, or PP.
Photography returns, now with a selfie mode and a night vision mode. The camera also finds clues during missions. It is a nice nod to Frank’s old job, but it is a tool for progression, not a pressure system. Nothing in Dead Rising 4 is chasing you.
A New Strain, an Exo-Suit, and Soldiers With Rifles
The plot jumps to September 2021. Frank is a college professor now. One of his students, Vicky “Vick” Chu, talks him into investigating a military compound outside Willamette, the site of the second zombie outbreak. They find zombie research inside, get discovered, and run. The government falsely accuses Frank, and he becomes a fugitive.
Four months later, in 2022, after Christmas, a ZDC agent named Brad Park finds him. Brad wants Frank to investigate the new Willamette outbreak during the Black Friday sales. The deal: help clear Frank’s name, and give him exclusive rights to the story. Vick has already gone ahead on her own.
Frank and Brad’s helicopter takes a missile hit and crash-lands in the middle of the mall. The zombies there carry a new, more aggressive strain of the parasite. Zombrex, the treatment that worked before, does nothing against it. Frank later runs into an organization called Obscuris, which is hunting a monstrous creature called Calder, and he crosses paths with Vick again. Their views clash, so they never team up properly. Frank finds the lab of Dr. Russell Barnaby, the scientist behind the Santa Cabeza outbreak, and learns Barnaby spent his last days trying to give zombies human intelligence.
That is a lot of story, and it is the most interesting thing the game has.
What Dead Rising 4 Keeps and What It Throws Away
| Feature | Earlier Dead Rising games | Dead Rising 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Timer system | Present | Removed |
| Story co-op | Present | Removed |
| Photography | Present | Present, plus selfie and night vision |
| Weapon rules | Any item usable | Any item usable |
| Enemy types | Zombies | Zombies, plus rifle and shotgun soldiers |
The table is the whole argument. Dead Rising 4 keeps the sandbox and the improvised weapons and the camera, and drops the two systems that gave the sandbox its shape. Without a clock, the mall stops being a trap and becomes a playground. That is a choice, and it is a defensible one for players who found the old timers punishing.
It is also a choice that costs the game its bite.
Safe Houses, Side Missions, and the Grind Between Them
Each region has safe houses. You have to clear the zombies out of one before missions nearby unlock. You can level a safe house up by finishing side missions, which then gives you more stuff to buy. This is the loop, and it is fine. It is also the least memorable part of Dead Rising 4.
The combat holds up better. Frank faces soldiers with rifles and shotguns alongside the undead, and the powered exo-suit gives him a way to plow through a crowd. The controls are smoother than the series has ever been. Shooting and melee get their own buttons, and picking up a bench or a sign or a holiday decoration and swinging it never stops being funny.
The problem is that nothing pushes back. The zombies are numerous and the new strain is nastier on paper, but the game rarely makes you feel it. You are never choosing between saving someone and making a deadline. You are just choosing which ridiculous object to hit something with next.
The Verdict on Dead Rising 4
Dead Rising 4 scored 7.7 out of 10 across 19 outlets, and that number is honest. It is a competent, funny, good-looking action game with Frank West back where he belongs, and it was made for people who already loved him. The mixed reception it drew makes sense: the return of Frank and the moment-to-moment gameplay earned praise, while a decline in overall quality and technical problems dragged it down.
Our read is that the technical problems are the smaller issue. The bigger one is identity. Dead Rising 4 wants to be an open world sandbox and a Dead Rising game at the same time, and those two things pull in opposite directions. The sandbox wins. What you get is a game that is easy to pick up, easy to finish, and hard to remember a week later.
A Steam version followed in March 2017, published by Capcom. A PlayStation 4 version, Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package, landed on December 5, 2017. Neither changes the core calculation. If you want the mall as a playground, this is the most welcoming Dead Rising has ever been. If you want the mall as a countdown, it is gone.
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