In a world that’s saturated with zombie games, the Dead Rising series has always revelled in the idea that what makes zombies fun is being able to murder a whole lot of them at once. We haven’t seen a new entry in this Capcom series since Dead Rising 3, which was a launch title exclusive for the Xbox One. Like many launch titles, it felt a little undercooked – especially when compared to the fun that Dead Rising 2 offered players when it first came out. With the next entry announced at E3 this year, we had some hands-on time with the Dead Rising 4 demo to see whether the series still has any signs of life.
The demo mission opened by dropping players straight into a horde of zombies. No real goal was given and players could freely do what they wanted. So of course, in true Dead Rising style, we focused on killing as many enemies as possible. The controls in Dead Rising 4 felt much better than they have in the previous games, even if they still feel a little slow and clunky for our tastes. But thankfully, the game still manages to feel awesome by providing a wide variety of makeshift weapons for mowing down the undead hordes. In the demo we killed large swathes of zombies at once with an electrified battle axe and blew them up with a fireworks-shooting crossbow. We also spent some time in an armoured exo-skeleton that gave us the option to punch our way through the crowds of zombies – or wield a mini-gun. Both satisfying options.
It was impressive to see just how well the game ran with so many enemies on screen at once, especially given the noticeable step up in graphics from the previous game. From what we’ve seen so far, Dead Rising 4 certainly looks promising, but it definitely feels like just more Dead Rising.
Dead Rising 4 will be released on Xbox One and Windows 10 on 6th December 2016.
