The response toDead Rising Deluxe Remasterhas been extremely positive. The game has a solid 80 on OpenCritic, and has been warmly received by fans. Fans who, for the most part, also played and liked the 2006 original. Though sales figures are currently unavailable, producer Kei Morimoto says if they’re solid, aDead Rising 2 Deluxe Remaster or remake is “definitely possible”. It may be possible. It’s also, respectfully, a bad idea.
This is nothing againstDead Rising 2. I like it well enough myself, and if a remake fell from the trees into my hard drive, then sure, I’d play it and probably enjoy it. But it will not fall from the trees. It will ship from the offices ofCapcom, from the desks of dozens, possibly hundreds, of developers who collectively could probably make something a lot more interesting than a game I’ve already played. This isthe dead end the modern video game industry is facing, and no one seems to realise we’re heading straight for a wall.
We’re told, frequently, that remakes and remasters exist to test the waters for future installments. But there is little evidence of this. When the first entry of a series is remastered, the most frequent course of action is to remaster the next entry. But haven’t the waters, at that point, been tested? Don’t we know that it is safe to float out the boat of a new game entirely?
The remaster ofDead Spacewasplanned to lead to a remaster of Dead Space 2, butlow sales derailedthis plan.Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2was going to lead into 3+4, rather than a new entry, when Activision felt the team was better suited to being a tiny cog in theCall of Dutymachine than actually making a video game.Tony Hawk himself teased big news for the game’s 25th anniversary, whichpassed last week without word. If news is to come, I would bet on 3+4 finally appearing rather than THPS 6 or anything like it.
The problem is, it’s hard to find common ground on this amongst gamers. Some are content with reheated experiences because, like most other things you shove in a microwave, they’re comfort food.Crash Bandicootneeded two remasters (N.Sane andNitro Fueled) before being trusted with a new game. Sales didn’t match the remasters, and that was taken as proof that all new things are doomed to fail.
Likewise, we had a pretty good (if often generic and unintuitive) remaster of the first threeTomb Raidergames earlier this year. Despite the fact my own favourite game, Tomb Raider: Legend, was not in this pack, I wrote thatwe didn’t need more Tomb Raider remakeswhen we’rein this huge drought of new Tomb Raider games. A true sequel, or spin-offs that aren’t mobile trash, would be far more exciting. Fans were outraged by my attempts to tear down the Tomb Raider empire with my vile hatred.
This is where it all comes back to Dead Rising. There are four Dead Rising games, which largely descend in popularity as time goes on. So let’s say DRDR sells well, and we do get Dead Rising 2. What’s next? Do we plough on into 3, and then 4, despite the fact that few hold much affection for those games to begin with? Does Capcom finally make a new Dead Rising? Or, as I suspect would be most likely, is Dead Rising just crossed off the whiteboard of potential remakes while Capcom rolls onto the next project and remakesDino Crisis?
Those of you now screaming about what a good idea that would be, why do we accept having our childhoods sold back to us instead of asking for new games?
Dead Rising 2 would likely do about as well as DRDR, even if I fear any further attempts would drop off a cliff. So if money is the only concern (and this, ultimately, is a business), then it makes sense to remake the sequel after the first instalment sold well. But eventually, where do we go? The industry is currently awash with remakes, to the point where soon we’re going to be remaking remakes.
This has already happened.Naughty Dog, the central flagship ofSony, iscurrently unlikely to produce a single original game for the PS5. However, it has used its valuable development time this generation to remasterThe Last of Us Part 2, and remasterThe Last of Us Part 1for the second time. Also at Sony,Horizon Zero Dawnis being remastered despite visuals having barely changed since its launch in 2017, while its gameplay remains highly approachable and the game is readily available.
Of course, the things you say when you’re considering the ramifications of the industry, and the way you act as an individual can be opposed, even hypocritical. I’d be first in line for a Tomb Raider: Legend remake, I am disappointed that work on THPS 3+4 was shelved, and were it not a buggy mess I would have just played theLollipop Chainsawremake. These remakes aren’t unethical evils to be eradicated, they’re just boring.
But video games shouldn’t be boring. It definitely shouldn’t be my reaction to Dead Rising, the series where you’re able to tape a chainsaw to a broom handle to splatter zombie guts on the wall. Every Dead Rising fan I know has an idea for where the next game should be - my personal pitch: the Olympic Village - and I’m sure the developers do as well. And of all the fans I’ve ever spoken to, none of them has said their best idea for a new Dead Rising game is to just do Dead Rising 2 again.
