Is Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster a Remaster or a Remake?

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster features the return of Frank West, zombie-busting reporter. But he looks a little different this time around, as do a few other aspects of this game. It’s enough to make you wonder if Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is, in fact, remake. Let’s break it down.

Is Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster Actually a Remake?

You might think that Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is just a remaster, but that’s not really the case —it sits somewhere between remaster and remake. Yes, it literally has “Remaster” in the title, but that’s likely because Capcom couldn’t quite justify calling it a remake.

However, it’s clear that the game has been rebuilt from the ground up. It uses the RE Engine, which has powered many Capcom games since Resident Evil 7, including Devil May Cry 5 and Street Fighter 6, and runs at up to 60 FPS.

The story remains the same, but NPCs are smarter, you can move while shooting, and there are whole host of other improvements. There’s better lighting, more zombie detail, and much, much more. The previous remaster of Dead Rising was little more a port, and while it’s still a great game, it’s starting to show its age. It’s been 18 years since the original landed on the Xbox 360, after all.

According to Capcom, “We did our best to respect the direction of the original game,” but the development team recognised it was an 18-year-old game and “that’s why we focused on improving playability.” However, they still refer to it as a remaster, rather than a remake.

Ultimately, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster goes much, much further than what I’d traditionally consider a remaster. Capcom has remade the game from scratch, and there’s unlikely to be a single scrap of original code or assets in there.

So, while Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is being called a remaster, it does things you’d normally only expect to see in a remake.