The recently released Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is a fairly faithful upgrade of Capcom’s original zombie killin’ game, which launched back on the Xbox 360 in 2006. However, Dead Rising’s main character, Frank West, was changed quite a bit, complete with a new model, face, and voice actor. So what’s up?
On June 26, Capcom revealed its fancy big-budget remaster of Dead Rising. The game was rebuilt using the RE Engine, the same engine that powers Monster Hunter and Resident Evil Village. As a result, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster looks incredible, with some impressive lighting and high-res textures. But one change caught a lot of people by surprise: Frank West, the game’s zombie-killing photographer protagonist, looked much older and gruffer.
In a new interview with Inverse, DRDR’s art director Satoshi Takamatsu explained why Frank West looks bigger, older, and maybe a little meaner in the newly released remaster. According to Takamatsu, they “deconstructed and reorganized” the character’s visual makeup to better emphasize his “life-related frustrations.”
Takamatsu said that as someone who worked on the original game, he had a fondness for how it looked and for West’s original design. And at first, the plan was to simply upgrade and improve the character’s original model. But things changed as they moved to a “more realistic” style.
“As we were rebuilding the game and working to create a ‘more realistic’ visual art style, the team felt like we’d reached an impasse on Frank’s concept as an average American ‘tough guy’ on the verge of turning 40′ and ‘a journalist who’s always looking for an opportunity to turn his life around.’
So the team decided to “reorganize” his visuals using the “average joe” concept as the foundation for this new version of Frank West.
“We deconstructed and reorganized Frank’s various aesthetics from over the years,” said Takamatsu. “We then infused some masculinity to better express his toughness and life-related frustrations and rebuilt his character design from there. In terms of a ‘tough physique,’ we opted for a beefier body type that resembles someone who’d trained as an American football player in school, occasionally goes bowling on the weekends, and has enjoyed his share of beer and bacon cheeseburgers.”
The art director also explained that they gave Frank West more wrinkles to create more “vivid facial expressions” but admitted that the team might have gone a bit “overboard.”
“He’s changed a bit from the original game, but I think his design fits well within Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster,” added Takamatsu.
And I have to agree. I wasn’t too happy with the new Frank when I first saw the trailer, but after playing the remaster, I get how this new version fits better with the more realistic world of DRDR. Still, Capcom realized that some people wouldn’t move on. So they also included the OG model as a cosmetic option, too.
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is out now on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. You can read Inverse’s full interview here to learn more about its development.
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