What's New in Wii Dead Rising

Capcom explains what sets the Wii release apart.


We heard Wednesday that Dead Rising, one of the more memorable sandbox games on the Xbox 360, is coming to the Wii, but now we've got further details on the game translated directly from the Famitsu article that made the revelation. The new port, called Dead Rising: Zombie Sacrifice in Japan, will feature all manner of new features and expanded gameplay -- and as producer and director Minoru Nakai discussed with Weekly Famitsu magazine this week, it's all part of an effort to make the notoriously difficult game more appealing to the casual user base.

As Nakai puts it, Zombie Sacrifice came about following the success of Resident Evil 4's Wii port, which sold over half a million copies in the U.S. despite being only slightly enhanced from the GameCube original. Nakai also saw it as an opportunity to attract a new audience to his game: "The 360 version was hard to get to grips with, in a good way. You died a lot in the beginning, and you have to raise your level if you want to proceed in the story. It's a really fun game if you can deal with that, but I think some of the experience was a little rough for casual users. That's why we're adjusting the game to make it easier to play."

As part of that effort, Dead Rising's controls and method of storytelling are both going to see some revisions. The basic game is unchanged, of course -- you play freelance journalist Frank West as he infiltrates a zombie-infested mall, helps out survivors, and fights hordes of the undead all by himself. The story structure is a bit different from the 360 version, however: Instead of having your janitor friend Otis continually tell you about things to investigate via your transceiver, the game will proceed in a more traditional, less time-sensitive fashion. "In the Xbox 360 version, the story proceeded as time passed, and you'd get messages about how there are survivors at this or that location that you should check out," Nakai told Famitsu. "With this version, that aspect of the game is now treated as a series of submissions. As you advance through the main story, Otis will give you three or four submissions at once; when you finish those, the main scenario advances. This results in us being able to put a lot more story volume to the game."

In addition to a revised story structure, the Wii version of Dead Rising will feature new enemies and items, as well as a behind-the-shoulder camera system modeled after Resident Evil 4's. (Nakai noted that Frank won't be able to take photographs of things in the Wii version because that system doesn't work very well with this new camera.) This being a Wii port, of course, brand-new motion controls are naturally in the offing -- you'll press directions on the control pad to switch between weapons instantly, use an onscreen reticule to target enemies when you're wielding a gun, and even shake the Wii-mote around to ward off zombies or swing blunt weapons. "Basically, you use the Nunchuk to move and the Wii-mote to perform actions," Nakai told Famitsu. "You can press the A button to attack with your subweapon, but you can also attack by swinging the Wii-mote. That makes the attack stronger but expands the backswing -- sort of like regular and heavy punches in a fighting game."

Dead Rising: Zombie Sacrifice doesn't have a Japanese release date set yet, but development on the title (which sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide on the 360) is already well underway. Nakai's main goal here, as he told Weekly Famitsu, is not only to retain what made gamers excited about the 360 original, but also to open the game up to a new, more casual audience: "My brother is a casual gamer, but he's the sort of person who doesn't like it when the visuals are too intricate or elaborate -- he gets nervous about whether he's good enough to play it at all," he noted. "That was a very novel surprise to hear that from him. Looking at it that way, I wonder if Wii users are a lot more forgiving about the visuals of the games they play. Of course, we have lots of fans of the 360 version, so we're still aiming for a level of visuals that will keep them satisfied."