Way before Dead Rising 2 shipped to stores, Capcom showcased a demo with 7,000 zombies on screen at the same time. While Dead Rising 2 has tons of zombies in any area, the team at Capcom Vancouver decided to cut the zombie count for last year’s game and decided to increase it with Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. Here’s why.
"We’ve upped the zombie density this time around," explained Jason Leigh, executive producer, during an interview with Siliconera. "When we first started showing the game at Captivate a couple of years ago, on one level we had 7,000 zombies on the screen. What we found in Dead Rising 2 that was not actually practical in an environment because it was just too dense. This time around, because we made Frank a tougher character right at the beginning and we gave him more cool weapons that do a lot more damage, we actually managed to up the zombie density and have the world be a little more dangerous for him."
"In places, we upped the density by at least 30%. There are probably a few thousand zombies in any one environment," Leigh added.
Frank has an updated arsenal, which includes a few weapons tied to a tennis ball shooting machine. Combine that with saw blades and you have a saw blade shooter. Pair it with motor oil and you create a fireball shooting gun, but unlike Freedom Bear this weapon doesn’t arc and it rotates 360 degrees. Frank can also impale zombies with the Pegasus – a horse toy and fireworks that launches zombies into the sky before exploding. Not exactly destructive, but Capcom Japan urged the team at Capcom Vancouver to create weapons that let gamers play with zombies.
