Dead Rising 4

Throw in the enhanced photography and investigations, and Dead Rising 4 is an unusually deep and well-rounded game built around zombies. Forget the zombies, though. The real monsters are those who won't give Dead Rising 4 a chance.

Dead Rising 4 is bloody, chaotic, and downright hilarious. If you’re looking to turn your brain off this holiday season, and de-stress with gratuitous violence, this is the game for you.

Dead Rising 4 is able to take the best elements of the older and newer games in the series and mash them into a spectacular open-world zombie-slaying experience. The game’s core gameplay is just so engaging and enjoyable that diving into hordes after hordes of zombies to wreak havoc never gets old, and having Frank West back in the action makes it even better. The series is certainly in a much different spot now than it was 10 years ago, but its future has never looked brighter.

The fourth addition of this open-world action packed game is the most zombie filled yet but don’t feel like you need to have played its predecessors to enjoy this one. With optional tutorials getting you through the basics you will quickly find yourself becoming distracted finding new and better ways to kill zombies before you realise that you have forgotten about the main storyline. So please excuse me, I have to return to humming Christmas tunes while I kill some more zombies!

I enjoyed getting dirty in Dead Rising 4’s madcap sandbox, and I’d expect that people who have kept up with the series will also have a great time wreaking havoc in Willamette. Players who wanted to get into it before but were put off by the time constraints should definitely give it a shot, too. In many ways, this is the game that people who just wanted to be a one-man zombie wrecking crew were probably hoping for all along.

Dead Rising 4 may not be the series’ high point, but it’s easily the second-best, and a great experience in its own right. Zombie slaughtering has never been this accessible or thrilling, and the developers at Capcom Vancouver have once again proven that they know exactly what to do with a winning formula.

Dead Rising 4 is a game for everyone that loves exploring, looking for objects and building new weapons. And killing lots and lots of zombies.

Dead Rising 4 is a continued testament to what makes the series fun, that being how it doesn’t take itself so seriously like many other zombie games out there. Capcom Vancouver has done a great job with this latest game in the Dead Rising series, and although some may argue that the omission of the 72-hour timer is a mistake, we think it was a great idea as it should make the game that more enticing to so many gamers.

Dead Rising 4 is easily the greatest game in the franchise. It basically offers the same addictive concept from the previous games but with many corrections, changes and additions that refresh the overall experience. It doesn’t matter if you are a veteran fan from the series or someone who is just starting with it, the game will make you understand the delight behind killing hordes of zombies.

Saga fans and newbies will both enjoy Dead Rising 4. The first will enjoy it because there are zombies and a thousand ways to finish’em. The newbies because it is not a Dead Rising at all. Capcom Vancouver has left behind the elements that made great the original Dead Rising, but presents a more classical (and western) system, which will hook those players looking only for a good time in front of their consoles.

The franchise recovers its energy with its most comfortable game, which shows a genuine sense of humor. It's also the easiest iteration, though.

It’s a different take on Dead Rising than most would expect, but works better than you would think. It may get stale after a while, with only four cases to choose from. At the same time, Dead Rising was always a single player experience and DR4 successfully takes a little from each game in the series, and does its best to give something for everyone. Is it what the hardcore fans want? Not all of them. Games change with time, for better or worse, and right now is Dead Rising’s time to shine.

Dead Rising 4 does exactly what we were asking for. The game is fun, especially considering its sandbox soul, despite a slow beginning and a too-compliant difficulty level.

Dead Rising 4 is an outstanding iteration: the sense of humor, the blood and Frank West make a comeback and give the series a much needed breath of fresh air. If you are a veteran of the franchise, you may dislike some of the changes at first, but as you play it you will appreciate the irreverence that the series is known for.

Dead Rising 4 has the best core gameplay the series has ever seen. Its inventive and humorous ways to put down the dead are something I still haven’t tired of, and its surprisingly interesting plot is more than just a zombie-killing delivery system. Despite the technical blemishes that come with the series, its lack of co-op story mode play, and the fun-yet-unreliable multiplayer, Frank West’s return brings the series some fresh ideas, a ton of bloody mayhem, and a whole lot of cracking wise. Here’s hoping he sticks around for a while.

Doesn't reinvent the zombie-killing wheel, but it's the most polished Dead Rising yet. [Feb 2017, p.74]

Dead Rising 4 brings a lot of varied zombie-slaughtering fun to your living room but it also takes a couple of steps back for the series.

Dead Rising 4 won’t win any awards nor is it the best of the series, that for me is still the Dead Rising 1, however, it’s a strong entry and worthy of your time. I mean putting comedy heads on zombies will never, repeat never, get old!

Boredom, simplicity and lack of challenges in later stages of campaign force us to run around without much purpose, consider the meaning of life, analyze yesterday's events or just plan tomorrow's dinner. That's how you know it's time to turn off Dead Rising 4.

Mindless, stupid fun.

We wanted to love Dead Rising 4 but it has plenty of little fails all over the game that made us love it less than we were desiring.

It all adds up to a zombie game that manages to stand out. Yes, the pool of zombie titles in gaming continues to be deep, but Dead Rising 4 still finds its place, striking a unique balance between deep story and the wildest zombie open world of them all.

The "use anything, make anything" mechanics that have made zombie-smashing so fun are still intact, and some changes only amplify the experience when dealing with the expansive world. While the story is good on its own, Frank's presence provides a nice balance between silly and serious, and the multiplayer also finds a sweet spot. The title has some issues, but they aren't enough to dampen the sheer fun this game provides.

While Capcom Vancouver enhanced the melee combat with the new exo-suits, sadly the shooting mechanics aren’t improved. Dead Rising 4 is a Dead Rising game, warts and all. A zombie slaying experience unlike anything else on the market. It’s a riot, it’s a hoot and it’s on Santa’s nice list.

Dead Rising 4 is undoubtedly a great zombie game, with Capcom Vancouver nailing the open-world and tone once more, but the lack of true psychos in the world does detract from the overall experience. It’s no Dead Rising 3, but it’s still a bloody good game.

Dead Rising 4 is the worthy heir of its predecessor. The return of Frank West does not change the gameplay introduced three years ago maintaining all the non-sense on which the saga has built its fame. The price, however, is a lowering of the difficulty far beyond an acceptable sense of challenge.

Dead Rising 4 is fun, silly and gleefully absurd in its execution of thousands upon thousands of undead fodder as it aims to make the apocalypse fun again.

Dead Rising 4 continues the idea of mainstream accessibility that started in Dead Rising 3. While the first two games were about watching the timer and making efficient choices, Dead Rising 4 is about killing zombies in silly costumes with cool weapons. If that's what you want, Dead Rising 4 delivers good, gory zombie fun in a Christmas-themed wrapper. If you're looking for something more like the first game, I'd pick up that re-release. If you liked Dead Rising 3, you'll get a kick out of this.

Dead Rising 4 is definitely a step up from Dead Rising 3 and the technical improvements stand out the most. If you look at the game as a whole, it’s a great package which should entertain anyone looking for a title where they can go on murderous rampages without thinking too much. I just wish I could continue it while I waited for the expansion.

Not always thrilling, but Dead Rising 4 feels like the series getting its sense of fun back. And that's a great thing.

While there are some disappointments and archaic clunkiness, Dead Rising 4 is a great time that makes smart improvements over Dead Rising 3. The comedic beats are surprisingly well executed, especially early on in the campaign, and while the conclusion may be hugely disappointing to some, I can’t fault the series its boldness.

Dead Rising 4 took everything that was great about Dead Rising 3, removed the timer, and brought back the franchises most prominent protagonist in a big way. The game isn't without it's faults. You're more than likely going to encounter the occasional glitch, some of which may require reloading a previous checkpoint. Also, the lack of co-op in the main campaign is a huge disappointment, but the separate co-op campaign is an okay compromise. Dead Rising 4 is an absolute must for fans of Dead Rising.

Dead Rising 4 promises a lot of change in the Dead Rising series. While at points this feels awkward and strange, the Dead Rising experience still stands firm due to its enticing story and exaggerated action.

Despite several flaws, Dead Rising 4 is an engaging and entertaining product, recommended for fans of the series and for those looking for over the top humor and action.

Full of original and devastating weapons, a new and brutal exosuit and Frank West as main character. Dead Rising 4 is an entertaining option, but it's easy to beat, has disappointing psychopaths, some technical issues and less backtracking than others in the franchise.

Dead Rising 4 is not amazing, as it seems to be struggling with both identity and technique. It does offer a fantastic joke on the genre by throwing us in the deep end with some very bizarre weapons.

Dead Rising 4 does the series justice in many ways, but the game gets dragged down by some very noticeable shortcomings that deter from the usual Dead Rising experience.

Dead Rising 4 is, above all else, surprisingly bland, and that’s not something I ever thought I’d be able to say about a game that’s largely about running over zombies in a tractor. It doesn’t feel like an entry in its series, but like some kind of Dead Rising-themed expansion for a different franchise altogether.

Dead Rising 4 brings back the fun of its previous installments, but does not risk at all. It needs serious changes in its gameplay mechanics for better results.

Much like the “Roaring Thunder” weapon, Dead Rising 4 banks on nostalgia and humor. While not much new exists in the beat ‘em up genre, this title has a lot of fun moments, delivering an enjoyable return to a zombie-infested Willamette.

Dead Rising 4 marks the end of the series for as we knew it. It is a new starting point for a saga that has decided to abandon any survival elements, transforming itself in a rowdy and light-weighted action game.

Dead Rising 4 provides a very entertaining experience and the gameplay is still simple and solid. Unfortunately the Capcom title has the same “old” side missions and the usual AI issues. Even with its problems, the game is a ton of fun to play.

Dead Rising 4 is a lot of fun, but the challenge and tension that made the first few games so unique are dead and buried.

For those of you who have been scared off by Dead Rising in the past, maybe this is your time.

Despite a few new ideas, which don't always work as expected, Dead Rising 4 does not show huge improvements to the original formula: It's a fun game with a bunch of problems and nothing more.

Appropriately, this is a real Christmas jumper of a game: warm, cosy, and a teeny bit naff (in a good way). [Jan 2016, p.72]

Dead Rising 4 has some obvious flaws, like a shallow story, poorly executed co-op and the difficulty level that is nonexistent for anyone who has a tiniest bit of gaming experience, but I honestly enjoyed killing almost 15.000 zombies throughout the campaign. [02/2017, p.26]

The developers made a great effort as fighting hordes of zombies is as fun as ever. The story was very enjoyable with a satisfying ending. But some design choices really hurt the game at the end such as generic side quests and a disappointing online mode.

While there’s certainly a cathartic sense of enjoyment to be found in making light work of tens of thousands of zombies using the large and crazy array of weapons that are available in Dead Rising 4, the removal of campaign co-op, psychopaths being replaced by forgettable maniacs, and the lack of any challenge due to the removal of the in-game timer really highlight that the gameplay that is on offer is shallow. If you liked Dead Rising 3, you’ll no doubt find some sense of enjoyment in Dead Rising 4. For everyone else, it’s not going to convince you otherwise.

Dead Rising 4 is an amazing game that gives you the opportunity to go ballistic on hordes of zombies. But, it does not offer a lot more than just that.

Dead Rising 4 has deviated too much from its own traditions for me to give it a wholehearted recommendation. It now resembles a typical modern day third-person sandbox game, for what that's worth. To be fair, I have a lot of fun with games like that, and I've been having a lot of fun with this game. But Dead Rising has come and gone, and has been replaced with something a little tamer and more accessible.

Dead Rising 4 evokes much of the same style and quirkiness that the first two games did, but ultimately isn’t able to spread that fun across the entire experience.

On many levels Dead Rising 4 is a disappointment, content to riff on the slapstick violence and revive past glories but showing no real desire to do anything new. There's precious little depth and the combat is shallow, while some sections seem designed to show up Frank's inability to cope with tooled-up human foes. Yet there's something weirdly cheerful and festive about Frank's misadventures, about crafting homebrew weaponry and putting it to work.

Dead Rising 4 is certainly good, but it’s still not as good as it could have been.

It's fitting, somehow, that a game series so lovingly modeled after a famous B-movie would itself result in a B-tier game. Dead Rising 4 is uneven and less polished than many other games this fall. It's the kind of light, airy game I would have expected earlier in the year, when it wouldn't risk being swallowed up by the holiday season. At its core it's a pulp adventure, with winking witticisms and bloody messes strewn throughout. That makes it, if not entirely memorable, at least a bloody good time that understands the ephemeral nature of camp.

While it’s massively enjoyable for the greater part, if you didn’t like Dead Rising 3, you likely aren’t going to like its successor. Even though some nice improvements and additions have been made this time around, there’s not enough that would really cause anyone to change their mind about the franchise. If you did enjoy Capcom’s last open-world zombie-chopping romp though, you’re in for another wild and entertaining ride.

Dead Rising 4 sees the franchise's original hero forced back into action in a sequel that's bigger than any entry in the series before, yet feels more empty and bereft of excitement than its predecessors.

Dead Rising 4 feels like yet another one of those games. I love the series, and DR4 will satisfy my thirst for yet another entry. It felt good to get back into Frank’s shoes, and the Christmas theme is fantastic. The lack of story co-op is the biggest offender, and I wasn’t a fan of how much the game seems to throw at players. This seems like a perfect example of less could be so much more, but as it stands Dead Rising 4 is a solid entry in the long-running series.

The removal of the timer from as compared to past games might not bode well with fans of the series, but it allows others a sense of freedom to move within the game at their own accord. That all said, there just isn’t enough to keep you engaged apart from the main storyline; killing zombies with crazy theatrical weapons is fun, but after a while it just becomes too much of a grind.

Dead Rising 4 is a fun game, the Christmas theme is fantastic and the online multiplayer is pretty fun as well, however being a good game does NOT make this a good Dead Rising game.

Even if still fun when managing mountains of zombies with crazy weapons of all kinds, Dead Rising 4 fails to diversify enough of its gameplay from the previous game, making even a backward step in the variety, graphics and overall charisma departments.

At times it feels like a reanimated corpse itself, but as mindless and predictable as it may be Dead Rising 4 is as much fun as the series has ever been.

Dead Rising 4 is a good game which takes most of the previous mechanics but forgets, once again, to implement the time limit we loved in the first episode. Some will be pleased, but the hardcore fans of the series won't.

Forget the first chapter, forget the time limits and everything that made the first chapter a real survival horror. This is just an entertaining action game, and a Dead Rising for dummies.

Dead Rising 4 maintains the series' tradition of superficial yet entertaining mayhem by adapting ideas from every previous iteration.

Dead Rising 4 does not do enough to deserve a new number in the title; it feels more like an add-on to DR3 than anything else. And what it does change, it changes for worse: DR3 had had very gratifying “zombie genocide” gameplay, but now the undead are so weak, our West didn’t die a single time over the whole playthrough. [Issue#215, p.58]

Quotation forthcoming.

The return of Frank West and Willamette is not enough to turn Dead Rising 4 into a competent video game. The absence of the iconic time trial turns the title in one of the easiest rides of the franchise. Good multiplayer and brainless (but fun) zombie massacre, but Capcom Vancouver is lost in the Dead Rising roots.

As far as Dead Rising games go, Dead Rising 4 may be dumbed down, but it’s still dumb fun.

It's hard to complain too much about the absence of peril when you're wearing the bottom half of a chicken suit. [Feb 2017, p.114]

Despite a few improvements, Dead Rising 4 falls short in too many areas to earn a recommendation. A passable entry in the zombie slaying franchise that wastes the return of its original hero.

The Dead Rising brand should give itself a short break. The fourth episode had almost slipped into average, saved only by a perfect combination of weapons and creative ways how to deal with zombies. [Issue #271]

It’s disappointing that Dead Rising 4 sees the series take a backward step. While there’s gory fun to be had, the failure to replace the time-limit based gameplay with any kind of alternative mechanic is a mistake. Even the biggest fan of zombie-killing frivolity will find that the endless slaughter wears thin eventually, and most will hit that particular wall much sooner.

Dead Rising 4 has obvious flaws. It is not a great technical game, has a lot of bugs, and it does not run as well as a lot of other games on console. It still manages to entertain with it’s humor, but it is a flawed game.

Dead Rising 4 offers players a chance to explore a zombie-infested open-world at their own leisure and kill throngs of enemies ad nauseam. While it’s fun to dispatch zombies with a multitude of toys, things quickly get repetitive and the lack of difficulty removes the excitement of overcoming the horde.

Dead Rising 4 takes a few steps forward in terms of the gameplay mechanics, but also takes a giant zombie-infected shamble backwards in regards to the narrative elements. Taking away the ticking clock, making the maniacs nothing more than a mere annoyance instead of the stuff of nightmares, and having civilians easily rescued really pulled away from what I liked in the previous games. Dead Rising 4 is fun, but it’s also a little hollow and it’s lost a significant chunk of the series’ soul.

Dead Rising 4 is disappointing on several levels, but above all, it's hard not to stress that the IP seems to reach some solid boundaries. It's maybe time for Capcom to let it rest for some time.

Although the weapons and the exo-suit elevate the core action of Dead Rising 4, the lack of timer takes away the challenge and the replayability. The current build also has a lot of bugs, unfortunately.

Dead Rising 4 is like a digital stress ball. It can be cathartic to let loose and kill thousands of zombies whenever you want, but it doesn’t have much else going for it, even with the charming Christmas setting and a compelling multiplayer mode. If you’re a diehard Dead Rising fan, you might get more out of the story than I did. Like the characters mentioned earlier, the narrative is not very interesting and mostly served as a way to push me to different parts of the map.

Dead Rising 4 is a passably entertaining and wholly unnecessary return to a series that’s growing more redundant with each succeeding release.

Lack of Psychos, lack of timer and time limits, easy to build combo weapons which are overpowered btw, a leveling system that makes the game easier than it already is and a story that makes no sense. Dead Rising is turned into to a laughable excuse of a zombie sandbox game. Wait, wasn’t that an extra mode in Dead Rising Off the Record? Prefer the Remastered Collection.

My complaints boil down to a linear plot, a generic skill-tree system & the game's overall lack of challenge. And while these things aren't necessarily that bad, it's that Dead Rising 4 now blends in with almost every other game on the market, where the series used to stand tall, offering something that no other game did.

Dead Rising 4 is a defanged sequel unlikely to satisfy fans of the series or appeal to new ones.

Four games in and Dead Rising as a series has all but exhausted its core concepts, but these tricks might still entertain you if you just want to cut some rotting meat in half. For me, Dead Rising 4’s surface schlock quickly became tedious shoddiness, and the result is a disappointingly dull open-world game that simply can’t hold a candle to this year’s best.