In Dead Rising 2 and 3, bashing the undead while partnered up with a buddy was exciting and lead to cooperative zombie-crushing shenanigans. It was almost unfair, pinballing the living dead between your baseball bat hits and your friend’s sword. In Dead Rising 4, Frank West returns to the Willamette Mall in Colorado for another zombie outbreak, but cooperative multiplayer is only present as a separate mode. In a Twitch stream, producer David McAnerin revealed that Capcom wanted to create a 4-player cooperative survival experience that wouldn’t intrude on Frank West’s single player story.
Yeah, to me a special Co-op campaign/characters sounds better than playing the single player campaign in Co-op. The co-op campaign could be lame, true, but if it isn’t, I’d prefer that to having to repeat single player content or to “intrude upon” single player content.
I’m currently playing through the Portal 2 coop campaign with my nephew, for example. So good. And especially designed for co-op only.
The co-op “campaign” will apparently be an extended horde survival challenge type of thing. Not quite what I enjoy.
It’s certainly not the same, but those that prefer to play with others aren’t being left out entirely – a four-player co-op mode will be included as a separate offering. Again set in the Willamette Mall, you’re paired together with three other survivors and must survive the undead onslaught in order to reach a safe house.
“The structure is, the four of you start the game together, you start in a safe house; you get a load up, get some weapons, get yourself ready to go,” explains McAnerin, adding that once suitably armed, you’ll be faced with “killing, mayhem, madness lots of interesting missions that take advantage of our systems…You have to get to the safe house to survive the end of the day.
The 4th Rising of the Dead is soon upon us, but I don’t know how to buy the PC version. Everywhere I look, only the Xbox One version is for sale. Supposedly, this is a “play anywhere” title, but I’m not sure how that works. I’ve got Amazon Prime and could get a 15% discount, but only on an Xbox One physical disc. If I buy this, will I get the Windows version, too, and I’m just stuck with an XBONE disc I’ll never use, or do I have to pay full price on the Windows 10 Store (if it ever actually shows up there)?
Good questions. Especially since it’s NOT a play anywhere title, but it lists platforms as Windows 10 and Xbox One. But I only see a pre-order for the Xbox version.
I decided to dig a little deeper and found even more ambiguity, along with a dark portent. These are the last three Dead Rising “news” stories on xbox.com:
The first, from October 19th contains the following:
For gamers looking for a core Dead Rising 4 experience, the Xbox One Standard Edition ($59.99) is available for pre-order from the Microsoft Store digitally or from participating retailers worldwide. We will announce the availability of Windows 10 pre-order soon – check back for more details.
Dead Rising 4 releases globally on Xbox One and Windows 10 on December 6, 2016 and December 8, 2016 in Japan.
Later, on the 28th, there is nothing mentioned regarding Windows 10 pre-orders:
Find all new ways to slay this holiday when Dead Rising 4 releases globally on Xbox One and Windows 10 on December 6, 2016 and December 8, 2016 in Japan.
Today, following the Game Awards trailer release, is a post with some Youtube guy trying to play the game surrounded by actors pretending to be zombies (which was surprisingly kind of funny) and this interesting tidbit right at the bottom:
Dead Rising 4 will be available for Xbox One and Windows 10* on December 6. ‘Tis the Season of the Unliving – Let the Slay Ride Begin!
Notice anything different? A mysterious asterisk has appeared after the 10 in Windows 10. No footnote appears on this story to explain its sudden and darkly foreboding presence. Never has an asterisk filled me with such fright.
Aww, man, I had resigned myself to getting it on the PC before wrapping up my game of the year lists. Please don’t ask me to hook up my Xbox One, Microsoft!
So this page on the Microsoft Store clearly lists Windows 10 as a supported platform. That means it’s playable on the PC, right? Am I missing some sort of “not available for PC until 2Q 2017” disclaimer somewhere? But then the only option to buy something that has an actual release date is this Xbox One version.
So no PC version tomorrow, it seems. Microsoft is really serious about PC gaming this time, guys. Really!
Tom, if I haven’t played any of the Dead Rising games, is Off the Record the one you would recommend starting with? I know Capcom recently re-released the first game on Steam. I’m reluctant to use the Windows 10 store for the 4th game because I had a pretty bad experience the last time I tried it.
You’re quite a zombie aficionado, so I would appreciate to hear what you think since I thought your State of Decay was spot-on.
Yes, Dead Rising: Off the Record is as good as the series has ever been. Based on what I know about Dead Rising 4, I’d absolutely recommend starting there rather than banking on this latest version.
It’s infinite scrolling, and I’ve gone down several pages. I’m way down into the weeds with the blu-ray for Maze Runner: Scorch Trials, a car charger for USB devices, and the season’s pass for Far Cry 4. Still no sign of a PC version of Dead Rising 4.
Thanks, Microsoft. I guess this is your way of telling me I should probably just start up a new game of State of Decay.