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Capcom has announced Dead Rising: Deluxe Remaster, a brand-new update of the classic Xbox 360 zombie game that promises some major graphical upgrades. But the updated version of beloved protagonist Frank West is proving controversial among series fans.
The brief teaser trailer for the Deluxe Remaster, which you can see below, features a truncated cutscene from the game’s opening. Capcom says this is “an updated release with a brand new look,” and the publisher ain’t kiddin’. A brief glimpse of Frank West shows a lot more detail than the old Xbox 360 character model, but he’s also got wilder hair, a lot more forehead, and a nose that looks like it’s made out of bricks.
Frank was admittedly never the most conventionally attractive video game protagonist, but the new look is already generating some, ah, consternation in the community. The comments under the trailer include a lot of suggestions that this is not Frank West, but perhaps rather someone like Hank East or Herbert North.
But it’s not so much Frank’s face as much as his voice that’s got fans annoyed. There’s no clear indication of who’s voicing Frank here, but the few lines we hear in the trailer do not sound at all like original actor TJ Rotolo. Capcom already recast Frank once for Dead Rising 4, but the new voice sounds like even more of a departure from Rotolo’s original performance.
Of course, Dead Rising is a lot more than its protagonist, iconic as a line like “I’ve covered wars, you know,” might be. At its original launch in 2006, it was an open-ended zombie game before the undead became passé, and its time limit mechanics remain unique to this day. Heck, you could even argue that it’s a sort of roguelite from an era before that genre was prolific, since you can start a new playthrough at any time with all your upgrades intact. Here’s hoping the Deluxe Remaster does a good job of bringing all that to a modern audience.
Eat up all the best zombie games out there, or go old-school with the best Xbox 360 games. I really need to talk with my editors about why Dead Rising isn’t on either of these lists…