Many may have noticed that while Dead Rising was still a great title, it was a lot different than the usual style game that Capcom delivers. The biggest reason for the change? Dead Rising was the first title from the Japanese developer to truly target a Western audience. With the sequel, Dead Rising 2, on the horizon, Capcom opens up about their business change, Western development, and co-op.
Capcom’s Shin Ohara delivers a Q&A session with Gamasutra, going into a lot of depth about how the games Western influences were truly accomplished. They also discuss the technical advances made for Dead Rising 2, and some potential upgrades for the title.
[Gamasutra] How do you go about choosing a Western team to continue on an existing franchise like this?
Shin Ohara: [laughs] Well, for Dead Rising 2, what we wanted to do is show a lot of zombies, and the current tech that we had didn't allow us to do that. And the other goal with Dead Rising 2 is we wanted to really make it a game that the Western audience would really appreciate. Now, instead of using a Japanese developer, we looked to other regions, and we were shopping around.
We stumbled across Blue Castle, who had the tech to show a lot of zombies. Not only that, they really understood Dead Rising, and they liked the game. I think it just really clicked. It was easy to work with and talk to them.
Based out of Canada, Blue Castle has been working with Capcom to deliver an even more impressive experience for Dead Rising 2. Part of that goal was to get as many zombies on the screen as possible, and consideration for the Kinect and Move have come to mind as well.
[Gamasutra] You've got lots of zombies in the game now. How many zombies can you fit on screen?
SO: Last year at Captivate we did a demo. We had a strip -- It was probably like 10 meters wide and 200 meters long. We filled it with about 7,000 zombies. After about 3,000, you can't really tell the difference because it fills up the screen anyway. Over 3,000, it ruins the experience. It's not a game anymore. We can show about 7,000 zombies if we wanted to, our technology is not limiting us. If the game only shows about 500 zombies or 1,000 zombies, that's not the game's limit. We have just enough so that people have fun with the zombies and the gameplay is rewarding.
Shin Ohara goes on to explain that the number of zombies in Dead Rising 2 is staggering, not overwhelming. They didn’t want players to feel like they were ever completely stuck, or the space too jam-packed that no one could move. You can deal with tight spaces by Zombie walking (over zombies' heads, as seen in the first game), attacking them, kicking them away, or there will be enough space to walk around them if you’re careful.
Otherwise, that sounds like a LOT of zombies, and hopefully the system can handle what they throw at us, since it sounds like they’ve figured out a way to make it possible on the software side of things.
Finally, Gamasutra discusses the recently announced Kinect and Move possibilities for Dead Rising 2.
[Gamasutra] Just out of curiosity, what do you think of the new motion control interfaces, such as Move and Kinect?
SO: I think motion control allows game designers to make different kinds of games. I don't think it appeals to every game, but it does give us a lot of variety when we consider what we want to do. I think it's a good opportunity for game designers to start brainstorming about what they can do with it.
In this case it seems like the good old fashioned controller wins out, but perhaps Capcom will consider some mini-games or something similar in the future for the title. Gamasutra has a lot of great information about the cooperation going on between Capcom and other developers like Blue Castle. We’re glad to see developers working together, and expanding horizons for an already fantastic company like Capcom.
It won’t be much longer before we get our hands on Dead Rising 2 to try out this new tech for ourselves. I for one, can’t wait to tell you how the co-op works. We’ll see on September 28th what’s truly in store for us.