Producer reveals details for Dead Rising 2

What do you do when your daughter gets bitten by a zombie and you need a lot of money for the cure? For Dead Rising 2 protagonist and motorcross champ Chuck Greene, he joins a gameshow. But while the game has one specific goal for players to aim for, producer Mike Schmitt details a lot of other things you can do while you’re at it.

What do you do when your daughter gets bitten by a zombie and you need a lot of money for the cure? For Dead Rising 2 protagonist and motorcross champ Chuck Greene, he joins a gameshow. But while the game has one specific goal for players to aim for, producer Mike Schmitt details a lot of other things you can do while you’re at it.

First off, fans of the first Dead Rising will be glad to know that the sequel will maintain its mixture of action adventure, RPG, and survival horror elements, all with a side of humor. Story picks up as Chuck’s daughter gets bitten by a zombie, and the worried dad joins a gameshow to raise money for the cure. “That’s his main motivation but there’s also a conspiracy against him, with people blaming him for the zombie outbreak at the beginning of the game,” Schmitt revealed.

Given it’s another zombie apocalypse, it’s anything goes. For Dead Rising 2, that means multiple endings. “I don’t know the final count but there are multiple endings and we definitely want people to go back and keep playing, because levelling Chuck up opens up new areas and things to do.” Chuck also has the ability to combine stuff like teddy bears and and machine guns to produce new and more effective weapons.

The game also has multiplayer features that will carry over to the single player mode. “Your friends can jump into your game at any point and if you want to play co-operatively from start to finish, then you can do that. The host player controls things like saving but whoever jumps in can carry PP and Combo Cards over to their own game. Playing with friends is particularly useful for things like boss fights and it is fun to just mess around.”

If the undead aren’t challenging enough, there are also ten events of competitive multiplayer for up to four players. One example would be a scenario where most the player with the most zombies slain at the end of the time limit wins.

What sets Dead Rising 2 apart is its interesting approach towards your usual zombie apocalypse. While most games in the genre prefer to give you the terror of being one of the few left standing, this one throws a tasteful bit of humor into the mix, all while providing hours of replayability and, in Mike Schmitt’s words, “Excitement… the feeling that you want to keep playing because you don’t know what to expect.”

[via PlayStation Blog]