This is a review written after completing the game multiple times and tackling practically all in-game challenges.
This does not contain any major story-related spoilers. I've played though all PC versions of Dead Rising games.

Survivors are now better at surviving. One of the most frustrating things about the original was that you had to micromanage your escorted survivors, as they would fall dead the moment a zombie would breathe in their general direction. The Remaster has a new system where you can see what items/weapons they prefer. Healing survivors and/or giving them preferred weapons will make them friendly and proactive, enabling them to rescue other grabbed survivors, including helping Frank if he's hurt by a foe. This can be a double-edged sword during boss fights, but commanding the survivors to hole up in a corner works well enough in such scenarios.

This is the first Dead Rising title where I was comfortable enough to actually have survivors tag along and protect each other, but also found out the hard way that keeping 8 active survivors around you is the limit and prevents the game from spawning any other survivor. Commanding survivors is the strongest tool you have, so rather than having them follow you and get in your way, it can be better to tactically place them in choke points like store entrances to stay on guard duty while you do your business. Similarly, it's good to point them at an exit in advance, making escorting easier and more efficient. One weird quirk about commanding survivors is that they'll first run up to Frank and only then start moving towards the designated destination.

Auto-save does wonders for your sanity. If something goes really wrong, in the original, all you get is a chunk of lost progress and the sense of dread of doing THAT part all over again. But no more, as the Remaster auto-saves after every loading screen minus the negative outcomes like getting captured, so there's care that you don't get screwed over and that's appreciated.

I never cared for Infinity Mode of the original game, as playing Dead Rising for 14 hours non-stop sounded like a sure way how to get health issues, aside from the mental strain of permadeath run going south. The things that make this mode now more playable is the fact that you can suspend the play session at any time, and the ability to advance the in-game time a la Phantom Cigar. More like phantom pi—. Anyway, the zombies now also drop boxes with randomized contents that can include healing items and strongest weapons in the game, significantly reducing the risk of running out of limited preset food items around the mall. It's now viable to comfortably finish the mode within 3 real life hours, if the RNG is favorable. With that being said, the Remaster does two steps forward and one step down the cliff (see Bad Stuff).

Original music is re-licensed in its full glory, there's a streamer mode readily available in the options. All characters are now fully voiced, and the new Frank grew on me fairly easily, even though I would've preferred to have the original VA. The new delivery matches the direction, so the VA did a good job.

It's a "carbon copy" kind of remaster, probably that's why they did not call it a remake, despite this title ticking off all the boxes to be called one (game being rebuilt on a new engine from the ground up). This means that if you don't like the Dead Rising franchise gameplay loop, then this will not change your opinion on the series. What will interest new players and returning ones is the rebalancing and quality of life improvements. If you were deterred by the frustrating survivor experience and extremely spongy bosses of the original, then this Remaster might tip the scales for you.

Infinity Mode in its current state cannot be finished, is a faulty product, and should not be played until the issue is addressed. Conceptually, the Infinity Mode itself is fine, but as of now, the game randomly crashes on a loading screen during later days. Once the game crashes, all your progress within this mode is lost, so the time wasted on this can be anywhere from 2 to 14 hours, depending on your play style. I've attempted to play Infinity Mode 3 times and the result was always the same, it was not an edge case, and it's unclear how did this even get greenlit for a release by the management. I've even tried to restart executable after every day by suspending the mode and quitting the game, in case there was a memory leak or corruption during a long play session, but, hilariously, the game crashed within 2 minutes during Day 6. This is an endless source of frustration to me, as I had a generally good experience with the game prior to this. The fact that you cannot restore a suspended save with a backup save feels especially hostile and punishing.

The modern control scheme had the opportunity to fix a source of accidental and unwanted interactions: an action button that does everything. Decoupling door opening from general interaction would already go a long way, as more than once I left an area by accident, causing the items left behind disappear, all because I was trying to pick up an item from the ground or trying to give it to a survivor, quite a common scenario next to a loading screen door.

In a situation where you have to wrestle against time and hordes of zombies you'd think a simple action of picking up item wouldn't be that difficult, but there's weapons and items that refuse to be highlighted and prompted unless you stand at a particular angle, which feels more like fighting the game's controls and interface, rather than zombies. A simple tweak of increase the item's detection sphere/box would have been enough to solve this issue entirely.

This might be the first RE Engine title that has all three vendor-specific upscaling techniques, including frame gen for Nvidia. That is a step in the right direction.
It also comes with all the expected RE Engine accessibility options that have been around almost since Resident Evil 7, including an archaic menu that does not navigate with a mouse that well.

I would say the performance matches the graphical fidelity of the game. The GPU system requirements aren't that high, so if you had a good experience in other RE Engine titles, then this should run well enough too, assuming your CPU is up for the task. The performance on my aging GPU that I got for RE7 back in the day is more than adequate.

What is not adequate, though, is the Infinity Mode. In its current state, the later periods of that mode crash the whole game, leading to a complete loss of progress within that mode. At the time of writing this review, there have been no patches, nor Capcom Euro PR responded to my inquiry about this issue. I would recommend staying away from that mode until the cause for crashes is fixed or at least pinpointed, if it's a particular graphical setting like in RE4R.
I can't recall any other recent Capcom title that would have a faulty game mode like this.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is easily the best way how to experience the original Dead Rising gameplay formula without needless amounts of frustration attached to it. It's far less grindy in terms of completion, the survivors do not need constant micromanagement, the jump from MT Framework to RE Engine results in pleasant upgrades to the visuals while maintaining the original art style: to me, it felt like playing a slightly prettier version of the original, just like I remembered it, but if you check side-by-side, the real graphical leap is immense. The only main caveat of this release is the Infinity Mode that really soured my overall experience, having the game crash at random load times with full progress loss is the real survival horror. I've covered games, y'know?

Review copy provided by Capcom Co., Ltd.

This is a review written after completing the game multiple times and tackling practically all in-game challenges. This does not contain any major story-related spoilers. I've played though all PC versions of Dead Rising games. [h1][b]Good Stuff[/b][/h1] Survivors are now better at surviving. One of the most frustrating things about the original was that you had to micromanage your escorted survivors, as they would fall dead the moment a zombie would breathe in their general direction. The Remaster has a new system where you can see what items/weapons they prefer. Healing survivors and/or giving them preferred weapons will make them friendly and proactive, enabling them to rescue other grabbed survivors, including helping Frank if he's hurt by a foe. This can be a double-edged sword during boss fights, but commanding the survivors to hole up in a corner works well enough in such scenarios. This is the first Dead Rising title where I was comfortable enough to actually have survivors tag along and protect each other, but also found out the hard way that keeping 8 active survivors around you is the limit and prevents the game from spawning any other survivor. Commanding survivors is the strongest tool you have, so rather than having them follow you and get in your way, it can be better to tactically place them in choke points like store entrances to stay on guard duty while you do your business. Similarly, it's good to point them at an exit in advance, making escorting easier and more efficient. One weird quirk about commanding survivors is that they'll first run up to Frank and only then start moving towards the designated destination. Auto-save does wonders for your sanity. If something goes really wrong, in the original, all you get is a chunk of lost progress and the sense of dread of doing THAT part all over again. But no more, as the Remaster auto-saves after every loading screen minus the negative outcomes like getting captured, so there's care that you don't get screwed over and that's appreciated. I never cared for Infinity Mode of the original game, as playing Dead Rising for 14 hours non-stop sounded like a sure way how to get health issues, aside from the mental strain of permadeath run going south. The things that make this mode now more playable is the fact that you can suspend the play session at any time, and the ability to advance the in-game time a la Phantom Cigar. More like phantom pi—. Anyway, the zombies now also drop boxes with randomized contents that can include healing items and strongest weapons in the game, significantly reducing the risk of running out of limited preset food items around the mall. It's now viable to comfortably finish the mode within 3 real life hours, if the RNG is favorable. With that being said, the Remaster does two steps forward and one step down the cliff (see Bad Stuff). Original music is re-licensed in its full glory, there's a streamer mode readily available in the options. All characters are now fully voiced, and the new Frank grew on me fairly easily, even though I would've preferred to have the original VA. The new delivery matches the direction, so the VA did a good job. [h1][b]Neutral Stuff[/b][/h1] It's a "carbon copy" kind of remaster, probably that's why they did not call it a remake, despite this title ticking off all the boxes to be called one (game being rebuilt on a new engine from the ground up). This means that if you don't like the Dead Rising franchise gameplay loop, then this will not change your opinion on the series. What will interest new players and returning ones is the rebalancing and quality of life improvements. If you were deterred by the frustrating survivor experience and extremely spongy bosses of the original, then this Remaster might tip the scales for you. [h1][b]Bad Stuff[/b][/h1] Infinity Mode in its current state cannot be finished, is a faulty product, and should not be played until the issue is addressed. Conceptually, the Infinity Mode itself is fine, but as of now, the game randomly crashes on a loading screen during later days. Once the game crashes, all your progress within this mode is lost, so the time wasted on this can be anywhere from 2 to 14 hours, depending on your play style. I've attempted to play Infinity Mode 3 times and the result was always the same, it was not an edge case, and it's unclear how did this even get greenlit for a release by the management. I've even tried to restart executable after every day by suspending the mode and quitting the game, in case there was a memory leak or corruption during a long play session, but, hilariously, the game crashed within 2 minutes during Day 6. This is an endless source of frustration to me, as I had a generally good experience with the game prior to this. The fact that you cannot restore a suspended save with a backup save feels especially hostile and punishing. The modern control scheme had the opportunity to fix a source of accidental and unwanted interactions: an action button that does everything. Decoupling door opening from general interaction would already go a long way, as more than once I left an area by accident, causing the items left behind disappear, all because I was trying to pick up an item from the ground or trying to give it to a survivor, quite a common scenario next to a loading screen door. In a situation where you have to wrestle against time and hordes of zombies you'd think a simple action of picking up item wouldn't be that difficult, but there's weapons and items that refuse to be highlighted and prompted unless you stand at a particular angle, which feels more like fighting the game's controls and interface, rather than zombies. A simple tweak of increase the item's detection sphere/box would have been enough to solve this issue entirely. [h1][b]PC Specifics[/b][/h1] This might be the first RE Engine title that has all three vendor-specific upscaling techniques, including frame gen for Nvidia. That is a step in the right direction. It also comes with all the expected RE Engine accessibility options that have been around almost since Resident Evil 7, including an archaic menu that does not navigate with a mouse that well. I would say the performance matches the graphical fidelity of the game. The GPU system requirements aren't that high, so if you had a good experience in other RE Engine titles, then this should run well enough too, assuming your CPU is up for the task. The performance on my aging GPU that I got for RE7 back in the day is more than adequate. What is not adequate, though, is the Infinity Mode. In its current state, the later periods of that mode crash the whole game, leading to a complete loss of progress within that mode. At the time of writing this review, there have been no patches, nor Capcom Euro PR responded to my inquiry about this issue. I would recommend staying away from that mode until the cause for crashes is fixed or at least pinpointed, if it's a particular graphical setting like in RE4R. I can't recall any other recent Capcom title that would have a faulty game mode like this. [h1][b]Conclusion[/b][/h1] Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is easily the best way how to experience the original Dead Rising gameplay formula without needless amounts of frustration attached to it. It's far less grindy in terms of completion, the survivors do not need constant micromanagement, the jump from MT Framework to RE Engine results in pleasant upgrades to the visuals while maintaining the original art style: to me, it felt like playing a slightly prettier version of the original, just like I remembered it, but if you check side-by-side, the real graphical leap is immense. The only main caveat of this release is the Infinity Mode that really soured my overall experience, having the game crash at random load times with full progress loss is the real survival horror. I've covered games, y'know? Review copy provided by Capcom Co., Ltd.