According to Capcom, Dead Rising: Case Zero — the paid prologue downloadable content leading into the release of Dead Rising 2 last year — broke Xbox Live records when it was released. At the time, the publisher said the content had “broken all records on Xbox Live with the best week one unit sales in the history of all content distributed through Xbox Live Arcade.”
Considering the success of the standalone game (a short but full featured product that many considered a “demo” for Dead Rising 2), you’d think the publisher would try to replicate the success for the just announced Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. But when I asked about it at Capcom’s Captivate event in Miami, the idea was immediately shot down.
“There are no plans for a prologue or epilogue for this game,” executive producer Jason Leigh told me with little hesitation.
When pressed further, Leigh explained the choice.
“Lots of logistics go into decisions like that, and many of those logistics are completely out of our hands,” he explained. “These decisions need to be made very early. And prologue [Case Zero] and epilogue [Case West] on [Dead Rising 2], that decision was made a lot earlier than people probably think. So it this case, it just wasn’t going to make sense to take on a [new] prologue and epilogue.”
Instead, the team focused on building an experience custom-fit for Dead Rising’s original photog bad boy, Frank West. Dead Rising 2: Off the Record looks to combine the photography of the original with the improvements of the sequel. For more, check out our first look hands-off preview.
