While the likes of Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, and Street Fighter may be better known, Capcom's work on Dead Rising has grown a fairly substantial cult fanbase over the years. Allowing players to navigate through a series of fun settings while slaying zombies, saving survivors, fighting deadly bosses, and uncovering wonderfully over-the-top conspiracies, the series really found its feet as a tongue-in-cheek take on the zombie genre.
However, following the franchise's universally panned release of Dead Rising 4, the series has since lay dormant, with Capcom Vancouver - the team behind the series - shutting down back in early 2018. Tragically, rumors claimed that a fifth entry in the Dead Rising series was canned along with the studio. It seems fans are in luck, however, as games journalist Liam Robertson has since revealed a lot more about what this potential Dead Rising 5 would've been had plans proceeded as expected.
Discussing the development issues plaguing the potential sequel in his "How Capcom's Dead Rising Studio Fell Apart - Game History Secrets" YouTube video, Robertson describes exactly what Dead Rising 5 was and why it eventually came apart at the seams. According to the journalist, the game started production only a few months after development on Dead Rising 4 began, with a new team of completely fresh talent behind the game. The title originally was meant to star Chuck Greene, the protagonist of Dead Rising 2, with the narrative taking place in the gap between the second and third games' stories. Allegedly, it would have also seen players able to play Chuck's daughter Katie as a co-op partner, with the two having their own set of distinctive abilities and move sets.
Alongside this, the game would be set in the fictional town of Santa Catrina Mexico, with Chuck and Katie working with a local cartel to secure Zombrex, the series' fictional zombie-cure drug. It was meant to be far more colorful than the last two games in the series, running on a new engine and with vastly different combat. According to Robertson, issues came when the project changed focus several times, with the game originally aiming to resemble a Ubisoft title before making a large U-turn and looking more towards the likes of Dark Souls for inspiration.
It seemed Capcom wasn't a fan of the major change in direction, closing the studio down and killing the project for good. With previous Dead Rising games leaning heavily towards more challenging encounters, it would've made sense for the franchise to look towards releases like Dark Souls for inspiration in an effort to find what made its early iterations tick. Sadly, it seems that fans will never get to see what the project could've been.
Dead Rising 5Â has been canceled.