Don't worry, Dead Rising 4 will 'still be stupid'

Dead Rising 4 has a lot of bloody, zombie mayhem to offer players. But the best parts of the Dead Rising series, according to Capcom Vancouver studio head Joe Nickolls, are also the most absurd.That isn't changing when the game hits Xbox One and PC this holiday.

"It's still Dead Rising," Nickolls said. "It's gotta be stupid. We have to make sure the things we do in the game are still stupid."

In the Dead Rising 4 demo we saw at Gamescom, that's a promise the team is delivering on. The demo starts calmly enough, with returning hero Frank West tracking something monstrous in the sewers. Along the way, he picks up an Exo Suit — a mechanical body suit that gives you super strength — and proceeds to bludgeon his way through the zombie horde with a traffic light post ripped from the ground. It gets more absurd; after finding a conveniently placed Slurpee machine, Frank is able to combo it with his suit to freeze zombies solid.

As you kill foes and power up, you'll also gain the ability to perform different visceral kills. In a particularly memorable move Nickolls calls "the grilled cheese" Frank yanks a zombie off the ground and rips it in half, much like a hungry person might do to a perfectly good sandwich. According to Nickolls, there are more items in the game players can use for combos, some of which are military, and some of which are "incredibly stupid."

"these guys will find you."

The goofs don't end there, however. Dead Rising 4 includes a selfie mode, which allows Frank to flip his camera around and pose with different faces. Apply that to a zombie kill, and you have what Nickolls calls the "stealthie," where Frank sneaks up being a zombie and snaps a surprise seflie with it before a quick kill. There are also even more weapons to find, including the Gandalf, a staff named for a certain wizard. On its own, it shoots garden gnomes; when powered up, players can perform a "You shall not pass" move that sends gnomes running out in a tiny army.

As the demo neared its end, Nickolls also showed off one of the game's new zombie types, the Evo zombie. The developer compared it to a zombie from horror film 28 Days Later, where the infected are very angry and very fast. These are newly turned zombies who won't tire easily. Or, think of them as raptors from Jurassic Park, Nickolls said. They hunt in packs, and with a single roar they can call in more zombies for a lethal force.

"Unlike past Dead Risings, you can't just stand on a car ... these guys will find you," he said.