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Dead Rising 2: Case West

Eurogamer Is that what you went for with Chuck?
Rob Barrett

We tried to capture something similar. Chuck is maybe a bit better-looking, but I read one review that said that the two products together had provided the two ugliest lead characters in games. Frank sort of cast the mould as the everyman and we really tried to nail that with Chuck as well. He's the same way, he's a flawed hero character.

Eurogamer Will we be switching between the characters, then?
Rob Barrett

In single player, Frank will back Chuck up as an AI friend.

Eurogamer The implication there is that we'll be able to control Frank in co-op.
Rob Barrett

In co-op, it's highly likely that you'll get behind Frank again, yes.

Eurogamer Why was the decision made to make these two episodes exclusive to Xbox Live?
Shinsaku Ohara

Dead Rising was our very first Xbox 360 title and Microsoft supported the title all the way. At the beginning we didn't know that this new IP would be a success, but the fans on the console really assisted in making it into one. So it's like a present, something that we gave back to the original Dead Rising fans.

Eurogamer Is this episodic structure something you see being adopted more widely by Capcom?
Shinsaku Ohara

It was definitely an experiment, but there's been a good degree of success. We nailed it. Maybe other publishers and developers will look at this and think it's a good way to make money. It may work for some games, from Capcom's point of view, but not all of them.

If other people start to do the same thing with their games, I think we'll do something else. We've pave the road, but we would probably be looking for another road, something else different to do for the fans.

West before date.
Eurogamer You've talked a lot about maintaining the 'Capcom DNA' when working with other developers. What does 'Capcom DNA' mean to you?
Rob Barrett

It's hard to put into words, but right off the bat when we were working on Dead Rising 2 we knew that there was a flavour to a Capcom game, a kind of intangible quality that makes Capcom fans so rabid and crazy about the products. There's a quirkiness to it.

Shinsaku Ohara

I think the fans know what Capcom DNA is. It's hard even for us to describe, but when you play Dead Rising 2, it feels like a Capcom game. That's Capcom DNA. It's a mixture of a lot of things – responsiveness, story, character driven plot, everything working together.

Some developers and publishers just give the IP over to the developer, and it's made and published, but it doesn't feel like the publisher's game. That, for us, is not what we're shooting for. Any developer that we work with, it has to feel like a Capcom game. I don't want to give specific examples of games that don't feel like the publishers' games, but I think you know what I mean.

Eurogamer Dead Rising was so interesting because it was Western horror viewed through a Japanese cultural filter. How has Blue Castle preserved that weirdness?
Rob Barrett

We just immerse ourselves into a crazy maelstrom of ideas. They're all colliding, all different people's viewpoints, and we just dive straight in. Everyone on the team has an absurd sense of humour, and that plays out in the game.

It's unique as well – there aren't many games out there that are funny, and we have this ass-kicking lead character that so many other games have, but there he's not running around in a tutu. It's quirky. That's the key.

Dead Rising 2: Case West is an Xbox Live Arcade exclusive. A release date is yet to be announced.