Five Major Improvements Made By Dead Rising 3

I’m a new Xbox One owner as of Christmas morning, and the bulk of my time over the last two weeks has been spent with Dead Rising 3. While I enjoyed the previous games in the series, several aspects regularly irked me. During my many hours with the franchise’s third installment, however, I’m finding it to be a silly and fun experience without many of the hassles of the first two. Here are some of my favorite improvements.

The locker system
Ever since the series began, one of its trademarks has been its vast array of wacky weaponry. Unfortunately, many cool items would break soon after their acquisition or prove themselves hard to find. With Dead Rising 3, each and every weapon that you pick up is permanently available back at Nick’s locker in the safehouse. Did you love that sweet grim reaper scythe that you put together an hour into the game? Well, you can access it again as much as you want as you progress further into the story. It’s incredibly convenient, and makes for a much better overall experience. 

Less babysitting
Previous games tasked players with saving innocent humans from hordes of zombies, but things frequently took a turn for the worse regardless of what actions you took. Friendly AI was atrocious, and survivors frequently died because they got caught on the environment or simply lost. In Dead Rising 3, they’re far more competent, and you can even unlock a perk that allows them to respawn back at the safehouse if they die.

Combos anywhere
Dead Rising 2 introduced a cool weapon crafting system that allowed protagonist Chuck Greene to fuse items into ridiculous creations. While fun, it was a hassle to have to collect the items and deliver them to a workbench every time you wanted to tinker around. In Dead Rising 3, all it takes is having the needed items in your inventory. If you’ve got them, a couple of simple button presses are all it takes to put together your Frankenstein-like weapon regardless of where you’re standing.

Leveling up
Upgrading your character was a feature of previous games, but it seemed to randomly grant you new abilities and moves without any real input from the player. Dead Rising 3 instead features a full level-up screen that allows you to improve melee attacks, ranged weapons, and many other abilities as you see fit. It lets you fashion Nick into the character you want him to be, rather than the predetermined character the developers decided on.

A more leisurely pace
While you could unlock modes with fewer time constraints in the past, your first playthrough was always bound to be a stressful race against the clock. A timing system is still in place in the third entry, but it’s far more lenient. Dead Rising has always featured a ton of awesome weapons and a ton of zombies to kill, but it was hard to really take some time to enjoy the slaughter when your eyes are forced to focus on a timer. With the ability to take hours between main story missions, Dead Rising 3 makes it far easier to enjoy your stay in Los Perdidos.