Shin Ohara, co-producer on Dead Rising 2, has said that throwing too many zombies on-screen at any one time can potentially ‘ruin the experience.’
Specifically, Ohara was referring to the Dead Rising 2 Captivate demo from last year, where Capcom chucked an estimated 7,000 of the shambling flesh eaters on-screen for players to battle; however, he noted that while the technology available can easily accommodate such a vast number of undead, it becomes difficult to “tell the difference” when the number of foes eclipse the 3,000 mark.
“Last year at Captivate we did a demo. We had a strip — It was probably like 10 meters wide and 200 meters long. We filled it with about 7,000 zombies. After about 3,000, you can’t really tell the difference because it fills up the screen anyway. Over 3,000, it ruins the experience. It’s not a game anymore,” said Ohara, during a chinwag with Gamasutra.
“We can show about 7,000 zombies if we wanted to, our technology is not limiting us. If the game only shows about 500 zombies or 1,000 zombies, that’s not the game’s limit. We have just enough so that people have fun with the zombies and the gameplay is rewarding.”
“We want people to use a lot of weapons, and they need to be able to move around to use it against zombies. Traversing the space shouldn’t be a pain, but it needs to be a challenge as well. We didn’t want to fill a room out of zombies where you had to wiggle your way out.”
“Rather, you can jump over them, kick them, or go around them. There are many ways that you can deal with the zombies.”
Dead Rising 2 shambles on to store shelves across North America on September 28, arriving in Europe a few days later on October 1.