Dead Rising 4 had a lot of issues at launch, but they weren't of the technical variety, the kind of thing fixed with a simple patch or two. As our review, and many other reviews noted, Dead Rising 4's issues ran pretty deep, including and especially its difficulty, or lacktherof. Without much effort, you can complete Dead Rising 4 without dying a single time, all food you find seems to heal your entire health pool, and your weapons – particularly the combination weapons – did enough damage to blow through even the toughest enemies with relative ease.
But, help may be on the way, as Capcom just announced that, as part of a larger update that includes Street Fighter V costumes, Dead Rising 4 will get two new higher difficulty settings, potentially aiding the game's poor state at launch. You'll get to decide for yourself if this makes the game worth it, as Capcom also announced a 60-minute free trial of Dead Rising 4. That being said, I just don't see this being the start of any sort of comeback for Dead Rising 4.
Even looking past the dubious strategy of cashing in on the "success" of Street Fighter V to drum up momentum for Dead Rising 4, and even overlooking the strangely short 1-hour free trial that could be as misleading as they want it to be, the lack of difficulty in the game, while one of the major problems, was far from the biggest or most important issue.
While I did point out the lack of difficulty in my review, this was parlayed with the game's simplistic control scheme, its removal of the 72-hour mode and its overall watered-down nature as compared to previous Dead Rising games. From what I can tell, increasing the difficulty alone would only make Dead Rising 4 a slightly harder completely generic AAA hack-and-slash.
The sadder thing is that, the way Dead Rising 4 is structured doesn't allow for it to be easily "fixed." What made Dead Rising unique was its 72-hour mode that tasked the player with solving as many mysteries and completing as many tasks as they could in 72 in-game hours (72 real-life minutes). Dead Rising 4 is yet another linear plot with natural progression, interspersed chronological cutscenes and an explosive climax. There is no way they can just "add in" 72-hour mode with that structure.
As it stands, these higher difficulty settings will probably only serve to bolster the enjoyment of those who like the game. For everyone who was disappointed, higher difficulties alone won't be enough to entice people to come back to the game, nor will it be the ultimate draw of new players, particularly Dead Rising fans that feel skeptical about it. The problems with Dead Rising 4 run too deep to be fixed by a superficial addition that arguably should have been in the game from the start.
