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Independent games journalist Liam Robertson, under the Did You Know? Gaming brand and his own series Game History Secrets, just dropped a huge report on the events leading to Capcom Vancouver’s closure. The video, which you can watch below, goes into great detail on what happened between the successful launch of Dead Rising 2, all the way up to Capcom’s restructuring and focus on Japanese game development. While we have a finished Dead Rising 4 release to see what happened there, another big nugget of information is on what went down with Dead Rising 5 development. A history of communication issues and executive function were allegedly the biggest issues, leading to Capcom needing to ultimately shutter the studio.[Thanks, Game History Secrets!]
According to Robertson’s report, Capcom Vancouver had several issues since Dead Rising 2, which led to a lot of problems through Dead Rising 3. This led to Dead Rising 5 starting development alongside 4, with a totally new team of developers brought in for fresh ideas. The project even moved from Capcom’s Forge engine to Unreal Engine 4, which led to significant structural changes compared to the previous games. What the team started with was a smaller game, set between Dead Rising 2 and 3, which would have allowed two players to enjoy co-op with the returning Chuck and Katie Greene.
Leadership ended up changing drastically over a few years, with the scope changing to something more open world and… Ubisoft-like, then leaping back in the opposite direction towards Dark Souls. As that version of Dead Rising 5 development progressed, Capcom back in Japan wasn’t okay with such a drastic shift and that was that. While figuring out what to do next, the decision was made to “cut their losses” and the Vancouver office was shut down, following a huge round of layoffs.
