Dead Rising/WMG

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Dead Rising

Oh, screw it, let's just say it, WE'RE ALL THINKING IT, Phenotrans is a division of Umbrella Corporation.

Because, c'mon. They're both sort of Pharmaceutical companies, they both have a thing for zombies, and hell, it's Capcom. Let's just pretend they're in the same universe. Then we can spring for Leon/Frank co-op.

Frank West didn't give up at the end.

Well, considering he escaped Willamette, that much is obvious, but instead of surrendering as he seemed to do at the very end, he must have hopped down from the tank and gone on to beat the everloving hell out of every zombie he saw on his way out the door. Maybe he saved Isabella at the end, too.

Frank West didn't just cover wars

...he covered the Street Fighter tournament! Hence why he knows how to do a Flash Kick and Double Lariat.

  • Yet he can't do any hadoken's, sonic booms, yoga fires, or other energy attacks. :(
    • There's a big difference between copying martial arts you see on TV and being a black belt.
      • Probably because he has no ki control training. The energy attacks some characters have are implied to take far more training to master than the physical moves used by guys like Zangief. The Double Lariat just requires inhuman strength to be effective (which Frank West possesses to some degree, given how easily he lifts and throws grown people), and the Flash Kick is something people actually do in real life, albeit without the energy flash that gives it its name.

Frank West has Shinigami Eyes.

He immediately knows everyone's name to write them down in his journal and can see how long they have left to live...

  • The Death Note is the journal, but it's malfunctioning. This would also mean Otis is his Shinigami.

Larry Chiang, the butcher, knew Carlito is responsible for Willamette's Zombie Outbreak.

And was going to take a "pound of flesh" from the one responsible as revenge.

  • Reasonable. Which begets the question: Why should I kill him, when he's doing me a favor?
    • Isabella’s assistance is necessary to stop Carlito’s plan, she stops helping if you let Carlito be butchered for meat.
    • Larry is trying to feed Carlito to Frank; cannibalism, even against Zombie perpetrating terrorists, isn’t cool.
      • Your mileage may vary; cannibalizing zombie perpetrating terrorists is delectably turnabout.

Chuck Greene's kid/s was/were adopted from Carlito's list of zombie apocalypse tykebombs.

The Dead Rising 2 trailer says he's a loving father...

...I 'unno how they'd play this for laughs, though.

  • Let's elaborate on this. Chuck adopted one of the baby bombers after retiring from professional motocross. When all the other orphans activated, Chuck fell into a massive depression, feeling incompetent and unable to do anything. Then he decides to wipe the zombies off the face of the earth.
    • Jossed. The entire game centers around keeping Chuck's daughter from turning into a zombie by buying her the same zombie suppressant that Frank used, which is now being marketed as a drug called Zombrex. In addition, it's stated outright that Katey got infected after being bitten by her zombified mother.

Frank West is in purgatory (except in Infinity Mode)

The helicopter crashed en route to Williamette. Frank had spent his entire life ignoring the plight of others around him, always focused on glorifying himself through his reporting, and must spend the game atoning for those sins.

Otis is an angel from Heaven, forcibly drawing Frank's attention to souls in distress, while Carlito is a demon from Hell, doing his best to make the "Big Scoop" more appealing. Isabela, meanwhile, is a neutral agent from Purgatory itself, sent only to ensure that Frank is thoroughly tested before leaving Purgatory for whichever eternal reward he merits. The Psychopaths are all damned souls who are one step away from Hell, placed in Frank's path to show him the nature of evil (with the exception of Kent, who is in Purgatory for reasons similar to Frank's. Ideally, they would have joined forces and strengthened each other in their development, but their mutual pride got in the way of that). The zombies are the incarnation of sin itself, being driven solely by bestial desires such as hunger.

Thus, if Frank abandons the Cases in order to fully focus on rescuing survivors, he gets the "Good" ending, in which all the survivors are rescued. If, however, he risks the survivors in order to "uncover the truth," he is punished as his allies slowly die around him and, eventually, with the helicopter crashing leaving him apparently without hope. At this point, is soul is in danger of Hell, so Isabela shifts to give him one final test to see if he is worthy of redemption. In Overtime mode, Frank's pride and selfishness is challenged as he is forced to rely on another person for all his protection. At the end of Overtime, Frank confronts Brock, the manifestation of the misanthropy and cynicism that has fueled Frank's callous behavior. Unfortunately, Frank refuses to address these issues, instead attacking Brock in order to beat him to death with his bare hands. Thus, Frank's soul is damned to Infinity Mode, in which he spends eternity slowly starving away, forced to attack and kill others to sustain his meager existence, little more than a zombie himself.

  • Not only is this plausible, it's... really depressing. ;_;
  • Upon further reflection, I would suggest the following change to the first troper's theory. While Isabella retains her role, I would suggest that the military are actually Angels, making a last-ditch attempt to save Frank's soul. Carlito (the demon) interferes with attempts to contact them, and it is only after he is defeated that they appear. To Frank, they represent a hindrance between him and his story, so he interprets their presence as a threat, and their attempts to save him as attacks. Note that they do not kill him when given the chance, they restrain him and give him time to reflect, offering him another chance at redemption via a New Game +. Frank escapes and flees, however, continuing down his dark path via a literal path to hell (the clock tower) filled with the damned. Frank makes it to the Gates of Hades, where Brock (and archangel) makes his final attempt to save Frank. But Frank is beyond saving at that point and attacks him as well. Only after defeating Brock does he realize the enormity of his failure, leading to the Big No and the overtime mode described above.
  • For further elaboration and liberal arts nerdwank, Frank's camera represents his disconnect from the suffering he supposedly covered in the world and the reason he is in this situation. It is the albatross around his neck, dragging him down. This is why the other characters, upon "capturing" Frank, do not take the Camera, because it requires him to stop using it (save the survivors instead of recording their suffering) willingly.
  • So wait... Frank saves 50+ survivors and solve all of the cases in the three days to stop the demon (Carlito) and he is pushed further into damnation? That's one fucked up system there.
  • What about Paul? He's the only rescuable psychopath in the game, so surely he's different from the others.
    • He saw the errors of his ways and sough redemption. Thus his soul was made part of the test, to test of Frank could forgive those who cause him harm.

Not all the human enemies were actual Psychopaths.

Sure, they were willing to kill humans, but that's because rather they were, ironically, defending themselves from Psychopaths. Monsters? They look like monsters to you?

  • The Mall in is Silent Hill... Combine this with the "Frank is in Purgatory" idea above, and we officially have the best fan theory ever!

Jill's Sandwiches is really owned by Jill Valentine.

She just happened to not go in the day the mall got filled with zombies.

The zombies reproduce quickly and asexually, kind of like cells

It would explain why you can kill the entire town's population and the mall would still be full of them.

The insanity of various denizens of the mall is induced by the incredibly small text

They could have been more proactive in a situation so dire, but having the keys to their salvation put in such small and unreadable lettering wore at their minds until they became what they are now.

  • The towns Eye Doctor was the first to fall the zombie apocalypse.

The thing that mutated Bees into Zombie-Makers was...the T-Virus

  • Then where are the lickers and Tyrants? :P

Zombrex will eventually no longer work

The wasps that started the whole zombie mess will mutate and evolve, resulting in infections can't be slowed down by Zombrex anymore. A new drug might be discovered, but not after a lot of people have been turned, thinking they've been saved by Zombrex.

  • In Dead Rising 2, you learn that Zombrex is actually made from queens, similar to how Isabella made Frank's medicine in DR 1. Therefore, any mutation in the hormones would likely be canceled out by that, if not immediately.
    • It certainly would make things complicated if infected people were certainly doomed to become zombies no matter what. And it would make the need for a permanent cure more urgent if people like Frank and Katey are suddenly stuck facing turning no matter what they do.

Zombrex is intentionally nerfed

According to the debut, Zombrex was based on the cure mode in 1, Frank West never became a zombie but Zombrex only works briefly. This is part of a conspiracy to keep people dependent on it. Also this sorta fits with the metaphor for American consumerism.

    • This actually seems rather likely, considering the fact that Isabella was able to make a cure that lasted Frank two years using a laptop and a fruit smoothie mixer. Certainly a proper lab would easily be able to make a cure that would last as long as Carlito's Tyke Bomb trigger, if not more than a human lifetime.
  • Apparently the case in Dead Rising 2. C.U.R.E. thinks this is real, but Phenotrans has a genuine reason for not making a cure: it's dependent on Queens. They need to constantly start zombie outbreaks to ensure enough supplies of Zombrex.
  • In Case West Chuck and Frank meet the Corrupt Corporate Executive of Phenotrans, who has a zombie bite-mark in her face. She tells them that she "made something to remedy that years ago." and doesn't need Zombrex anymore.

Zombrex is lying to everyone

At least partially. Zombrex actually does suppress the zombie infection. However, it's made quite clear in the first game that bites do not transmit the zombie infection. Instead, it's wasp stings that are either painless or unnoticed among all the other horror and zombie bites. By the second game, everyone is still convinced that zombie bites cause infection, and anyone bitten is doomed to take Zombrex the rest of their lives or die. Zombrex marketing must have convinced everyone of this lie. This is helped by the fact that the people who are bitten by a zombie, but not stung by a wasp, AND don't take their Zombrex religiously has to be a statistically insignificant number, enough to chalk it up to natural immunity instead of "zombie wasps, not bites."

  • Jossed from the get-go: The main flaw with this theory is that the infection is transferred by bites, as well as by the wasp stings. Honestly, if it was just the wasps then the infection could never have spread so rapidly. Think about it: Yellow-fever, another insect transferred disease, is hardly a pandemic but the zombie disease in this game can destroy entire cities.
  • Besides, many diseases are transmitted by bodily fluids, one way or another (this is why you may catch a cold by drinking from a glass that had been used by someone who was already sick). And biting someone does not just leave the mark, but it also leaves saliva. And, considering that zombies bite with enough force to tear through soft tissue (e.g. skin and muscles), blood is added into the mix. So there you have it, an infection perfectly transmittable through blood stream (albeit not in the way real world diseases do). As for the immunity, the infectious agent would have to be something genetically similar to some other, "harmless" disease that only a handful of people contracted, thus allowing their antibodies to nullify it and rendering them immune to zombification. But the hitch is: do we know what's it like?

Antoine is just a fictional mascot for a chain of kitchenware stores

There's a store in the Royal Flush Plaza called Antoine's, and even an advert for it in Fortune Park, yet the "Antoine" you fight is in an unrelated restaurant in a food court separated from the Royal Flush Plaza via a casino. It's very possible the "Antoine" Chuck fights is just a chef who snapped from the zombie outbreak, taking the persona of a well known kitchenware mascot that is Antoine Thomas. Oh, and the reporter who was supposed to come to make a story on his cooking? There was never one in the first place.

  • Certainly a fun, if sad and tragic theory. Of course I figured that the Antione in the cut-out was from his younger years. Much like Gusteau from Ratatouille, his fame waned over the years, finally culminating in him being forced to work in a food court resturaunt. The Zombie outbreak finally made him snap after realizing that he'd never be able to delight the world with his cousine ever again.

Isabella is either dead or on the run from Phenotrans, who took over the creation of Zombrex when it's need became great.

  • She either founded the company or became one it's head researchers after the Williamette incident. Two years later, when it became clear that Zombrex's dependency was becoming too much to handle, the company went behind her back and orchestrated the Vegas outbreak. Finding out the truth, Isabella was either killed, or went into hiding (possibly with Frank) and is trying to find a better cure, which Phenotrans has decided they don't care for since it would they'd lose business if a permanent cure was made. On the other hand, she's alive, but being held captive and forced to research the gas that mutates the zombies into Gas Zombies.

The infection is two part, much like F. Emasculata from the X-files

  • The disease actually comes in two parts. One is a fast-acting virus or bacteria that infects the human body and kills very rapidly. The second part is the wasp larva parasite, that burrows into the brain and takes over motor functions of the freshly created corpse. The two work in symbiosis, with one helping to spread the other. The reason for this theory...

Psychopaths are immune to the virus...

  • ...but infected with the parasite. Some of them had to have been reasonable, successful people beforehand, and the specific stimulus of a zombie infection doesn't explain all of their behavior. Why would a highly successful chef decide to become a cannibal? Why would magicians who presumably have had a successful career before this forget how to do one of the most basic tricks and turn it into a murder machine? Why does a STOOOOOOOOORE manager suddenly become violent and paranoid? Easy. The wasp larva are eating into their brains. They will probably die eventually, but when they do the wasps will have had to do too much damage for them to be useful, which is why you never see one resurrected as a zombie (Wii version notwithstanding).

Chuck's mother is/was a Crazy Survivalist who anticipated the Zombie Apocalypse.

  • You know how sometimes, Chuck says "Just like mom used to make" after building one of his zombie-killing contraptions? Well, that's not just a clever quip, that's actually him nostalgically remembering the days where he would observe his mother gathering up all sorts of objects and duct-taping them together to create outlandish murder machines specifically made to mow down the undead. This would also explain why Chuck is otherwise a pretty normal guy: to him, getting creative and improvising some weird weaponry was just a regular part of his everyday life when he was little.

The next Left 4 Dead will include Frank and Chuck as bonus characters.

And it will be awesome. New ability to take pictures and combine weapons! I mean, the Left 4 Dead games have already had a few Dead Rising references, so hopefully we can expect this eventually.

South Plaza's in both malls were supposed to be safe houses.

Far fetched from the eagle-eyes standpoint, but there are particular resources in the southern plaza that sort of take influence of safety designs. Particular stores being built in very weird places, the disproportionate amount of maintenance zones, and the awnings which almost look like a makeshift vantage point. Unfortunately, the architects sort of underestimated the quickness a spread of rogue zombies would be. If it was not already clear there were more effective safe zones in the first place.

Infinity Mode is actually an alternate story line.

I cannot resist over analyzing how this mode works. My idea is that Frank West is just a normal person under the worst case scenario, he has no clue where to head off for safety. The zombies are let in by overcrowding instead of the ignorant woman putting her ugly dog first instead of her and other lives. Frank decided to try and fight through the zombies to find one form of safety until help arrives. This took hours because of how quickly all the zombies permeated Willamette. After much heated running he finally discovers an untouched warehouse where the zombies had not migrated into yet. He eventually finds a way to the rooftops. But that was a pointless move, almost. Frank had a brochure of the mall with him, their had been a staff section with a security room map. Of course this excludes the air ducts directed to the room. Frank forces himself to make room on the humid nights outside on the rooftops. Before he could plan any other form of survival, albeit going into the infested mall, or finding water in uncanny places- a strange black man in what appears to be a janitors outfit steps from a porch-like raised surface holding a sharpened, headless broomstick. Frank asks how long he has been there, but Otis decides to charge at him with the sharpened stick without a word spoken. Out of his bizarre reflexes. Frank KO's Otis, but refuses to kill (like Frank would). Out of natural curiosity, he enters the opening in the fence to find a small door open on a ventilation duct. Frank wants to sleep himself safely in the duct because it is at least away from potential zombies. To wrap this up, he uses the vacant security room as a safehouse, takes notes of the days with a camcorder, and encounters other characters as they are now psychopaths.

Frank West covered the Monday Night Wars, y'know?

Hello! His fighting style is almost entirely pro wrestling!

All the games are taking place inside the Animus

In the future, the zombie virus has become so potent and dangerous that if humanity doesn´t find a cure soon, the whole world will fall apart. At one point in time, there existed a cure, which it is presumed that someone in the Greene family knew about. However, that cure has since then been a mystery for the world, and it is only in this desperate moments that the government creates the Animus from Assassins Creed and sends Katey Greene into it to find out who had the cure, what it was made off, and if it still exists, who has it. Frank West is revealed to be a cousin to the Greene family.

First, they send her to Frank West, photojournalist and first user of Zombrex to find out if he knew anything about the cure. This explains why Frank can be bitten more then fifty times and still not become infected At least until later in the story It simply didn´t happen in real life. It also explains the Time limit. If at any point Katey fails the main story, she simply reloads in an attempt to achieve full sync.(IE: Frank West rescued all fifty survivors, killed all psychopaths AND completed the main story at the same time.)

Whenever Frank dies, she just get´s desynchronized and has the option of reloading the Animus. However, it turns out that Frank west knew nothing about the cure in Colorado. The Government attempts to go further into Franks memory, but it fails since the memories are hidden deep inside Katey. Instead, they proceed to her father, Chuck Greene in Dead rising 2, where the memories are closer(Katey was in Dead rising 2, after all)

Here, nothing new is revealed to them. However, the romp through Dead rising 2 unlocks the memories of Case West, where there is finally mention of a cure! The Government is getting closer to their goal, but they´ll need more memories to figure out if what was said in Case West was true or not. We can expect another game about Chuck or Frank, since those are the only relatives Katey's got.

The REAL reason zombies went for the mall is...

Because it didn't have an Orange Julius. Haven't you ever wondered why EVERY mall has one? It's not because it's popular, it's because it keeps zombies away. Several other types of stores keep other monsters out, but Orange Julius is the only specific store that does something.

  • Macy's has a similar effect, But Orange Julius can actually destroy zombies, Macy's just keeps them away. (Bloomingdale's works too, since they're both owned by the same company)

Capcom would do a Dead Rising Spin-off where you can play as Jessica and Rebecca as the heroines of the game.

While it would of course be considered non-Canon, the game would be in a way a "What if" on Dead Rising 2 on what if Jessica was the starring character of Dead Rising 2 and worked with Rebecca to take down the Zombies in this story. Yes Capcom would most likely milk the potential Fan Service out of a game starring the Ms. Fanservice of the first two Dead Rising games as much as they can but they will also get to considerably Take a Level In Badass as well.

    • Besides while sadly Jessica did not survive in the Canon ending of Dead Rising there were endings where she did survive so they can go from there as a reason why she can go on another zombie killing mission.
    • Though Capcom would most likely play up the Les Yay when Jessica and/or Rebecca try to fight the Bailey Twins, sure it might happen even without the twins but still.

Otis didn't rescue the survivors...

According to the wikis, Otis takes all the survivors with him as they escape from the mall in a helicopter. HOWEVER!, This is never said in game, and in fact, it may be implied that he didn't rescue any of the survivors. When the special forces arrive and you read the note he left for you, he says: "Some people came in from the roof and started snatching people. So in all the confusion I stole a helicopter."

Not only doesn't it mention anything about him rescuing people, it distinctly mentions that the special forces captured some of the survivors, if not all. The only reason they are still classified as safe is because A) the special forces didn't kill them, or B) It's beyond your control at that point, and Capcom didn't want to be jerks.

In Ending S, the safehouse survivors still survive despite being captured by the Special Forces.

Since Frank manages to escape with evidence and expose the truth behind the outbreak, the government no longer has any reason to secretly exterminate the survivors to prevent the truth from getting out. In fact, by revealing to the public that survivors were captured by the Special Forces, Frank would make the government accountable for those survivors and make it impossible for them to secretly kill them.

The info about Hornets causing the infection

This was not Jossed in DR2. In the first game, it's stated that being bitten doesn't actually turn you into a zombie, but being stung by hornets does. Now, is anyone turned after being bitten on screen, because if they are, this WMG is collapsing. Now, this could mean that Katie wasn't infected by her mother, but this opened up a whole new question. Now, I know what you're thinking. How was Katie infected? Well, it says that Zombrex stops you from turning into a zombie. All info about the zombies came from the makers of the vaccine, such as how everyone thinks that being bitten causes infections. Now, who's to say that when you're not infected and take Zombrex, it can cause you to become infected. So, while Chuck would do anything to save Katie, he may have caused her to become infected while trying to stop her from turning into a zombie. Is that Irony?

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Dead_Rising/WMG?oldid=1139471"