Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster director explains why the Convicts are reappearing

Key insights

One of the strangest elements of Dead Rising is the reappearing convicts, who are the only psychopaths to do so.
It was never really explained, but the director of Deluxe Remaster gave a reason for it.
According to Ryosuke Murai, the prisoners are supposed to be different people every time they respawn.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster director Ryosuke Murai has explained that the prisoners reappear every day because they are meant to be a different person each time.

Frank West in Dead Rising and Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster.

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Dead Rising's recurring convicts are presumably different people

The prisoners in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster.

Destructoid recently had the opportunity to speak with the developers of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, which included game director Ryosuke Mirai. In addition to asking him about the new survival AI and the possibility of a deluxe remastering of Dead Rising 2, Destructoid asked him why the prisoners respawn at midnight every day. In response, Murai offered an explanation I had never thought of before. Honestly, I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around it. Murai said that the prisoners Frank meets after the first day are supposed to be different convicts than the ones we originally saw, which is why the boss fight is repeated.

Similar to the original game, the convicts that players face after the first encounter on the first day are intended to be different people than the original trio. – Ryosuke Murai

It's an interesting perspective, but one that requires much of your disbelief to be suspended. Without ignoring the fact that fans already have questions about how the convicts got to Willamette in the first place,

all three actually have official names and are not just called “Prisoner”.

Dead Rising: Deluxe Remaster Preview

Added to this is the fact that every appearance in Dead Rising uses the same models and voices, without any variations being made to indicate that they are different people. That was certainly a technical limitation in the original game, but now, in 2024, it doesn't work so well anymore. Overall, it's a nice theory and probably what the developers were thinking, but it's also something that's hard to believe.