Yesterday, Capcom revealed Dead Rising 3, a grittier next-gen installment in what’s been a severely uneven series. Recently, Dead Rising 2 and its spin-off, Off the Record, replaced the original game’s darker tone with lots and lots of camp. Now, it looks like Capcom is taking the series in the opposite direction with a significantly darker experience rooted just a little more firmly in horror.

Gaming website Polygon had the chance to chat with Josh Bridge, executive producer at Capcom Vancouver, about the upcoming game, where he discussed what they’re trying to accomplish with this latest installment. More after the break.

Bridge had a lot to say about the enemies, the undead hordes, which in past games have rarely posed much of a threat, even in large numbers. If you’re the type of player who ran into a horde, blindly swinging whatever makeshift weapon you just crafted until you’re surrounded by nothing but red and squishy bits, you may need to rethink your approach. “[The zombies are] much more aggressive,” Bridge told Polygon. “They hear and see you and they can make sound to tell each other when they see you.” Capcom is trying to make each individual zombie a threat. If they succeed, I can see this becoming much scarier than it has been before.

Stealth, too, will play a larger role in Dead Rising 3. You’ll want to be quiet so as not to attract the hordes, similar to recent zombie games like State of Decay. Capcom is working on a way for the Kinect to add to this element of the game by giving the player the option of yelling at the Kinect to distract the hordes. The Kinect will also be able to track the controller, so when the game’s protagonist, Nick, is grabbed, the zombie can be shook off.

There will also be a special ‘Nightmare Mode’ that can be unlocked by completing the game. This moderemoves the autosaves and gives the player three hours to escape the town, as opposed to six in the normal mode. So yes, the time limit is returning, only it sounds far less obtrusive than it was in the last two games.

This last bit was probably obvious to anyone who watched the trailer — Dead Rising 3 will be able to display three times more enemies on-screen than Dead Rising 2. That’s a lot of zombies.

You can read the full interview over at Polygon.

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