Gamers eager to get a look at Dead Rising 2 will have to wait – the game will not be appearing at E3 2009 thanks to concerns about swine flu.
There’s a joke in here somewhere about Capcom, zombies, and viruses. Instead of creating zombies, however, it looks like the swine flu destroys them. Or at least keeps them hidden under wraps, anyway.
You may have heard that Japan is going kind of crazy with the whole “swine flu” thing – at last count, there have been over 4,000 temporary school closures while the country tries to get the outbreak under control. The Japanese government has imposed restrictions on foreign travel due to the disease, and consequently Dead Rising 2 boss Keiji Inafune has canceled his appearance at E3, Capcom Community Director Chris Kramer told Kotaku:
“Our Capcom guys are not coming to E3 because of the Japanese government restrictions … the company is taking the advisory very seriously.”
Despite the fact that Dead Rising 2 is actually being developed by Canada-based Blue Castle, Inafune is the game’s executive producer and is closely involved with the game’s development – so much so that the company doesn’t want anyone else to show off the second zombie massacre at the show. “Dead Rising 2 is the only game we won’t be able to showcase at E3, because it’s at an early stage of development and the team is not comfortable having anyone else demo the code,” said Kramer.
It’s a shame, really. I guess we’ll have to wait and see whether Chuck Greene is as good at slaughtering the undead as predecessor Frank West was.
