DRW Dead Rising Survivors




 * For Dead Rising 2 see Dead Rising 2 Survivors.

The Willamette survivors are any characters in Dead Rising that, when encountered, have not met their fates at the hands of the zombies. Most are characters Frank West can find in various places of the mall at certain times. Others are psychopaths, or survivors who take advantage of the incident to commit amoral acts or simply snapped and were driven to insanity due to the outbreak. Some survivors are unsavable or victims of such psychopaths and cannot be saved by Frank.

There are 88 survivors (excluding cult members and soldiers) in all, psychopath, savable & unsavable alike, though only 78 are marked in the notebook.

Survivors
The citizens of Willamette who were not initially killed or rendered undead by the zombie outbreak are referred to as "survivors." Many survivors can be escorted safely to the Security Room, and will often provide Frank with competent cover if given firearms or other weapons; others may be injured, cowardly, traumatized, hostages, or even drunk, requiring Frank to lead them directly to the exit point and possibly rendering him unable to use his weapons. Otis will periodically update Frank with information on certain survivors and their locations, though some survivors must be found without assistance. Certain scoops or "unannounced" survivors are time-sensitive: if Frank takes too long to begin a scoop their health will decrease, and in some cases of large rescues from certain psychopaths they may die off one by one. Successful rescues will earn PP for Frank; Frank may also choose to leave the survivors to die, or kill them himself.

List of Survivors
This is a list of all survivors in Dead Rising. It includes citizens of Willamette as well as out-of-towners. The listings are in different colors. If the character is green, then they are savable in the game (survivors). If they are red, then they are not savable in the game (victims) or they die if the story is completed in the "true" fashion. If they are orange, then they are psychopaths, and should be killed. At the bottom of the page there are several notes about the characters.

Psychopaths
Main Article: Dead Rising Psychopaths

Normal
These survivors can walk and be equipped with weapons. They are the most common of the survivor types. Most males and some females are in this category. While escorting a group, they are much more reliable, since they can defend the group at waypoints so long as they're armed. They are more difficult to escort than other survivors if they're alone since you have to depend on their AI to navigate through zombies.

Normal Females
Most women that can equip weapons can only equip light weapons such as knives, submachine guns, handguns, etc. They also have a unique running animation that is slightly slower than males, causing Frank to have to wait for them to catch up. They also use an unarmed fighting style, like unequippable survivors. There are a few female survivors that do not use this AI system (or can at least equip heavier weapons): Beth Shrake, Barbara Patterson, Kay Nelson, and Debbie Willett.



Can not be Equipped (Holding Hands)
These survivors are too afraid or incompetent with weapons, but can be led around by the hand directly. All are female. They are good with group escorts since they are able to keep up on foot, with the exception of Susan Walsh. They are also easy for solo escorting, since they can be guided directly by hand. Like Normal Female Survivors, they use an unarmed fighting style that consists of shoving zombies, which causes them to fall to the ground, or by kicking zombies which causes some damage. The best thing about this type of survivor is that you can hold two hands at once. This tactic is useful in some scoops such as The Woman Who Didn't Make It or Above the Law.

Unable to Walk
These survivors are too injured (or drunk) to walk, and require assistance. They are the least common. They are a burden in groups since Frank is required to support them by shoulder or carry them on his back, rendering him unarmed, but are extremely easy to escort individually. They will attack zombies if one gets close enough.

Story Survivors
During the story, you will be required to follow Brad or Isabela. Without your assistance, they will usually die, but both are armed with a pistol and have the AI of a normal survivor. They don't count as survivors in your party during this, although Isabela also accompanies Frank in the two prior categories as a regular survivor. If they die at any point then all cases will fail.

Defected survivors
If Frank chooses to attack survivors, they may defect. Occasionally the purple message, "[Survivor name] has defected" will flash, and the survivor will attack Frank and no longer follow Frank to the security room and will not rejoin. If this happens Chuck has no chance of rescuing the defected survivor. Survivors may also defect if their friend or a loved one is killed or defected themselves, such as Jeff & Natalie or Tonya & Ross.

Escorting Survivors
Don't lead, follow: Unfortunately, the Dead Rising Artificial Intelligence is terrible. This makes escorting survivors a little frustrating when they continuously get attacked by zombies. Survivors frequently get surrounded by large packs of zombies which they can't handle, leading to their gruesome death, unless you backtrack and try to rescue them, which is not a very good use of Frank's limit time.

Survivors joining by conversation
To get survivors to join Frank, Frank has to talk to them with (use ). In the process of a conversation, Frank may have to reply multiple times to convince them to follow him, requiring pressing several times. Leah Stein is a good example of having to repeatedly press the button. There will then be a large message in the center of the screen that the survivor has joined.

Calling survivors
Tapping the button will call the survivors to come to Frank. Frank will shout out "Follow me!" or "Come on!" to any survivors in his party. This command has the effect of causing the survivors to stop their current actions and head towards Frank. Using this command will cause any existing waypoints to be deactivated.

Use the goal way point command
Use the goal command to tell the survivors where to gather, by holding and pressing the  button on the location you want the survivors to gather, such as a door leading into the next area. Frank will shout out "Over there!" or "Go!" to any survivors in his party.

Once at the way point, the survivors will call for Frank repeatedly, which is confusing because survivors also call Frank when they are under attack. Setting a new waypoint will cause the previous one to be deactivated.

Assisting survivors
Frank can assist some survivors. Just stand next to a survivor and if Frank can assist, "Carry", "Give Shoulder", or "Hold Hands"  will appear, press.

Under Attack
When a survivor is under attack by a zombie, they will call out your name repeatedly until Frank comes to help them. The survivor will be essentially immobilized, unable to do anything but struggle to keep the zombie away until the grab is interrupted by Frank, another survivor, or surrounding zombies. Be careful when using weapons to rescue survivors, as it is very easy to hit the survivor.

Survivor's Health
The current health level of survivors is indicated on the green name bar. The proportion of the health bar that is green represents remaining health. When survivors have less than full health, Frank can give them a food item to restore their health.

Leaving survivors behind
When a survivor is off-screen, there is a small rectangle on the side of the screen where the survivor is. Inside the small rectangle will be the survivor and what they are doing. Under this survivor image is the survivor's health bar and name. If the survivor is too far away from Frank, the name and life bar will not appear under the survivor mini-image.

Survivors left behind in another load screen area will have their name on the lower left area of the screen. Their health will slowly deplete until Frank goes back and get them. Also, if you actually see a unannounced or scoop survivors name on screen with their green life bar and leave the area without talking to them, their health will still slowly deplete as well.

Example:

Jeff Meyer and Natalie Meyer die 30 game minutes (2.5 minutes real time) after Franks sees and hears Jeff or Natalie. Frank didn't even need to talk to Jeff or Natalie only hear them, for them to die when Frank goes to another load screen.

Giving survivors food or weapons
Frank can give certain weapons to survivors, like a lead pipe, shotgun, or small chainsaw. Survivors will not accept big weapons, such as barbells, trash cans, benches, or any two handed weapon that Frank cannot store in his inventory and has to drop to pick something else up.

Frank also can also give food to survivors and they will eat it to regain their health. Survivors who can receive assistance cannot accept weapon items but will accept food to eat.

Hearing survivors
Simply hearing a survivor's cries for help can cause the survivor to beginning to die if Frank leaves to another load screen.

If a survivor's time limit bar on Frank's watch screen immediately changes from blue, yellow, or red to a small white block, this means that the survivor will die if Frank leaves to another load screen for too long (30 game minutes).

For example, Burt Thompson, one of the Barricade Pair survivors who is in the middle of Weber's Garments, can start to have his life drain when Frank leaves Al Fresca Plaza because Frank walked to close to the entrance of Weber's Garments, activating Burt, but not Aaron, who is in back of the store. Frank does not even need to touch any of the furniture blocking the entrance for Burt to begin to die when Frank leaves Al Fresca Plaza, a close proximity to Weber's Garments is enough.

Entering Leisure Park during the unannounced scoop Prisoners is the same, even if Sophie is across the park, Frank will always hear Sophie scream, so if he goes inside and leaves her unattended, she will die in about 30 game minutes.

As long as Frank stays in the area after hearing the survivor, the 30 game minutes is suspended. As long as Frank does not leave to another load screen, the survivor's life will not automatically drain and the survivor will not die in 30 game minutes.



Eight survivor rule
Frank can only escort 8 survivors at once, Otis will not call about a scoop if Frank has the maximum amount of survivors or if the number of survivors in the active scoops plus the number of current survivors in your party equal more than 8. This includes unannounced scoops and scoops which Frank never answered. If Frank has the potential to rescue a survivor, that survivor is counted toward the eight survivor rule.

This rule first comes into effect with Shadow Of The North Plaza which is normally available for the first time on Day 1, September 19, 11pm. There are ten scoops before Shadow Of The North Plaza, seven of those which can be active with 8 savable survivors at 11pm.

Brad Garrison, Isabela Keyes, and Tad Hawthorne do not count towards this limit as Brad and Isabela are involved in cases and apply differently. Tad is not counted as his appearance is caused by completing Photo Challenge, ensuring that he will be spawned as soon as Photographer's Pride is activated regardless of current survivor numbers.

Security room
The goal is to get the survivor(s) back to the security room. To get back to the security room, the survivor has to jump up on the ledge to go through the air duct. Often it is very difficult to get survivors to jump up. If Frank runs to the air duct and presses the survivors will all get stuck at the ledge, trying to jump up all at once.

One option is to set a way point at the air duct ( + ). Then jump down to the rooftop and push the survivors until they each jump up.

The Fate of Survivors
thumb|275px|right If a survivor is successfully escorted back to to the Security Room, then a short scene will show one of them offering their gratitude to Frank. Afterwards they can be found in rooms located at the back. They will no longer be able to enter the mall and the notebook will list them as Safe.

If a survivor's health is fully depleted from attacks by zombies, one of death scenes is triggered showing them being killed by the zombies in a gruesome manner. If you go to where they died you can see that they themselves have risen as a zombie and will behave accordingly. The notebook will also list them as Undead. This works for every survivor (and if you are lucky enough to encounter this glitch, psychopaths).

This video shows different cutscenes for if a survivor is killed by zombies

If their health reaches zero due to any reason other than being attacked by zombies, then they will simply fall down, lie there, not rise up and be marked as Dead in the notebook.

A survivor may also be listed as Lost in the notebook if a main survivor is outside the security room after failing certain cases, or if Frank fails to prevent a mutiny. In this case the survivor will leave the security room and can no longer be found in that playthrough.

Trivia

 * At 12am, all of the survivors will drop down to the floor and sleep for the duration of the night. At 5am, the survivors immediately wake up and begin interacting with each other.
 * If Frank leaves the side room doors open, sometimes survivors will wander out into the hallway and sit down.