House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn Announced for Arcades

Published: January 16, 2018 12:10 AM /

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Sega has announced House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn, the latest entry in the light-gun zombie shooting series, for arcades. The first mainline House of the Dead game since 2009's OverkillScarlet Dawn comes with a full-featured arcade cabinet. Scarlet Dawn marks the first migration to the Unreal 4 game engine, and the machine comes with vibrating seats and air cannons, depending on your progress. Based on the screenshots, Scarlet Dawn will feature co-op gameplay and rescuing civilians. Vehicle sections appear to be coming to the series for the first time, and there are sections where you have to rescue your co-op partner. Scarlet Dawn will have a live test this weekend in Sega's Akihabara Building 3, with likely more test dates to come in the future.

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Scarlet Dawn is the first House of the Dead game to come to arcades in over a decade, and the first major release since 2013's Typing of the Dead: Overkill. There's no word on where Scarlet Dawn falls in the House of the Dead timeline, though considering The House of the Dead III took place in a post-apocalyptic Earth, one would imagine Sega would look to backfill the timeline. The Unreal Engine also offers Sega the opportunity for quite a few zombies on-screen, as well as all of their guts in high-definition glory. There's also no information on which arcade board Sega will use for Scarlet Dawn. Longtime developer Wow Entertainment will not be officially working on Scarlet Dawn, as the Sega subsidiary went defunct back in 2004.

Despite the apparent death of arcades here in the Western world, their Japanese counterparts are still alive and well. Light gun games, in particular, have never enjoyed immense popularity, but they are making a resurgence in recent years. 2015 saw Time Crisis 5 and Jurassic Park Arcade come out, with Gunslinger Stratos 2 releasing a year earlier. There's no word anywhere on a Western release of the arcade cabinet, though when considering the incredibly anime Gunslinger Stratos saw a few cabinets scattered around the States, it's not out of the realm of possibility. With the test coming up this weekend, we'll know more soon about House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn before long.

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Kyle Johnson
| Japanese Gaming Specialist

Professional painter. Semi-professional weeb. I've played hundreds of games, but finished very few. I speak Chinese and Minnesotan.