Whilst Dead Rising 4 isn’t the deepest game in the world, it still has a few things that are worth knowing as you’re starting out that will help you as you battle the horde.
Increasing Fortitude early will help, a lot. It’s a little dull to put your points into the health bar when there are more fun skills to be getting, but a few points into stamina especially will dramatically cut down the annoyance factor associated with getting around the map once it starts to open up a bit. Plus a big stamina/health pool is damn near essential for a late-game section.
Combo Weapons are OP as hell, use them. Whilst you’re never really going to have a problem killing the bog standard zombies, even in crowds, once the super zeds and exosuit soldiers start showing up, you’re going to want something with a bit more oomph. The combo weapons, even the ones available at the very start of the game, are ridiculously powerful and can rip through even the strongest enemies with ease. So we’d advise to find and pick up as many blueprints as you can to always give yourself the option of always having a big pile of boom at your side.
Investigate Rumours as they show up. If you’re more of a one-track mind kind of player, you might have ignored these when they first get introduced in favour of going back and doing them later. Sadly, they are Case specific, which means when you finish a Case, you can’t go back to complete any unfinished rumours unless you replay the Case again. This is a pain, and you can miss out on the great PP and Scrap rewards that the rumours tend to give. Plus, they don’t take very long, so you might as well just get them done when they show their faces.
Panic rooms are everywhere. During your travels you may have picked up a few keys, but what do they open? Usually, they open panic rooms, which often contain health, powerful weapons and sometimes collectibles and a survivor or two as well. In all, they’re well worth tracking down, and finding them also contributes to your 100%ing the game.
You can’t hurt survivors. Saving survivors will level up your shelters and unlock new stuff at the vendors, but they can be tricky to save in the first place as they usually start utterly surrounded with zeds. Luckily for you then that even things like grenades, so long as you’re the one throwing them, won’t hurt them. This mean you can bust out the big guns when saving them without any worries and turn the zombies around them into slurry with impunity.
Survivor saves are randomised. The game never really tells you this, probably to give you a sense of urgency when saving the survivors, but in reality they are random encounters. This means if you miss one, or they die, it has exactly zero bearing on the game and your ability to progress as another one will turn up soon enough. So, if you’re just trying to get something done, you don’t need to bother rescuing everyone you come across. Bit of a time saver that.