As we mentioned very briefly last night, Capcom has announced that Case Zero, the downloadable prequel to upcoming zombie-fest Dead Rising 2, has been downloaded over 300,000 times.

What we neglected to mention was that this means Case Zero has broken all Xbox LIVE Arcade records for first week sales.

We previewed Case Zero some weeks back. You can find it here.

 

The original Dead Rising was released in 2006. A true sandbox action-adventure title set within a sprawling mall in the town of Willamette, Colorado, players controlled Frank West. Frank was a photojournalist tasked with surviving the zombie apocalypse for three days until help could arrive. To complete the game, then, players simply had to exist within the zombie-packed gameworld for six hours.

Naturally, there were a variety of optional tasks to participate in, such as rescuing other survivors, or putting down psychopaths - survivors who had gone violently insane. However, much of the game’s charm lied in the freedom afforded to the player. It was a formula that proved to be a great success for both the Xbox 360 and Capcom. The title is now enshrined as one of the console’s “Platinum Hits.”

Yesterday, publisher THQ invited us over to play the downloadable prequel to Dead Rising 2, called Case Zero. Set three years after the Willamette incident and two years before Dead Rising 2, Case Zero establishes how new protagonist Chuck Greene arrives in Las Vegas, the setting for the upcoming sequel.