Amid the festivities at Microsoft’s X10 event, developer Capcom announced the official release date for the highly anticipated sequel, Dead Rising 2. The company announced that the sequel will be hitting the market on August 31st in North America; slating Dead Rising 2 for release a month before the holiday season begins.

The company also announced a “downloadable prologue” entitled Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO — something the developer plans to release exclusively on Microsoft’s platform. The downloadable prologue will introduce players to the games main protagonist, Chuck Greene and provide a link between the original game and the events that await.

The world as we know it is coming to a end! You don’t believe me? Then check out the multiplayer trailer (entitled “Terror is Reality”) for Capcom‘s Dead Rising 2, and witness that this terror is actually a reality.

Dead Rising 2 is set several years after the infamous zombie invasion of Willamette. Unfortunately, the zombie virus was not contained at the conclusion of Dead Rising, spreading unchecked throughout the United States and Dead Rising 2 depicts a country where zombie outbreaks continue to strike.

Like if you needed more of a reason to watch all of the information that will be coming out of the Tokyo Game Show this year. According to the Examiner, Capcom, one of the biggest game publishers and developers to date, has been teasing on it Twitter of the new titles that it will be revealing at the Tokyo Game Show this year.

“Hard at work on Tokyo Game Show plans,” said the publisher via its twitter feed. “Several new games to be announced in Japan, lots of new content for [Lost Planet 2], [Tatsunoko vs. Capcom], [and Dead Rising 2]. Exciting!” Tokyo Game Show 2009 will be held from September 24 to the 27.

The much anticipated Capcom title Dead Rising 2 wouldn’t be making an appearance at this years E3 because of the recent Swine Flu outbreak in Osaka, Japan.

“Our Capcom guys are not coming to E3 because of the Japanese government restrictions,” said Capcom’s Chris Kramer, Senior Director of Communications and Community, to kotaku. “The company is taking the advisory very seriously.”

According to Kotaku, Kramer said the company, which is headquartered in Osaka, laid in a supply of surgical masks and hand sanitizers a month or so ago, to try and cut down on possible illness in the company. However, Japan currently advises its citizens to restrict international travel, but people can still travel if they want to. The country has closed more than 4,400 schools, colleges and kindergartens for the week. The first case of the flu in the country was reported in Osaka.

While Dead Rising 2 will no longer be at the show, all of Capcom’s other expected video games will be there, Kramer said. The decision to not show Dead Rising 2 was driven by the fact that Capcom’s Keiji Inafune and other developers based in Japan will not be making the trip.

“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,” Kramer continued.

Besides Capcom recently revealing heavy hitter such as Dead Rising 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and Lost Planet 2, it seems that Capcom is planning two more power hitters to announce at this years E3. 

“You think we have great titles now? Wait ’til we announce two more at E3!,” Capcom revealed via its Twitter accout.

Two titles?!?!? Wow they really do have this generation down to the tea, but what titles do they plan to reveal?

However, GameZine.co.uk has been told that one of the titles will surprise you, and the other we’ll all see coming. Let the speculation begin. 

What do you know… According to EuroGamer, Keiji Inafune, Capcom R&D kingpin, has confirmed that Dead Rising 2 features multiplayer, despite rumors at GDC saying that it wouldn’t.

“We’re at a point in game history that you need to have some form of multiplayer component in a game,” Inafune told journalists at Captivate 09 in Monaco last week.

“Single-player alone is not going to cut it. So rest assured we are going to put multiplayer in the game, but I can’t go into specifics about what type of multiplayer as that directly relates to some of the game systems that we don’t want to talk about at this event. It will be online multiplayer, so keep that in mind.”

Remember back in 2006 when you first saw Dead Rising on the 360? Well, almost three years later it seems that the game is about to make an EPIC return because today Capcom announced its sequel, Dead Rising 2.

The game promises to ‘take the franchise to a new level of zombie-killing’ by featuring tens of thousands of zombies, in the all new gambling paradise of Fortune City, so it’s not in Vegas like previously though. The City will host new in-game objects that can be used as deadly weapons to stave off the zombie assault.

Dead Rising 2 is set several years after the infamous zombie invasion of Willamette. Unfortunately, the zombie virus was not contained at the conclusion of Dead Rising, spreading unchecked throughout the United States and Dead Rising 2 depicts a country where zombie outbreaks continue to strike.

Dead Rising 2 is being developed in partnership with up and coming Canadian developer Blue Castle Games. A number of members from the original Dead Rising team will be working alongside Blue Castle Games throughout the development process, including Capcom’s global head of research and development, Keiji Inafune, who as the game’s Producer will play an active role in the project.

A YouTube video has hit the web proclaiming that it’s the Dead Rising 2 trailer and guys close to Capcom have confirmed that is this the real deal.

I had a chance to contact a rep from Capcom and nothing can be ‘officially said’ because they cannot confirmed anything just yet. But, from this video we can find out some  information about Dead Rising 2.

The video has a reference to a drug that turns out ‘to almost be complete effective’ against the outbreak. Anyway, the video then moves to a casino it shows Isabella Keyes from the first game pushing a giant hamster ball, which they say is a new weapon from in the game.

However, if the video is true, it appears to confirm that Dead Rising 2 will be set in Las Vegas because of the casino parts of the trailer, but as of now, one can only wait and see.

The original Dead Rising was a solid Xbox 360 exclusive that kept gamers playing over and over again, but that was about it for the game title, until now. A source close to Canadian developer Blue Castle Games has told the guys over at Eurogamer that the studio is making a sequel to Dead Rising. Rumours that the Vancouver-based outfit was working on the zombie project first emerged last year, but neither the developer nor publisher Capcom has confirmed anything on the record.

The source said: “Everyone’s really excited; the team has obviously seen the rumours and it’s been hard to keep quiet, but they can’t wait to show off the game.”

Unfortunately, they weren’t quick to give any details on the title or when we’ll be likely to see it. Blue Castle has so far released two baseball titles all with 2K Games, including The Bigs, and the recently announced MLB Front Office Manager.

[Blue Castle making Dead Rising 2 via Eurogamer]