As before the game focuses on brawls against large groups of zombies, using combinations of melee and ranged attacks along with thrown weapons to mow down zombies in spectacular ways with over-the-top and slapstick violence. The game again uses an extensive crafting system where players can create and customize their own weapons along with building many types of vehicles. Weapons include for instance the Gandelf, combining a spear and a garden elf to shoot exploding elves and a slam attack. West gets to explore Willamette which has changed a lot since his last visit. The mall from the original Dead Rising has been turned into the central Willamette Memorial Megaplex. At the same time he also gets to explore the surrounding neighbourhoods. As usual there are a lot of items to discover and collect such as weapon blueprints and hidden graffiti art to photograph. There are also many side quests, hidden bosses known as Maniacs and additional investigations to pursue along with events to rescue survivors or destroy military equipment. There is more time to explore as the game no longer employs a countdown timer to urge the character forward. Shelters serve as safe havens to acquire new vehicles, weapons and maps that reveal collectibles in the environment. Experience provides skill points used to upgrade abilities.
The game still supports cooperative multiplayer, but now no longer for the main campaign. Instead there are now four separate episodes where a team of up to four online players works together to complete missions in the mall.