| “ | It's Frank. Frank West. Remember the name, 'cause the whole world's gonna know it in three days when I get the scoop.
— Frank, on the way to Willamette.
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” |
Frank West is an average American civilian, working as a freelance photographer and photojournalist. Frank has little actual care for the plights of others, and most of his actions are relativly selfish in nature, though when he is pressed Frank is willing to go to extreme lengths to complete his goals, even if it means fighting an entire army of zombies single-handedly with a wooden baseball bat and a park bench. Frank cares only for getting a big scoop so he can become famous around the world.
Despite his many human flaws, Fank West ultimatley desires to do the right thing and is willing to help save and protect the lives of others, even at the risk of his "big scoop". He has a history of covering wars, explaining his profeciency with firearms, and seems to have watched a large number of professional wrestling shows as he tends to rely on the moves he sees from them when he is forced into hand-to-hand combat.
History[]
Dead Rising[]
Frank hired a helicopter pilot named Ed DeLuca to take him into the small Colorado town Willamette and, which has become mysteriously quarantined by the military, and then come pick him back up 72 hours later. As they approach the helipad at the roof of the mall in the center of town, a squad of military helicopters attacked, knocking most of Frank's camera equipment down into the streets below, surely broken on impact. Otis was forced to turn around, but at the last second Frank lept from the chopper, landing on the roof hard. In an effort to protect his camera, he used his leg to cushion the blow, nearly breaking it and causing him to start walking with a limp for the remainder of the event. Also on the roof was the mysterious Carlito, who informed him that he had arrived in Hell. Frank went down the stairs to find a group of people trapped in the mall as well, constructing a barricade. Looking outside, Frank was horrified and confused to see that the mall was under assault by zombies, and he rushed to grab more items to hold the door shut, though not before shooting a few pictures of it. When he reached the few remaining wood and park benches not being used in the barricade already, he met Dr. Russel Barnaby, who seemed either crazed, delusional or both, but Frank couldn't help him as he was on the other side of a locked gate. He also met a mysterious Hispanic woman, but before he could interact with her he was accused of spending his time "ogling pretty ladies" and told to help.
An elderly woman saw that her beloved dog was trapped on the other other side of the barricade with the zombies and she flew into hysterics, ripping through the defenses and tearing open the doors. She was quickly devoured by the undead, and the zombies spread throughout Entrance Plaza. Brad Garrison appeared at the top of the stairs and shouted at the people to get there for help. Frank, armed with only some broken pieces of wood and a camera, and hampered by his leg, fought his way through the zombies to reach Brad, though he was the only one who managed to get to safety. He met with Otis, a janitor who gives Frank a map of the mall an a phone so they can stay in contact, and Brad's government agent partner Jessie McCarney. West decides that he's still going to get his "scoop of a lifetime" and sets out to find a way back into the mall. As he prepares to enter Paradise Plaza, Jessie startles him, and he nearly bashes her head in with a fire extinguisher. She twists her ankle as a result, and is unable to do her job, asking Frank to help. She hands him her gun, and tells him to go meet up with Brad in the Food Court.
When Frank arrives in the Food Court, he is immediately pinned down by machine gun fire from Carlito along with Brad. Nevertheless, the two managed to get up to Carlito's position and hurt him, forcing him to flee. The two pushed their way through to Entrance Plaza, where they raised the gates and attempted to bring Dr. Barnaby back with them to the security room, but he refused. The two meet with Carlito again when he kidnaps Barnaby, forcing Brad and Frank to confront him before he feeds the old man to a crowd of zombies. Though they save the old man, and return him to the security room, Brad is injured in the fight and needs medicine to deal with the wound. Frank heads to the Mall's supermarket, where he meets Steven, the manager who snapped when the zombies arrived. He uses his deadly weaponized shopping cart and shotgun, and has the mysterious hispanic woman in the cart, who also showed up to get medicine. Frank fights and kills Steven, taking the key to his backroom and getting his much-needed medicine, though when he offers to help the mysterious woman she gets angry at him and runs away.
Brad begins his recovery, and Barnaby wakes up, but he refuses to talk with Frank around, stereotyping him as a typical paparazzi. Frank decides to find a source of his own when he sees the hispanic woman on the cameras. He tracks her down, but she attacks him on her motorcycle, forcing him to fight her. He is able to defeat her despite her vehicle, and pins her to the ground, demanding information. She tells him that she is Isabela Keyes, the younger sister of Carlito, and that the zombies originate from a small Mexican town, Santa Cabeza. She tells him that Carlito wants the public to know what's going on and why, and tells him that she will bring the two together for an interview at a rendezvous point. Hours later, while Frank is waiting in the small secluded room, when Isabela bursts through the doors, attacked by a zombie. Frank kills the zombie, and discovers that she has been dangerously wounded by a gunshot wound from her brother.
Frank helps Isabela and decides to carry her to the Security Room for help. When he gets her there, Brad wants to interrogate her, but she tells him that he should direct his questions to the leader of the Santa Cabeza Research Facility: Dr. Russel Barnaby. Just as she reveals this, a newly zombified Barnaby attacks Jessie. While they knock him off her, he uses his last grips of humanity to tell them that the zombies were an accidental result of experiments to reproduce more cattle to increase the rate they can produce meat in America, then he gives into the infection, forcing Brad to kill him. Isabela tells Frank and the others that Carlito wants to blow up the mall, sending the zombie virus airborne and spread across America, but she crafts a plan to disarm the bombs- sending Frank into the tunnels. While Frank is attacked by Carlito once again, he manages to stop the van he was using to try and run him down, and Carlito flees, allowing Frank to succeed in stopping the bombs. Meanwhile, Carlito attacks Brad, and they exchange crippling gunshots before Carlito dumps him into a room filled with zombies. Frank finds the wounded and turning Brad, who begs him not to tell Jessie he was infected. Frank sadly takes Brad's pistol, and mercy kills him.
Frank and Isabella.
Frank and Isabela make it to Carlito's Hideout, but she cannot crack his password to discover if he has any further plans. Frank discovers that Carlito is trapped in the Underground Tunnels by the butcher Larry Chiang, and quickly goes to rescue him to get his password. When he arrives, he finds that the butcher has also gone insane, and is killing humans to cut them up because zombie meat is "no good". Frank fights and kills Larry, before freeing Carlito, but it is too late- the wounds are fatal. In his final moments, he gives Frank a locket to give to Isabela, which reminds her of an old saying which turns out to be the password, allowing her to open the landlines. With these open, Jessie is able to call for backup. Sadly when she next calls Frank, she tells him that the military will kill everyone and destroy everything in order to keep what happened quiet, and when they arrive to interrogate her she also turns into a zombie due to her injuries from Barnaby's attack. She kills the two officers while Otis takes all 50 of the human survivors Frank discovered and rescued to safety in a helicopter, leaving Frank a note that if they ever met again, he owed West a drink. While Frank managed to fight through the army to the Security Room, he found only zombie Jessie left, and was forced to kill her. Frank, determined still to make it out alive, despite being abandoned, forced to kill his allies, still limping and low on camera film as well as being a victim for both the zombies and the army, climbs to the roof, and is rewarded to see Ed DeLuca's return. Frank signals him down, and Ed turns the helicopter to pick him up. Frank uses his camera zoom to watch Ed in the cockpit, as a zombie rises from behind him and attacks, killing the pilot and causing him to crash in the clock tower in the park. Horrified, Frank falls to his knees as the zombies begin to close in around him.
Isabela abruptly appears to save Frank, although she diagnoses with a bleak condition; Frank is infected with the parasite, and will turn into a zombie unless he procures the items requested by Isabela. Once Frank has acquired the necessary items, Isabela creates a temporary potion to delay the effects of zombification. The excess inoculation is used by Isabela to fashion a zombie repellent potion. She also reveals something horrible she found on Carlito’s computer: Carlito has used the same potion to temporarily preserve infected orphans spread across the country, basically making them zombie time bombs.
With no reason to stay in the mall any longer, Frank and Isabela decide to head out through the tunnels opened when Ed crashed into the clock tower. When they reach through to the other side, they are encountered by more military, lead by the commander of the clean-up operation at both Willamette and Santa Cabeza, Brock Mason. Brock makes his way towards Isabela and Frank inside of a large Army Tank; Frank commandeers the Humvee while Isabela manipulates the machine gun mounted on the back. Brock eventually knocks over the Humvee and stops the Tank to fight Frank in fair battle, rather than blow him to bits. Frank engages Brock in hand-to-hand combat, as the zombies begin to crowd around them. As Isabela regains consciousness, she evades the zombies and makes her stand on top of the crashed Humvee. Frank eventually knocks the Military Commander into the massive zombie crowd, and Brock is eaten alive while faintly smiling. Surrounded by the masses of the undead, Frank gets on his knees and yells as the game ends. In the credits it states that Frank and Isabela were able to escape and survive (likely using the tank that Brock arrived in). After escaping the zombie infested town, they were able to spread the story of what really happened at Willamette and acknowledge those who died at Santa Cabeza.
Dead Rising 2: Case West[]
| “ | You're pretty high-strung for a guy who's covered wars.
— Chuck Greene
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” |
Frank and Chuck, overlooking the facility.
After stopping the zombies in Fortune City, ex-motocross expert Chuck Greene was almost bested by the hands of a freshly-zombified Tyrone King, the host of the infamous cable show "Terror is Reality" where contestants kill zombies in gruesome and humiliating ways. Luckily for Chuck, Frank West made his timely arrival, rescuing him from certain death. While he was initially unwilling to work along side Greene after hearing the news reports that Chuck had been the one to cause the zombie outbreak to begin with, he gets a tip from a source of his that there is something he needs to see in a Phenotran facility, and he decides to bring Chuck along for the ride after he tells him about Rebecca Chang's death at the hands of the Phenotrans. Frank and Chuck arrive at the facility, crawling with zombies, and decide to work together to fight off the hordes and rescue the Phenotran workers, and to uncover who Frank's mysterious source is.
Frank spends most of his time wielding a baseball bat, and unless the player is playing co-op so someone else can play as Frank, he will not use any other weapons or switch outfits unless directed. He has also updated his camera so it's no longer running on film and requiring constant maintenance.
Frank and Chuck managed to fight their way through the facility and found the president of the Phenotrans, Marian Mallon, who claims that there has always been a cure for the zombies outside the temporary Zombrex they are already producing, but that they won't release it because it would take away too much money. She also reveals that Isabela is being forced to work for them after the Willemette incident. The commander of the Phenotran guards, Harjit Singh, appeared, wielding two impact hammers, he smacks Isabela across the room, knocking her out, and engages Frank and Chuck.
Frank and Chuck in the Phenotran facility.
The three's fight is constantly peppered with the arrival of additional security forces, but they are all killed by the duo, and they eventually bring down Harjit, causing him to stumble back and fall into a tank of queens, which begin stinging him all over from the inside and out. Marian takes Isabela and activates the self-destruct on the facility, forcing Chuck and Frank to retreat.
As the two stand outside the burning wreckage of the Phenotran Facility, Chuck wonders about the cure Marian mentioned, believing he could finally make his daughter safe, but Frank warns him it could've been a lie. Just then, West's watch begins beeping signaling his need for Zombrex. Chuck takes a pack of the temporary antidote and hands it to him, telling him that "the world needs Frank West".
Non-Canon History[]
Tatsunoku vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars[]
Frank in Tatsunoku vs. Capcom Ultimate All-Stars.
Frank West was confirmed to be a hidden character in the American rerelease of Tatsunoku vs. Capcom: Super Stars, appearing for the player only after they have cleared Arcade Mode with three other characters from the Capcom side.
In his ending, after saving reality the Tatsunoku heroes are dismayed that Frank has to return home now, and Joe the Condor told him they were sure they would have been good friends. Frank however, tells everyone they're forgetting something- telling them all to gather around. A few days later, Frank West has arrived in Willamette for the first time, and has just meet with Brad and Jessie. During his alone time in the Security Room, Frank had been spending some time staring at an image saved on his camera, prompting Jessie to ask if it was important to him. He tells her it's his best work, but he has lead the team to believe it comes from a halloween party, though they remark he seems to fit in with the costumed people surprisingly well. They ask if he has a name for the picture, and the camera zooms out to show Frank happily smiling with his Tatsunoku friends and decides to name the photo "Ultimate All-Stars" and swears to frame it if he can get out of Willamette alive.
Each of his hyper combos refer to something from Dead Rising. First, his "Real Mega Buster" combo has him put on his Mega Man suit and use the Mega Buster unlocked in the original game for earning the zombie genocider achievement to unleash a massive blast of energy for a 21 hit combo. In his "Dead Rising" attack, he grabs the enemy and performs a massive spinning throw before hitting the falling enemy with a powerful baseball bat swing that sends them flying. In his Level Three Hyper Combo, Frank forces his enemy to put on a servbot helmet, then rams them through a horde of zombies, killing them and finally leaping up and slamming the enemy into the ground creating a powerful shockwave.
Dead Rising 2: Off The Record[]
| “ | The Fortune City Incident- people always ask me about it. 'Why didn't you cover it?' 'Why didn't you break the story?' 'Why weren't you there Frank?' Well I wasn't. Chuck Greene was. He broke the story, uncovered the conspiracy, became a hero, got famous. The next question people always ask me is 'Well if you were there what would you have done different. My answer? Everything.
— Frank West.
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” |
Frank's new portrait.
After constant questions about the Fortune City Incident and his meeting with Chuck Greene, Frank decides to simply reimagine the events of the Outbreak there with himself in Chuck's shoes. Among the additions he makes are the decision to transform part of Fortune City into a theme park for children called "Uranus Zone", which he is very enthusiastic about, and to replace the Motorcycle challenge from Terror is Reality to a wrestling match between himself and a few large zombies.
In this retelling, Frank become a massive icon, publishing his own best-selling book and getting his own talk show, but soon his fifteen minutes of fame dries up, and he agrees to make an appearance on Terror is Reality with Tyrone King, but after the match feels he has lost his dignity, and decides to use his prize money to get out of town. However, Frank spots TK and Brandon Whittaker exchanging mysterious gifts and talking about their plans with his camera, and they spot him and attack. During the ensuing fight, the zombies are freed and the Fortune City Incident begins. Armed with his trusty camera and whatever items he can find in Fortune City, Frank West must go once more into the brink to discover the conspiracy laying deep under everything and to save all the survivors that he can, as well as search for Zombrex to keep himself from turning into one of the undead horrors he must now fight.
This new story progresses mostly the same as Dead Rising 2, with Frank reaching the safe house, getting tips from Stacey and flirting with Rebecca Chang- but early on, Frank runs into Chuck Greene. Green has changed significantly since his appearance in Dead Rising 2- growing a beard and becoming an alcoholic. In this universe, Chuck was unable to save his daughter Katey, leaving him a depressed and borderline insane wreck. He also has a harness across his back to carry a doll heavily resembling his dead daughter. At first Frank and Chuck seem to be getting along, though Frank finds some of Greene's more odd behavior unsettling. Frank ultimately decides to bring Chuck to the security room, but during the conversation he grabs the doll-Katey's leg, filling Chuck with rage. He boards his slicecycle and attacks Frank, forcing West to defend himself. At the end of the battle, Chuck is wounded badly and crashes his bike, but escapes.
Later, outside of the TIR Arena, Frank finds a dwarf clown on a massive pair of stilts with an ice cream truck, trying to sell his ice cream to the random passer byes and people that aren't there. West quickly points out that he doubts the Clown will be able to sell much ice cream during the outbreak, and offers to take him to the Safe House. The clown, revealed to be named Evan, seems to believe Frank, until an autographed picture he signed at the beginning of the game flies into his face. Evan suddenly realizes that the man before him is Frank West, the same photojournalist that killed his brother Adam in Willamette. He quickly attacks Frank, who is forced to defend himself against yet another Psychopath member of the McIntyre family. After taking out Evan's stilts, the dwarf attempts to tackle Frank, before finally freezing himself solid while desperately reaching for one of his bombs- killing him.
Frank battles "Agent S".
Once the military evacuation is a failure, and Frank discovers that the Phenotrans are behind the Fortune City Incident, the double agent in the Security Room is revealed to be Stacey Forsythe. Stacey shoots both Rebecca and fatally shoots Sullivan, killing him- though his efforts saved Frank and may have also saved Rebecca. Stacey retreats, calling in the Phenotrans back-up and holes up in Uranus Zone. Frank pursues Stacey, destroying the Harvesters used by the Phenotrans to harvest the queens along the way, but when he confronts her, she tries to kill him by transforming a part of the amusement park into a massive robot. Frank dodged the missiles and slam attacks to damage the circuitry and panels to weaken the robot, before finally pulling Stacey out of the robot. The two tumbled to the ground, but Stacey was quicker to recover. She had Frank at gunpoint and was close to killing him, before being smashed by the crumbling pieces of the giant robot, killing her.
When he returned to the Security Room, he discovered that not only was Rebecca still alive, but she had been kidnapped by Tyrone King- leading into Overtime mode. Frank had to recover numerous items for TK so that he wouldn't kill Rebecca, but when he tried to return the items to King, TK ambushed him and knocked him out. Frank woke up above the TIR Arena, where he was forced to fight through waves of zombies before confronting TK himself, eventually killing the host of the brutal gameshow. With Rebecca rescued and the truth uncovered yet again, Frank walked off into the sunset with his new lady friend...until a zombie gave chase, ruining the mood. If the player did not spare a Zombrex injection for TK earlier in the game, when Frank goes back to make sure Rebecca and Sullivan's bodies are brought out of the Outbreak to receive a proper burial and their due respect, he is attacked by a zombie TK, forcing the helicopters to pull out, leaving Frank grappling with the undead villain.
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3[]
| “ | I hear you've covered wars. Pity you've never actually fought in one...
— Captain America
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” |
Frank's win picture in UMvC3.
Frank West was meant to appear in the original release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3, even making appearances in multiple trailers as a shadow-figure and as the helicopter pilot rescued with Chun Li by Captain America in the Episode 02 trailer, but due to complications he was cut out of the game. Finally, with the additions in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Frank can enter the fight. Unlike most fighters, Frank has a special Level system, from one to five. As he levels up, he does more damage and has access to more moves and hyper combos. He gains levels by taking pictures, each of which is worth a single XP point- though he can use his camera at the end of a combo to gain equal XP for each hit.
Frank's hyper combos are unique in that they scale upwards and change as he gains levels. His first Level 1 Hyper Combo has him summon Steven's shopping cart covered in spikes, with a zombie trapped inside of it, and charges forward across the screen, doing damage to any enemy he can hit with it. His next Level 1 hyper combo has him throw a pie at the enemy and then assault them with numerous weapons from the games- this gets more damage as he levels up and adds new, more powerful weapons to the attack, ending with the iconic Dead Rising 2 Paddlesaw weapon. His final hyper combo, while still only a level one, can only be used once he has leveled up a few times. He leaps into the air and slams a Servbot helmet on the enemy, before grabbing them by their legs and spinning them for a deadly wrestling throw. Once the enemy is thrown, Frank runs along and performs his face crusher, doing massive damage.
In Frank's ending, he is contacted by Mr. Fantastic, leader of the Fantastic Four, who shows him the universe of the Marvel Zombies. Frank was disturbed by the concept of super powered zombies, and when Mr. Fantastic told the photographer there was a story to be had if he could help him destroy the Marvel Zombies before they could invade the Marvel Universe, Frank happily leapt into the fray of battle in the alternate world.
Project X Zone[]
Frank and Hsien-Ko in Project X Zone.
Frank West has confirmed to appear as a Capcom representative in Project X Zone, a massive tactical role-playing game crossover between Capcom, Sega and Namco-Bandai. Frank has been seen fighting alongside the Darkstalkers character Hsien-Ko- since most characters in the game have a partner of some kind, and Frank is the only confirmed Dead Rising character, it is most commonly speculated that the two will be partnered together.
Notes[]
Frank West has quickly become one of the most popular characters in the Capcom staple, becoming one of their icons and even being the face-man for his own meme- "I've Covered Wars, y'know" has skyrocketed up in meme status over the years since the release of the first Dead Rising and has been acknowledged by Capcom multiple times. In Dead Rising 2 one of the achievements/trophies is titled "He Hasn't Covered Wars" and at one point, Chuck asks reporter Rebecca Chang if she's ever covered wars. In Dead Rising 2: Case West, Frank's description in his journal is "He's covered wars, y'know" and Chuck remarks on how high-strung he is for "a guy who's covered wars". In one of the trailers for Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, Frank lists covering wars up with meeting the president as things he's done other than fight zombies.
Frank West was designed to be something on an anti-thesis to most Japanese game developer's main characters who are made to be as "pretty" and good-natured as possible. Frank was designed to be seen as normal and plain, like your average person. He has no real athletic skill, and in fact has difficulty moving around grocery aisles, and has no special powers or "nakama". Frank doesn't even have strong loyal ties like most Japanese characters, being loyal only to the scoop. This approach seems to have turned out for the best, as Frank has become an icon overseas, especially in America. Frank was voted the third manliest man in gaming by ScrewAttack. West's popularity was so great, that Capcom has gone on record claiming they want to put Frank West in everything because "Americans love goddamn Frank West". So far, Frank has made an appearance as a downloadable character in Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions wearing both his Mega Man suit and without it, and returns for the Second game. He was slated to make an appearance in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, and could even be seen in the Episode 2 trailer, but was cut from the game along with Dr. Octopus due to complications with some of his moves. Frank was moved to a DLC spot, but the 2011 Tsunami in Japan forced development so far back, it was more cost effective to simply re-release the game with all the DLC characters added in for a reduced price, and Frank finally got his roster seat in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. While not a Capcom game, Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing includes a final memoir from Frank on the wall of a safehouse among other graffiti, where he warns Otis he can't make it because the zombies are too fast, there's no helicopter and his camera is dead, an homage to the differences between the zombies in the two games
Appearances[]
- Dead Rising (2006)
- Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions (2006) (DLC)
- Tatsunoku vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars (2008)
- Dead Rising: Chop 'Till You Drop (2009)
- Dead Rising 2: Case West (2010)
- Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing (2010) (Mentioned Only)
- Lost Planet 2 (2010)
- Dead Rising 2: Off the Record (2011)
- Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011)
- Project X Zone (2012)
- Dead Rising 3 (2013)
- Dead Rising 4 (2016)
- Dead Rising: Triple Pack (2016)