Emergency Shelters are your home away from home in Dead Rising 4, and the more survivors you save, the better stuff you can get from the various vendors. The problem is that survivors aren’t exactly a dime-a-dozen in Willamette, and scrounging up even four extra survivors to upgrade your shelter to Level 3 can be a tricky prospect.
Well, it used to be, at least. There’s an easy way to boost your survivor count in Dead Rising 4, and all it takes is some simple repetition. There’s no trick here, but this farming method might be considered an exploit, depending on how sensitive you are to cheating. This is totally an intended feature, and it’s a little strange, but here’s how you can easily recruit an endless supply of survivors for each emergency shelter.
More Dead Rising 4 guides, secrets, and Easter eggs:
- Dead Rising 4: Combo Weapons | Blueprint Locations Guide
- Dead Rising 4: Unlock Every Locker & Safe Room With These Key Locations
- Dead Rising 4: How To Get Zombie Kills Fast | Easy PP Farming Guide
- Dead Rising 4: Vick’s Cloud Uploads Locations | Collectibles Guide
- Dead Rising 4: Personal Mysteries Locations | Collectibles Guide
- Dead Rising 4: Podcast & Newspaper Locations | Collectibles Guide
- Dead Rising 4: Learn New Skills With Training Manuals | All Locations
- Dead Rising 4: Frank West Statue Location | ‘Idol Worship’ Guide
- Dead Rising 4: How to Take an S-Rank Photo | Achievement Guide
- Dead Rising 4: Capcom Character Costume Locations | Easter Eggs
- Dead Rising 4: Get 40,000 Scrap Every 10 Minutes | Fast Money Exploit
Easily Level Up Emergency Shelters With This Trick
Emergency Shelters are where survivors go to rest up and relax while Frank West fixes that whole zombie outbreak issue in Willamette town. Shelters are also a great place to stock up on items — using scrap, you can purchase tons of items, vehicles and locations for your map.
There is one unlockable Emergency Shelter in each of the main areas in Willamette, and all the shelters can be upgraded. Your selection of items is pretty paltry at Level 1, but by Level 3 things will look pretty awesome. You can continue to upgrade shelters by rescuing survivors — survivors can be saved in seemingly random events across the map.
Here’s the thing — those events aren’t random at all. They’re actually repeatable — you can repeat these ‘survivor events’ as much as you like. All you have to do is put a little distance from the event spawn point. When you return, you’ll always find another survivor in another dire situation. Kill all the zombies nearby, and the survivor will instantly return to the closest shelter.
How to Quickly (And Easily!) Level Up Shelters
- Leave your shelter.
- Find a ‘survivor event’ — a blue “?” icon will appear, and a survivor will call for help.
- Kill all the nearby zombies and the survivor will return to your shelter.
- Run back to the shelter.
- Repeat steps 2 & 3 — ‘survivor events’ are infinitely repeatable.
To make things easier, check out these survivor event locations, conveniently placed next to your shelter. Make a quick circle and the event will repeat after entering / leaving your shelter.
- Willamette Memorial Megaplex:
- Survivor Location: Find a survivor event at the top of the stairs to the underground parking entrance between the Central Plaza and Amazon Food Court.
- Old Town:
- Survivor Location: There’s a survivor event in the parking lot behind the church and near the cemetery entrance. Very close to the Old Town Emergency Shelter.
- West Ridge:
- Survivor Location: Go to the street entrance doors to the Willamette Jr. High School to find a survivor. Just down the street, there is another survivor rescue event that will almost always pop — that’s two survivors per run!
You only need to reach Level 3 (save 4 survivors) to unlock the most important vendor upgrades — including key item locations on your map.
