It’s official, the sequel to the smash hit for the Xbox 360 has been announced for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Dead Rising 2 will take place several years after the original story line and this time around you won’t be Frank West. The setting will be Fortune City, some sort of gambling paradise where zombies have spread.

The game is being developed by Blue Castle Games and a number of members from the original Dead Rising team are working alongside the new developers. Keiji Inafune, the game’s original producer will supposedly play an active role in the continued development of the game. Take a gander at the trailer which includes the infamous hamster ball. The official press release will follow the jump.

SAN MATEO, Calif. – February 9, 2009 - Capcom®, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, today confirmed that Dead Rising™ 2 is in development for three different gaming platforms: the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft®, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC. The sequel to the 1.5 million-plus selling Dead Rising™, Dead Rising 2 will take the franchise to a new level of zombie-killing fun with tens of thousands of zombies, the all new gambling paradise of Fortune City to explore and conquer plus a host of new in-game objects that can all 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.

Released in 2006, Dead Rising won praise across the globe for its mix of intense zombie action and dark humor, garnering numerous awards including IGN’s “Most Innovative Design for Xbox 360”, Gamespot’s “Best Action-Adventure Game” for 2006 and “Action Game of the Year” at the 2006 Spike TV Video Game Awards.

Further details concerning the story and gameplay of Dead Rising 2 will be made available shortly.