During a panel at GDC last week covering the new technologies Blue Castle Games is using in the making of Dead Rising 2, one panel member managed to divulge two exciting pieces of information in one seemingly casual sentence: Dead Rising 2 will include a multiplayer mode, and in it, there could be up to 6,000 zombies on-screen at one time.

As IGN reports (via Shacknews), these details were given by Laura Scholl, the product manager of mental mill, a program being used to properly light and shade the large amount of characters appearing in Dead Rising 2. During the panel, Scholl recounted a conversation she had with lead character designer Izmeth Siddeek, in which Siddeek confirmed up to 6,000 characters could be on-screen during a multiplayer session in the game. This was, in fact, the first time multiplayer has been confirmed in Dead Rising 2 at all.

No other details on the multiplayer mode were given, so it"s uncertain exactly what form it"ll take -- although given the nature of the game, a co-operative mode would seem to make the most sense (and sounds like it"d be the most fun). After all, if players are going to be taking on 6,000 ravenous corpses come alive, a little backup would probably be appreciated.