[1] Dead Head Fred is a third-person action-adventure game that incorporates a variety of gameplay styles, including combat, platforming, and puzzles.

[6] The high level of radiation in Hope Falls has led to a proliferation of grossly mutated worms, which the player can collect and use to upgrade Fred's heads and temporarily increase his fighting abilities, among other benefits.

[2][11] During a counterattack, the player can complete a quick time event to instantly kill an enemy by removing its head,[12] which gives Fred "Rage" points.

Dead Head Fred takes place in Hope Falls, New Jersey,[15] a once-prosperous area based on American cities in the 1940s.

[12] Pitt has a background of petty crime, and there are allegations that he was somehow responsible for the disappearance of Vinni Rossini, an influential Hope Falls businessman.

[15] Pitt's new "Nukular Plant" has recently finished construction and has caused a high level of radiation in the city,[16] leading to strange phenomena like mutated wildlife and undead monsters.

[18] As he does not have a proper face, Fred's mood is portrayed by the tone of his voice and by face-like expressions formed by his eyes and frontal lobes.

Fred makes several allies throughout the game, including Dr. Steiner, who resurrected him, his girlfriend Jeanne Rossini (Kari Wahlgren), and his former partner Benny Salazar.

Fred's enemies are generally employees of Pitt, like the skeletal "bone thugs", or creatures created by Hope Falls' radiation, like zombies and animated scarecrows.

Armed with the knowledge of his death and the events leading up to it, Fred continues his investigation and recovers a videotape of Vinni Rossini's murder that incriminates Pitt.

Lefty, however, was exposed to nuclear waste during the fight and subsequently mutated into a huge beast who comes to Pitt's aid in the game's final battle.

Considered "middleware" in the video game industry, the engine was designed as a simple set of creation tools that could be used across multiple consoles.

Vicious Cycle's president, Eric Peterson, and some of his staff developed a conceptual world called "Prime" where Geo lived.

[22] The Geo concept was described by the development team as similar to other platform games like Rayman or Spyro, and skewed towards a younger audience.

[22] The "head-switching" game mechanic had been praised by the potential publishers and was kept, but this time the cartoonish, childlike Geo was replaced by an angry, vengeful private detective named Fred Neuman.

[21] The world of Prime was replaced with the bleak, film noir-esque city of Hope Falls, where Fred would seek revenge against those who had wronged him.

[21] Vicious Cycle then submitted the concept to art company Massive Black Studios to develop initial character sketches.

[19] After receiving the sketches, Vicious Cycle chose several that portrayed Fred with a squat, childlike appearance that retained some of the youthful focus of the scrapped Geo project.

[24] D3 also gave Vicious Cycle more time to develop the game, with the hope of receiving better reviews and potentially turning Dead Head Fred into a franchise.

D3Publisher bought Vicious Cycle two months before the game's release, but the company's headquarters remained in North Carolina and the staff was retained.

[29] The composers were interested in developing a sound for Dead Head Fred that was retro-futuristic, and borrowed from other death-themed pieces like Stubbs the Zombie and Beetlejuice.

[30] The development team did not have any substantial ideas for the game's music beyond the theme and mood of Hope Falls, giving the composers free rein on the soundtrack's direction.

[32] The development team then set about recording the game's dialog, which proved to be challenging because of Vicious Cycle's location on the East Coast.

[32] Despite this, and the fact that Fred alone had over 1000 lines of in-game dialog, the recording went smoothly,[32] with the exception of one unidentified actor who walked out in the middle of a session.

[2] The original script had only one instance of the word "fuck", but several recording sessions with McGinley resulted in a great deal of colorful improvisation.

"Dead Head Fred was first announced at the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) video game convention in May 2006, where a trailer was shown to the public.

[37] In May 2007, D3 announced that John C. McGinley would be voicing Fred,[38] and the next month the company issued a press release stating that the game was finished and ready for mass production.

[7][10][50] Dead Head Fred's graphics were warmly received,[16][17] with GameSpy noting "The game looks simply phenomenal on the PSP screen.

Pocket Gamer also felt that the game's level design, with its emphasis on changing heads to solve environmental puzzles, made up for the "mediocre combat system".

Dead Head Fred lost to The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the Nintendo DS, but was notable for being the only new intellectual property nominated in the handheld category.