Stupid Never Dies preview – from the producer of Resident Evil and Devil May Cry

From one of Capcom’s most experienced producers, and a new team that’s worked on everything from Monster Hunter to Far Cry 4, comes an exciting new action RPG with a roguelike tinge.

With the continuing drip-feed of news about games developers around the world shuttering or suffering layoffs, it’s always pleasing to welcome a new one to the industry. Japanese outfit GPTRACK50 first emerged in December 2025 at The Game Awards, with an intriguing teaser trailer for its first game, Stupid Never Dies.

It features a zombie protagonist, a cartoonish, hyper-coloured art style, and a brief hint of some epic-looking action. Now, the developer has given us the first in-depth (hands-off) presentation of the game, and our intrigue has transformed into anticipation.

With its wacky storyline and distinctive visuals, Stupid Never Dies has a slight whiff of a Suda51 game, such as the recent Romeo Is A Dead Man. But before drilling down into its gameplay, it’s worth putting it into context by examining the background of this new developer.

GPTRACK50 was founded, and is helmed by, a bona fide big beast of Japanese development, Hiroyuki Kobayashi, who previously spent 28 years at Capcom, with production credits spanning various Resident Evil and Devil May Cry games; Kobayashi was also the driving force behind Dragon’s Dogma and was producer on Suda51’s killer7.

He also headed up Capcom’s drive to turn its intellectual property into films and is keen to point out that amongst the team of around 30 people are developers who worked on the likes of Resident Evil 4, Monster Hunter: World, Far Cry 4, Final Fantasy 15 and Metal Gear Solid 5.

Kobayashi spoke about how keeping his team to 30 people allows the studio to remain agile and even though the company has only existed for three years, he was adamant that Stupid Never Dies will be released in 2026.

Via a trailer and various sequences of gameplay, Kobayashi explained what Stupid Never Dies will be all about. The game’s general tone is apparently defined by the phrase ‘funky zombie action’ and he pointed out that it’s an attack-focused game, with no guard or dodge. Although it will feature a parry move, which causes great damage if properly timed.

Stupid Never Dies has a simple but wacky storyline. You play Davy, a low-level zombie who is described as: ‘The weakest of the monsters.’ In Stupid Never Dies’ post-apocalyptic game-world, Davy wanders, in classic zombie fashion, into a shopping centre where, in a cold storage room, he encounters Julia, a beautiful woman who has been frozen; Davy instantly falls in love with her and his desire to bring her back to life becomes his driving motivation.

Davy encounters a mad scientist called Dr Frank, who explains that the zombie outbreak has been caused by the King of Monsters, who resides in a vast subterranean dungeon. Dr Frank produces a phoenix egg which Davy eats, giving him powers that will enable him to take on the monsters in said dungeon, with the King of Monsters’ demise returning the world to normal and enabling the resurrection of Julia.

The developers weren’t entirely forthcoming about all of Stupid Never Dies’ gameplay mechanisms, but they confirmed that the game’s action, and its role-playing style elements, reside in the monster-filled dungeon. Every time Davy visits the dungeon, the speed at which he levels up will increase, and he will essentially start from scratch with each new visit. Later in the press conference, the company admitted that that mechanism has a roguelike feel to it.

After ingesting the phoenix egg, Davy acquires the ability, while in the dungeon, to bite monsters, eat their cores and learn how to assume their physical forms. Thus, Davy’s ability to shapeshift (and, the developer adds, body hack, allowing him to, for example, attach a sword or gun to one arm) allows him to take on and beat hordes of monsters at once.

The developer has used that mechanism to enable Davy to assume no fewer than 11 wildly different forms. Namely werewolf (agile, with claws); harpy (flying, with a range attack); golem (tank-like, and good against packs of enemies); vampire (puts Davy in charge of a pack of bats that attack from mid-range); will-o-the-wisp (ghostly and ethereal, good for avoiding environmental traps); cyclops (huge and deadly at close range); snow fairy (freezes enemies, making them more vulnerable); merfolk (dives into the ground as if it were water); lich (commands an army of skeletons, whose ranks can be added to with dead enemies); and demon (uses whips and gravity to control enemies’ positions).

Stupid Never Dies’ gameplay hinges on dynamically morphing between those forms, according to what enemies you’re faced with – presumably, each pass you make through the dungeon will introduce Davy to new fighting forms, until in the latter stages, he acquires all 11 of them. The body-hacking system will remain consistent whatever form Davy morphs into. We were shown him with a gun, a sword, a rocket launcher, and a gravity gun sending out mini-black holes, with equipment attaching to his right arm, legs or head.

On top of this is the Davy Burst: a mode that powers up as he takes out enemies and enhances all his abilities, effectively giving him a special attack. In the time-honoured fashion of action role-players, there will also be boss battles, although we didn’t get to see any in the fairly brief demo.

While the preview left plenty of question-marks about the game – such as how well its unusual levelling up structure will work, what gameplay exists outside of the dungeon, and how different an experience the dungeon might present each time you visit it – it certainly whetted our appetite to sample the game for ourselves.

Stupid Never Dies certainly looks pretty impressive, and its combat is indisputably fast, over-the-top and empowering. As ever with a first look, hands-off demo, it’s impossible to ascertain how well it will hang together as a structured game or, for example, how long it will take to complete and how much replayability it might provide. At launch, it will be available for PlayStation 5 and PC only; GPTRACK50 hinted that it might port it to Xbox consoles, but not until it has been on sale for a while.

But if you like action role-players, it’s definitely one to look out for as it promises satisfying action, loads of character, and hopefully a certain amount of originality to its gameplay. We’ll report back when we manage to get some hands-on play with it.

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