dpGPTRACK50 recently announced that its upcoming zombie action RPG Stupid Never Dies will launch in Fall 2026, accompanied by new trailer footage. Following a live demo event held in Los Angeles, game director Eiichiro Sasaki (known for directing Resident Evil 6) and producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi (who produced numerous titles in the RE, Devil May Cry and Dino Crisis series) talked to Famitsu about what players should expect from their new studio’s debut title. Of note, they addressed rumors about the game being a “soulslike.”
From what we know so far, Stupid Never Dies is a funky fast-paced action RPG that emphasizes growth. You play as Davy, a bottom-tier zombie boy, who sets out on a quest to bring his crush Julia – a frozen human girl – back to life. The basic game cycle consists of timed dungeon runs during which you defeat enemies, collect strange items and level up. A core gameplay mechanic is “Style Eat,” which lets Davy steal defeated enemies’ abilities by eating their cores.
This can unlock up to ten different monster combat styles (on top of Davy’s original zombie style), with species ranging from werewolves, vampires, harpies, lizardmen and more. As different abilities will prove beneficial in different situations, you can equip up to two combat styles at a time and switch between them in real time, though there’s no guarantee you’ll encounter the styles you want when you want them.
Additionally, an “Overtech” mechanic will allow you to biohack Davy’s body with various weapons and implants, which work regardless of what monster style you’ve transformed into. The game also comes with a burst mechanic – by landing attacks in combat, you’ll fill up a Davy Burst gauge which, when activated, will instantly boost Davy’s stats and level him up dramatically.
Talking to Famitsu, Kobayashi says that if you’ve never held a controller in your life, clearing Stupid Never Dies is going to be a challenging task, but other than that, the game has been balanced so that anyone with a reasonable amount of gaming experience game can reach the ending (which will take about 20 to 30 hours on average). Addressing fans’ concerns, he clarifies that the game is not a soulslike-style title. In fact, going into development, he explicitly told his team that wasn’t the genre they’d be going for. This checks out with sentiments Kobayashi previously expressed talking to AUTOMATON, when he mentioned he was aiming for a good balance between technical and tactical, rather than pure, punishing action.
Director Sasaki points out that in Stupid Never Dies, certain elements of progression are reset when you die or clear a dungeon, but there are also plenty of abilities that carry over and accumulate, so you never get thrown back to zero. “I think the interesting part of this game is that it mixes progression you can control with progression you can’t. The fact that not everything is under the player’s control is what gives it a sense of challenge, and I think we’ve struck a pretty good balance there.” As Kobayashi puts it, the reset mechanics mean you won’t be able to win just by leveling up, but you also won’t be able to rely just on technique.
With development work about 90% done, Stupid Never Dies is scheduled to launch in Fall 2026 for PC (Steam) and PS5.
