Stupid Never Dies is a run-based action RPG about eating enemies to change into different fantasy monsters
Last year’s Game Awards had a plethora of new game announcements as usual, and among them was developer GPTrack50’s brand-new action RPG, Stupid Never Dies. It had a catchy teaser trailer that left a lasting impression with its unconventional music, but not much was shared outside of the game’s name and its general aesthetic. I got a chance to go behind-the-scenes and learn more about the game from GPTrack50 to commemorate Stupid Never Dies’ new gameplay trailer at the Future Games Show: Spring Showcase 2026 event.
Honestly, talking about GPTrack50 at this point in time puts me in a bit of an awkward situation. GPTrack50 was established in late 2022 by NetEase Games. It’s led by Hiroyuki Kobayashi, a former Capcom producer that helped deliver Capcom’s biggest tentpole franchises from the year 2000-2016 including Resident Evil 4, Dragon’s Dogma, Devil May Cry, Sengoku Basara, and so on. He was also involved in the planning of the mainline Sengoku Basara entries and Dino Crisis. Kobayashi played a significant role in managing Capcom’s IPs when they received film and anime adaptations, as well.
I attended this preview event for Stupid Never Dies before the news broke that NetEase Games would no longer fund Nagoshi Studio starting in May, and there’s word that this initiative was affecting other studios under NetEase Games’ umbrella. The lamentable fate of Visions of Mana developer Ouka Studios still leaves me irritated, too; news of their closure by NetEase Games was publicized the day that Visions of Mana released. All I can say is that what I saw of Stupid Never Dies seems quite neat, and I sincerely hope GPTrack50 is able to not only ship Stupid Never Dies, but hopefully continues to make cool games beyond its release, as well.
Humanity has been nearly extinguished thanks to a sudden war in Stupid Never Dies, and now zombies are just roaming around now. Players take control of a lovestruck zombie by the name of Davy. He stumbles upon Julia in the freezer of an ice cream shop and falls in love with her frozen corpse at first sight. Searching for a way to resurrect Julia, Davy eats a mysterious egg by chance which grants him special powers. A scientist named Dr. Frank informs him that if he manages to defeat the King Of Monsters (KOM) with it, he’ll obtain the ability to save his newly found special someone.
GPTrack50 describes Stupid Never Dies as a “Funky Zombie Action” RPG with the tagline “Bite! Rip! Rise!!” It is a run-based game, in which Davy repeatedly dives into the Dungeon to see how far he gets. Davy will level up faster and faster on subsequent runs, though specific details on this aspect of the game weren’t shared at this time. Instead, the focus of this preview event was laser-focused on its gameplay.
There’s a heavy emphasis on playing aggressively; the developers even mentioned that there are no guard and dodge buttons. Players will be able to parry incoming attacks, and the game even calls this technique the “Stupid Parry.”
The moment-to-moment gameplay in Stupid Never Dies consists of two core pillars: Style Eat and Body Hack. Besides his normal base zombie form, Davy can eat his foes to turn into one of ten different styles. Players can “store” up to two other forms that Davy acquires from feasting on his run, and can seamlessly switch between those two forms along with his Zombie style. Meanwhile, Body Hack encompasses equippable gear that transforms Davy’s arms, head, and legs when worn. Equipment that changes Davy’s left arm changes his moveset; the Body Hack feature can be utilized on all of Davy’s form changes.
I was expecting only a small slice of Davy’s styles in this first preview, and figured they would unveil more over time. GPTrack50 caught me off-guard and revealed all of them, so here’s a list of what Davy can transform into and a small description of what they can do.
- Basic unarmed melee strings with light and heavy attacks
- Can bite enemies to gain other Styles in a run
- Speed-based Style that attacks with claws and legs
- Has an uppercut launcher and ascends while attacking in a circular motion
- Can jump off nearby walls to gain access to higher places
- Flies around for movement
- Attacks primarily with projectiles, so it’s more range-based
- Can double jump and glide
- Big, tanky style that can attack lots of enemies at once
- Can roll into a ball and ram itself into enemies
- Has a spin-to-win move
- Specializes in mid-ranged combat utilizing swarms of bats to attack
- Has a red AoE zone around it indicating their effective range
- Can suck the blood of foes to recover energy
- Changes Davy’s body into a corporeal, ethereal state so he can avoid a lot of attacks inherently
- Fires off purple fireballs for attacks that split into multiple projectiles, and has a few AoE abilities that were showcased
- Since this style floats, Davy can avoid ground traps easily
- Big body Style that swings around a gigantic rock club
- Can swing it into enemies to send them flying
- Unique style that primarily uses an ice sword for its attacks
- Can freeze enemies and by hitting frozen enemies, Davy absorbs their energy to increase the size of the ice sword
- Possesses the ability to dive into the ground like it’s water, and can emerge from the ground attack enemies
- Can summon huge water wave wall to attack from the front
- Has an ability that can surf around on the ground with a surfboard
- Wields a scythe to attack from close to mid ranges
- Ability that can drop a skeleton head on enemies
- Has a charge up skill that vastly increases the size of the scythe the longer it’s held
- Slain enemies can be resurrected into skeletons that fight with you
- Fights with a whip
- Can control gravity to round up enemies and shove rocks into them once they’ve been gathered up
- Can ascend high into the air to do a dive kick maneuver that explodes upon impact
All the different designs of each Style was my favorite part of the Stupid Never Dies preview event. Even though they all vastly look different, they still all retain Davy’s cap in some way. I think the art direction of this title is already shaping up to be very impressive.
A few examples of Body Hack gear equipment were shown off, though it was only a small sample unlike the massive Style showcase. Some of these included:
- a broadsword that deals AoE damage upon its impact to the ground
- a gravity launcher that fires a black hole to gather up enemies
- a missile pod that fires off multiple swarms of missiles at once
- a fun device called a Blast Jumper that deals explosive AoE damage around Davy as he ascends high into the sky, and he can fire it off again to descend instantly to trigger another explosive AoE attack
Another fun tool in Davy’s arsenal is his Davy Burst state that activates upon repeated bites. GPTrack50 compares this temporary burst in power akin to the star power-up in Mario games. Davy’s imagination distorts the visuals in a vibrant, colorful, borderline acid-trippy way, and even has emotive cartoony drawings over the enemies to further emphasize that this is how Davy sees them in this state. There are googly eyes, sketched blushes, and all sorts of visual touches that reminded me of something I would’ve seen in late 90’s Nickelodeon cartoons.
This largely wrapped up what I saw of Stupid Never Dies. It’s important to note that Styles are something that Davy obtains per run, and are not persistent permanent things he brings back to his base of operations. He obtains styles from biting enemies throughout runs, and he can only hold two other styles besides his base Zombie style which is always on him. On the other hand, Body Hack gear seem to be permanent unlocks that can be taken with Davy into runs.
Stupid Never Dies is coming to PlayStation 5 and PC, though no release date hasn’t been shared yet. It is built on Unreal Engine 5 and will be single player. The game will support English audio only, but will have subtitles for English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), and Brazilian Portuguese. There was also an ‘etc’ listed in the supported subtitles, so I’m unsure if more subtitle languages will be revealed at a later time. I’m pretty interested to check out the full release based on what I’ve already learned, and I hope GPTrack50 is able to maintain its course amidst troubling times in how NetEase Games is treating its development studios currently.