Announced at the 2025 Game Awards, Stupid Never Dies is former Capcom developer Hiroyuki Kobayashi’s first project under his new studio, GPTRACK50. The game is an action RPG take on the classic zombie genre, with a special nod to the game director’s previous work on Devil May Cry and Devil May Cry 4.
In a recent interview with Famitsu, Kobayashi bills Stupid Never Dies as a “lightning-fast growth 3D action RPG”. Though the game’s concepts of entering an ever-changing dungeon, defeating enemies for upgrades and loot, and returning to the shopping mall hub area afterward are similar to those found in a roguelike, he says it is more like an RPG, where players steadily grow and level up (as opposed to starting from scratch every time).
On the subject of loot, Stupid Never Dies’ latest trailer shows a letter-based style meter similar to those found in the Devil May Cry titles. Just like in DMC, the style meter in this game increases by chaining moves together into long combos. Repeatedly using a move lessens its style value, fostering combat creativity to get as high a style rank as possible.
Kobayashi explains that in addition to showing off your combat rating, a high style meter also increases your item drop rate. This is indicated by the “Drop % ↑” on the top-right-hand side of the screen below the associated style rank. Given the importance of loot, however, he says that Stupid Never Dies’ version of the style meter “is not as strict as the ones found in Devil May Cry.”
While Stupid Never Dies is targeted toward action game fans, its RPG elements allow all players to grow stronger and overcome its challenges. Should they ever get stuck, Kobayashi suggests leveling up and improving their gear before pushing forward.
Stupid Never Dies is set to release sometime in 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Windows (Steam).
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