Stupid Never Dies looks like a colourful, irreverent action game imagined by a teenager raised on zombies, flashy brawlers and juvenile comedy. After 26 hours with it, however, its dated design, uncomfortable story and sluggish combat make it one of 2026’s weakest games.
Developed by GPTRACK50, a studio founded by former Capcom producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi, this debut action RPG combines a faux-roguelike dungeon structure with RPG progression and monster transformations. There are some appealing visual ideas, but they are buried beneath repetitive missions, unresponsive attacks and a narrative that repeatedly mistakes dehumanising material for dark comedy.
For readers interested in arcade-style action design, the game is a useful reminder that bright presentation cannot replace responsive controls. RETROCADE’s arcade blog covers related gaming and arcade topics, while its arcade machines offer a more direct way to enjoy responsive action at home.
A romance built around a corpse
The story takes place after a zombie outbreak has left humanity exposed to a broader monster uprising. Werewolves and vampires now control the world, while zombies sit at the bottom of its social order. Davy, an undead worker, joins a resistance based in a shopping centre and fights the King of Monsters’ forces.
His principal motivation is romance. Davy wants to win the affection of a human woman he has never met, only to discover that Julia is dead—or, more precisely, frozen inside the storage area of a shopping-centre restaurant.
The premise turns the story into an especially literal example of the “woman in refrigerators” trope, in which a female character’s suffering exists primarily to motivate a male protagonist. Julia’s body becomes an object of devotion and a progression system. Davy can present gifts to fill a heart meter, earn skill points and unlock photographs with his face placed into them. He can also scroll through Julia’s old social media posts and like images of her in a cheerleading uniform.
A visually lively game is undermined by a narrative that desperately needed another round of scrutiny.
The game appears to treat this material as cute, morbid teen comedy. Davy is presented as an awkward mall rat in a loose hoodie and crooked baseball cap, supposedly hiding a good heart beneath his decaying appearance. The intended joke is that an undead character is hopelessly in love, but the result is a one-sided and deeply uncomfortable relationship with a character who initially has no agency.
Later developments give Julia more involvement, but she remains a thinly written character whose main function is to be rescued. The broader themes are no more carefully handled: the game celebrates abandoning thought and acting on instinct, while its magazine-collage presentation and colourful interface recall the energetic style of games such as No More Heroes.
That visual flair is often effective in isolation. It cannot overcome the discomfort of Davy repeatedly fawning over Julia’s lifeless body, though. Even the game’s clumsy fantasy conflict feels easier to tolerate than its central romance, which makes the story’s lack of judgement impossible to ignore.
A repetitive dungeon crawl
Underneath the story is a dungeon-based action game. Davy enters a multilayered dungeon through toilet travel, battles the King of Monsters’ lieutenants and gathers resources intended to revive Julia. Each attempt changes the floors, while permanent improvements become available back at the mall.
The environments rotate through a small selection of themes, including a distorted European town, an icy landscape filled with cannons and a jungle of floating platforms. Runs consist of fighting arenas packed with skeletons, harpies, fishmen and other enemies, collecting temporary upgrades and building enough power to reach the next objective.
A timer usually keeps each run below 20 minutes, creating a worthwhile choice between moving on quickly or clearing extra floors for experience and upgrades. The system becomes frustrating when the clock expires during a boss encounter, leaving Davy vulnerable at the worst possible moment.
There is genuine progression beneath the repetition. Meal tickets unlock upgrades, while a gear system supplies armour with different rarities, stat boosts and passive abilities. Failed runs also increase the experience gained from enemies. Late in the game, defeating a few opponents on the opening floor could raise Davy to level 25, allowing entire sections to be skipped.
These generous rewards cannot disguise the structure’s main weakness. The game uses roguelike conventions—randomised floors, temporary builds and a choice between three upgrades—but feels more like a conventional action game whose missions have been artificially extended. Repeated layouts quickly lose their appeal, and the story keeps adding new reasons to complete more runs after it seems ready to finish.
A late boss rush is particularly damaging to the pacing because it requires five separate runs. Reaching the ending takes about 30 hours, although the core experience can feel exhausted after five.
Combat without momentum
The combat should have carried the game, but Davy’s attacks feel delayed and heavy in the wrong way. His kick and health-restoring bite take so long to complete that they appear to trigger roughly two seconds after the button press. The deliberate commitment resembles a slow action game, yet the surrounding design expects Davy to clear crowds quickly.
There is no lock-on system, so attacks must be aimed manually and often miss while Davy completes his lengthy animations. Burrowing mermen are particularly irritating because they move beneath the ground and reappear around him. Every failed attack wastes time on the run’s clock.
Aerial combat is even less convincing. Davy moves as though he is wading through thick syrup, making it difficult to land more than a few punches before returning to the ground. Flying harpies often drift away before an airborne attack connects. Defensive options are limited, too, leaving players to absorb many boss attacks that cannot be blocked.
The most distinctive defensive move is the Stupid Parry. Davy launches himself into an incoming attack and responds with a counter, although he still takes damage. It suits the game’s theme of reckless stupidity, but it does little to repair the wider control problems.
A monster-swallowing idea wasted
Davy can finish enemies by biting them or consuming an exposed core. The core allows him to transform into that monster for a limited number of attacks. In theory, this creates a strong rhythm of experimentation: one moment Davy is a werewolf tearing through a crowd, and the next he is a will-o’-the-wisp throwing fire.
Unfortunately, the alternate movesets are just as slow as Davy’s basic attacks. The system never establishes a satisfying difference between the weak zombie and the supposedly powerful creatures ruling the world. A giant golem, for example, can absorb dozens of hits before producing a single attack, making zombie form the more practical choice.
Fans comparing different forms of arcade-style combat can browse RETROCADE’s arcade parts for controls and replacement hardware, or consider DIY arcade kits for a custom project.
Verdict: Stupid Never Dies has stylish menus, colourful art direction and a progression system that ensures failed attempts still provide useful rewards. Its core problems are more serious than a balance patch can solve, however. The stretched-out dungeon structure, sluggish combat and grotesque central romance combine into an experience that is difficult to recommend.
The game is scheduled for release on 21 October 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. It was reviewed on PS5 Pro using a prerelease download code supplied by GPTRACK50 Inc.
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