I reckon that when Hidetaka Miyazaki was making Demon's Souls back in the day, he probably never imagined that his difficulty-focused, "counter-trend" design philosophy would soon become a successful case study eagerly imitated by the industry. Unintentionally, he became the "Godfather of Modern Action Games," inspiring countless creators.
The era when Demon's Souls was born coincided with the peak of the PlayStation 3, a period when the global video game industry was undergoing a major shake-up. The continuous rise in industrial ceilings subtly increased user demands for graphical fidelity. If there was one genre that suffered the most from this industrial upgrade, it was undoubtedly action games. The impact on traditional action games was nearly颠覆ative: gradually HD models and combat presentations required more precise and realistic motion design. This directly led to a crazy decline in the number of Japanese action games entering the PlayStation 3 era. It wasn't that they didn't want to make them; they simply lacked the capability.
Looking back in recent years, however, the popularization of "Soulslike" games has played a very interesting role in the modern evolution of action games. You see, after the unprecedented success of Dark Souls III, a large number of games with strong action elements immediately began appearing on the market. And these games invariably received extra attention from the market.
To be precise, they aren't traditional "action games," but rather action RPGs that have mastered the essence of "Soulslike" games. These titles usually share obvious commonalities: they build their underlying logic using a few similar combat resources and simplify the most difficult aspect of traditional action games—move derivations—through extensive passive interactions, significantly lowering both development and learning curves.
At the same time, these games all inherit the concept from "Soulslike" games that achievement stems from challenge, featuring an aesthetic format matched with "suffering." They uniformly construct their worlds in mature ways. Even the few that break free from fantasy tropes often remain bound by dark and heavy artistic and narrative tones.
Let me clarify first: I'm not trying to criticize anyone, nor do I think this trend is a bad thing. It's just that at some point, action games on the market all started looking the same. So now, when we finally see a realistic-style action game, we subconsciously associate it with the "Soulslike" genre.
But the question is, "Soulslike" games were supposed to be the savior of action games in the modern era, so why did they end up narrowing the path for both action and role-playing games?
Because of this, I often ask myself: Given how tough real life already is, is it really necessary to keep making things harder for myself? Not to mention that I chose the difficulty myself; couldn't the game style at least be more straightforward? Ideally, it would feature a protagonist who isn't burdened by deep trauma, someone cheerful along the way who doesn't require much brainpower.
Alright, I was just complaining casually. How could such a game possibly exist? Even if it did, it would likely be one of Suda51's style-over-substance titles—cool concepts but terrible gameplay—completely unfitting for my persona as an "action game master"...
As they say, "what you fear most is what comes to pass." Well, I actually found such a game. It not only perfectly meets all the conditions I mentioned above but even exceeded my expectations from start to finish... It made me worry about the developers' mental state while playing it.
This gloriously silly game is Stupid Never Dies from GPTRACK50—an "Action Romance RPG" that puts a "fool" in the spotlight. However, I prefer its original title, Stupid Never Dies, which better captures the B-movie vibe oozing from every pore of this game.
Of course, I coined the term "Romantic Action RPG" for this genre. The official classification is "Action RPG," but I didn't just make it up randomly—because when it comes to understanding Stupid Never Dies, that's probably the most straightforward description.
Stupid Never Dies is indeed an action-packed RPG filled with romantic elements, essentially a zombie version of "Romeo and Juliet."
If you've seen Jonathan Levine's comedy Warm Bodies, the following story setup might feel familiar. In the game, you play as "David," a young zombie who is slow in thought, speech, and movement. He happens to fall in love with a frozen human named "Julia." To save this fated "true love," David embarks on a journey to challenge the monster world.
The game's title, "Stupid Never Dies," also stems from a pun joke beloved by the Japanese. Think about it: how smart can a zombie's brain be? "Julia" doesn't even know David; almost all their interactions stem from David's one-sided delusions. David was also half-tricked, half-coaxed into embarking on this journey to challenge numerous monsters. But he forgot one very important thing: as a monster at the bottom of the food chain, a zombie's combat power obviously cannot compare to those legendary creatures... Fortunately, this became his greatest advantage—David was already dead, so he couldn't die again.
Thus, a simple and clear game structure was completed. To achieve this "unreliable" romance, players must dive into dungeons repeatedly, accumulating strength through repeated challenges and growth, ultimately reaching the pinnacle of the monster world.
Putting it that way might make Stupid Never Dies sound like a "serious game." After all, it does possess all the elements needed for a "loser strikes back" story, including a hopeless protagonist, a romance based on mistaken identities, and a depiction of growth from the bottom up... But don't get me wrong. I've only described the parts that can be articulated in human language. More often than not, its presentation carries a whiff of cheap liquor, making you feel like you're living inside a dream with B-movie tastes.
In fact, Stupid Never Dies is packed with absurd comedy and B-movie elements. To adhere to the rules of classical zombie films, David can only shuffle slowly in the human world. Because his movement speed is so painfully slow, the developers had to provide him with a Roomba to help players move quickly around the base.
Don't let David's unreliability fool you; his "support team" is even more unreliable.
In the human world, David's main base of operations is a massive shopping mall that has Everythinggj. His main companions include a popsicle-themed heroine who has no idea what's going on, a half-cyberized mad scientist, a biker zombie girl who runs an American burger joint, a tech-obsessed gargoyle who sits in a shopping cart, and a Chihuahua-man with werewolf blood... These guys basically provide a complete cycle of services ranging from "sending you off" to "cleaning up your corpse." The mad scientist used the mall's toilets to build a teleporter to the monster world, allowing you to travel between dimensions by flushing. And whenever David gets beaten into an unrecognizable shape by monsters from the other world, his partners thoughtfully pack him up as bulk trash and ship him back to the mall to be reassembled. As for that ghoul who only knows how to use a computer, his job is to help David endlessly scroll through Julia's pre-death social media posts...
Honestly, I'm not sure if the developers had been drinking while creating these elements, but they certainly have a strong liking for those bizarre B-movies that mainstream audiences can barely stomach. When these elements are cobbled together in the game, they genuinely exude a kind of "absurdity" rarely seen in the industry today.
What's more interesting is that when I first saw the key visual for Stupid Never Dies, it felt trendy and avant-garde. The use of street culture elements in character and UI design unconsciously reminded me of Splatoon, which belongs to a completely different genre and gameplay style. But when you truly try to understand Stupid Never Dies, you realize it brings forth the aspects of street and pop culture that are hardest to express through aesthetics or text: the parts belonging to "chaos" and "disorder." Many cultural symbols are pieced together without needing any logical justification. Those who appreciate this style will naturally find themselves loving it.
And this unpretentious personality is exactly what commercial games are missing today. Looking around, probably only Suda51 and his Grasshopper Manufacture could sit at the same table as Stupid Never Dies.
However, Stupid Never Dies differs fundamentally from the strongly personalized and niche games of Grasshopper Manufacture. While it boasts an exceptionally distinct personality in its visuals and setting, it also possesses surprisingly solid gameplay and design sensibility.
Yes, Stupid Never Dies is that rare game that manages to have its cake and eat it too.
As mentioned repeatedly earlier, the foundation of Stupid Never Dies is an Action RPG, but it is a completely different breed from the "Soulslike" games mentioned before. One could even say that in terms of experience, it is closer to traditional high-speed action games.
There are two reasons for this. First, in Stupid Never Dies, you'll hardly find the resource management and passive interaction elements championed by "Soulslike" games. Players must defeat enemies through actual button inputs for attacks and skills. Replacing interaction as the core of this action system are genuine combat moves and a unique mechanism designed specifically around the zombie's "undead" trait.
Secondly, the content of Stupid Never Dies hardly relies on "exploration" as seen in typical RPGs. As the story setting suggests, David challenges the monster world over and over, only to be sent back to the start each time. Stupid Never Dies replaces traditional RPG map design with a gameplay loop of repeatedly diving into randomly generated dungeon routes, tying character growth directly to progress. The introduction of RPG elements also gives this growth greater freedom and customizability.
As the lowest-tier "zombie" in horror movies, David doesn't have any cool weapons. Most of his attacks consist of scratching, a conventional mode that isn't particularly sophisticated and lacks room for variation. Interestingly, however, the game's atmosphere places great emphasis on an aggressive combat style. Even the block, an indispensable element in modern action games, flips its usual reactive impression in this title, becoming an active offensive tool.
For players familiar with action games, this might sound unbelievable: The block in Stupid Never Dies has a special name—"Idiot Block." Sounds pretty stupid, right?
When used, David charges forward a short distance. If your "Idiot Block" connects with an enemy's attack at just the right moment, he can follow up with a counterattack. This requires you to perform "baiting" more accurately, ensuring the "Idiot Block" precisely intercepts the enemy's strike. See? Under this logic, blocking becomes an act of "actively taking a punch to the face."
As for another key element in Stupid Never Dies' combat system, it serves as a major pillar of its "aggressive offense" style: the "Bite" mechanic and the resulting "Mutation" system.
If you were to ask what ability zombies are most famous for, it would likely be "biting" and "eating." So, when David enters the monster world, these two abilities receive an epic upgrade. In combat, attacks build up the "Bite" gauge, and once it's full, David can chomp down on enemies. Every time he gnaws on an foe, he directly restores his health using their flesh and blood, recovering some of the resources spent on his earlier "Idiot Block." It is this complete loop that further emphasizes the importance of sustaining yourself through battle in this game.
But what's even more interesting is that besides restoring health by eating meat, "Biting" has another crucial effect: "Mutation."
By devouring the "cores" from other monsters' bodies, David can mutate into completely different forms such as "Werewolf," "Harpy," and "Cyclops." These forms have very distinct personalities in terms of movement, attack moves, and active/passive skills. Essentially, every time a player unlocks a new form, they gain a completely different gameplay experience.
Oh, remember when I said that a zombie's basic attacks don't have much room for variation? Well, here's the twist. While a single zombie form has limited capabilities, through constant transformation and combination, David gains access to countless attack modules.
Here are a few early-game examples: In the "Harpy" form, David can glide in the air, and his attacks become primarily ranged. In the "Werewolf" form, his move set shifts entirely to high-speed melee combat. There are as many as eleven such "Mutation" forms that change the gameplay experience at the operational level. Even within the same form, there are different skills, rarity levels, and growth settings, further enriching the combat experience.
Of course, this raises a sharp question: If every form requires its own independent control logic, the resulting workload and operational difficulty will inevitably balloon. Given that traditional action games are already extremely difficult to develop, can a newly formed small team really handle such a high-difficulty project?
But I think that once you truly understand GPTRACK50 and the composition of the development team behind this title, you will gain a deeper understanding of Stupid Never Dies—understanding why it was greenlit, why it chose its current theme, and why it dared to challenge such a "high-difficulty" new project for a new company.
In fact, the two core members of the Stupid Never Dies team, Producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi and Director Eiichiro Sasaki, are no ordinary figures. Players familiar with Capcom's previous works will feel an indescribable sense of familiarity with these names.
Prior to this, Hiroyuki Kobayashi had frequently served as a producer for multiple entries in the Resident Evil and Devil May Cry series, including the originals, and led the production of the entire Sengoku BASARA series. Eiichiro Sasaki, who joined the company around the same time, also directed several entries in the Resident Evil series. Both are true industry veterans, and it's hard to find developers in Japan who understand "zombie" themed games better than they do.
It can be said that this unique team composition is the main reason GPTRACK50 dared to tackle such a high-difficulty project with their very first game. And facts have proven that the experience accumulated by these veteran developers remains applicable even in today's market, where the development environment has changed dramatically.
More importantly, they didn't just rest on their laurels. You won't see any trace of the "outdated" vibe typical of industry veterans in Stupid Never Dies. On the contrary, if I hadn't known about them beforehand, I would have assumed GPTRACK50 was a young team composed of expressive,个性-driven newcomers. That is why Stupid Never Dies could deliver such a novel, enjoyable, and solid gaming experience in an era where action games are becoming increasingly narrow in scope.
I suppose there are only a few works like this per generation—and who knows when the next one will come along.
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Stupid Never Dies has officially launched on Steam today. Feel free to visit the store page and take a good look:https://store.steampowered.com/app/3486530/Stupid_Never_Dies/?utm_source=3dm&utm_campaign=261020-intro-article&utm_medium=display&utm_content=pm&utm_term=cn
Of course, considering that it is an action RPG that is completely non-"Soulslike," its very existence feels somewhat counter to the times. It's quite possible that from the start, it simply isn't the type of game you enjoy.
Fortunately, it also offers a substantial demo for such players. If the creations of these two veteran developers, made while "going crazy," spark even a little interest in you, why not try the demo? You might just discover a whole new continent unlike anything you've experienced before.