In the world of Stupid Never Dies, humanity has already lost. A devastating war against a powerful monster lord eliminated 98% of the human population, leaving the remaining survivors to fend for themselves or become zombies in the process.
Among them, at the bottom of the social hierarchy, is Davy (Paul Castro Jr.), a timid, lovestruck zombie living in an abandoned shopping mall who stumbles upon Julia (Erin Yvette), a young woman who froze to death inside an ice cream shop’s freezer during the war. For Davy, this incident marks love at first sight. Determined to bring her back to life, Davy ventures into the monster-infested underground, where he must devour enemies, steal their powers, and ultimately defeat the monster boss.
The offbeat action RPG marks the debut title from GPTRACK50, the studio founded by veteran Resident Evil and Devil May Cry producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi. Speaking with Deadline, Kobayashi discussed his studio’s action-based approach, upping the romance factor, the unique art style and a potential sequel.
DEADLINE: Stupid Never Dies is GPTRACK50’s debut title, and the studio was founded by developers with extensive experience in action games. What was important to you about establishing a new creative identity rather than leaning on what you’re already known for?
HIROYUKI KOBAYASHI: We’re a very young studio, and this is our first title. The development team wanted to create something new within the action genre, something much more attack-oriented. We’re not really concerned with defense. We’re focusing more on offense, and that’s an important philosophy and part of the game’s identity. I was the one who brought the love story and character elements into the game. The development team was focused on the gameplay system of attacking, attacking, attacking, and I wanted to bring in a love story. That combination became Stupid Never Dies.
DEADLINE: So, are you a big romantic softie, even with your background on Resident Evil and Devil May Cry?
KOBAYASHI: I’ve always wanted to do a love story [laughs]. Even looking back at Resident Evil and Devil May Cry, there were slight elements of romance, but they were never at the center of those games. This time, I wanted to create something where the love story sits right in the middle.
DEADLINE: Let’s talk about the artistic influences behind the game. It has this hand-drawn, comic-book style with some graffiti-inspired elements. Where did that visual language come from?
KOBAYASHI: The director had this vision of bringing a manga-inspired style into the game. One difference between animation and manga is that manga characters have distinct outlines. Bringing that style into a video game was one of the challenges we faced from the very beginning. It’s also quite different from traditional toon-shading, so adjusting everything within the game engine was a challenge.
DEADLINE: Given how difficult it was to achieve that style within the engine, why was sticking with it so important? You could have gone with a more conventional look.
KOBAYASHI: Technically speaking, we developed the game using Unreal Engine, which isn’t particularly suited to this kind of art style. But the reason we stuck with the design is that there are already so many toon-shaded and photorealistic games out there. Because this is our first title, we wanted it to stand out in the current environment. The art style was very important in that regard. We wanted someone to look at the game and immediately recognize, “Oh, this is Stupid Never Dies.” That was the goal we set for ourselves and the artistic challenge we wanted to take on.
DEADLINE: The title of the game makes sense because it’s a phrase said throughout, but were you hesitant about its intent?
KOBAYASHI: We spent about a year completing the game’s scenario. During that process, there was a very strong line in the story: “Hey, stupid never dies.” We thought that line was very powerful and memorable, so we brought it back to the development team and discussed it with the director and everyone at the studio. Everybody loved the phrase “Stupid never dies,” so we chose it as the title.
DEADLINE: We’ve seen plenty of games where players fight zombies, but very few where the player actually is the zombie. How did that influence your approach to Davy as the game’s protagonist?
KOBAYASHI: When we first started the project, I created an outline that was more about a zombie versus something else, which I can’t reveal. But that was an original idea. When I brought that concept to the development team and we started discussing it, most of the elements changed. The team had different ideas about the game’s direction, but the one thing I wanted to keep was a zombie as the protagonist. That’s ultimately why Davy became the main character.
DEADLINE: This game is quirky. You’ve got a girl who’s frozen to death at the center of this romance, and a hybrid guy who can poop magical eggs. How did you balance this outrageous humor while trying to make the story cohesive?
KOBAYASHI: I basically gave the team the freedom to come up with whatever they wanted. Whatever they thought was funny, they could bring into the game. But there was one condition: Don’t make it R-rated. I didn’t want anything too erotic or grotesque. We wanted to keep the game accessible to a broad audience. In that sense, I was almost like the police officer in those meetings. Whenever someone tried to cross that line, I would step in.
Another thing I always kept in mind was avoiding anything that women might find offensive. There’s a very sensitive line between something you can laugh at and something that makes you feel offended. That’s something I was always conscious of throughout the process of creating the scenario.
DEADLINE: Looking ahead to GPTRACK50’s future, what kind of games do you want the studio to be known for? What are you hoping to accomplish next?
KOBAYASHI: This project was very challenging because it’s a new IP, but we learned a lot from the experience. One thing we still hold onto is that we want to keep creating action games. Action games are the core competency of our studio, and we want to continue making them.
DEADLINE: What’s one of the biggest lessons you learned throughout the development process, especially while building a new IP and establishing a new studio?
KOBAYASHI: One of the biggest things we learned was the importance of having the right staff. Because this was our first title, we started with almost nobody at the studio. We had to begin by hiring and recruiting people, and finding the right person for the right position was very challenging. Timing was also important. You can’t rush the hiring process, but you also can’t afford to wait too long. Figuring out how to make those decisions was difficult.
In the end, I think we succeeded because we chose the right people. Our studio only has about 30 employees, so we’re a very small team. But most of those people have a lot of experience, which means they’re capable of making decisions about what needs to be done and what doesn’t. When you’re developing a new IP, there’s no 100% correct answer to every decision. Throughout the development process, you’re constantly having to make choices, and someone has to take responsibility for those decisions. That’s where experience becomes very important.
The strength of our studio is that, even though we have only about 30 people, they’re all veterans who can make those decisions independently. Because of that experience, we were able to manage our production schedule effectively. I think the 30 people we have now are incredibly talented, and we made the right choices in bringing them together. But the early stages were especially difficult because we were essentially doing two things simultaneously: developing the actual game and recruiting the people who would make it.
DEADLINE: I have to say, I thought Davy would become human by the end of the game. But alas, he does not. So, it seems to me that this leaves the door open, maybe, to a sequel?
KOBAYASHI: There’s definitely a possibility of a sequel. We hope we can make one, but we don’t know at this point. One of the technical reasons Davy remains a zombie is because we have endgame content, including a dungeon with 100 levels that players can continue exploring after completing the main story. We wanted players to be able to keep playing even after they finished the game, so we decided to keep him as a zombie. At the same time, we wanted to leave some room for the possibility of turning this into a franchise in the future.
[This interview, conducted through an interpreter, has been edited for length and clarity]
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