In Stupid Never Dies, it is also frozen solid and technically dead as Davy, the weakest zombie in monster society, discovers Julia’s body in a shopping centre and falls in love at first sight. He wants to bring her back to life and take her on a date. Unfortunately, that means defeating the King of Monsters (KOM) and accidentally saving humanity along the way.
This is the gloriously ridiculous setup for this forthcoming action RPG from GPTrack50, a new studio founded by former Capcom producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi. Its world looks much like ours, except that monsters have always been part of everyday life: whereas we might find a bear in the mountains or a stray dog in the woods, residents here encounter werewolves and zombies. That uneasy normality ends when KOM crushes civilisation and leaves only 2% of humanity alive.
Davy begins even lower down the social ladder. Zombies, says Kobayashi, are “the weakest of the weak”. But eating a mysterious egg gives this particularly unimpressive corpse the power to fight back.
Because Davy is already dead, combat throws out the usual need for self-preservation. Forget defence: guarding and dodging are pushed aside in favour of “attacking, attacking, attacking”. Kobayashi describes it as a game made “by the action game lover, for the action gamer”.
Its two main systems make full use of Davy’s unreliable body. He can consume defeated monsters, steal their skills and transform into creatures including a werewolf, vampire or harpy. The “body hack” mechanic goes further, allowing players to replace his head, arms and legs with equipment.
Attach a sword to an arm and Davy gains sword attacks; fit a gun and he starts shooting. Being undead has never looked so practical. Kobayashi calls the result “funky zombie action”, a phrase coined to give the development team a shared idea of the game’s tone: fast, colourful and darkly funny.
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