Stupid Never Dies Review: A Zombie Roguelite Struggle Session

First Released October 21, 2026

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Published Oct 19, 2026, 7:34 PM EDT

Stupid Never Dies madcap premise and dazzling aesthetic should be an easy win, but sluggish combat and tedious systems make this roguelite a chore.

Hour after hour and here I sit, questioning the many decisions that resulted in the core design of Stupid Never Dies. GPTRACK50 Inc.’s roguelite dungeon crawler debut is bright, brash, and slathered with color and noise, but a slew of monotonous mechanics can't help but interrupt its best intentions. Aesthetically, I’m sold, yet I tend to start each new run with a groan.

Anyone fond of Suda51’s eccentric oeuvre will immediately spot the hallmarks of Grasshopper Manufacture all over Stupid Never Dies, qualities which effectively carried me past my initial quibbles with the game. They weren't enough to recommend it outright, but this distinctly oddball apocalypse has flashes of fun.

Please, Please Don't Check The Freezer

Davy is dead, one among countless victims in a world devastated by an apocalypse and overrun with demons. Holed up in a shopping mall bastion with a motley crew of survivors and aided by Dr. Frank, this zombified hipster doofus consumes a strange egg that grants him the power to steal abilities from monsters, setting him off on a path to rescue humanity and, more specifically, resurrect the frozen remains he fell for at first sight.

To say that the central love story in Stupid Never Dies is problematic would be an understatement; Davy is dizzily, dangerously infatuated with a dead woman in an ice cream freezer he’s never spoken to, but Dr. Frank assures him that, given the right conditions, he can bring her back to life. Until he does, Davy showers her with gifts from his dungeon dives, scours her cellphone to learn more about her, and fantasizes about their eventual first date. To paraphrase Guy Ritchie’s debut: “Alarm bells are ringing, Davy.”

Beyond all of… that… the voice work in the game is uniformly excellent, with each actor fully on board with this mad setting, and the presentation is further boosted by evocative animations at every step. An assortment of original tunes spanning pop-punk and party metal seals the concept and theming, but can’t successfully paint over what might be the most literal and egregious example of “fridging” I’ve ever encountered.

Constantly Swapping Styles, When All I Want Is My Werewolf

As a zombie, Davy predictably moves and speaks at a snail’s pace, but he’s much quicker after flushing himself down the dungeon toilet (yes, literally). Two primary attacks let him pinball grunts into pits and spikes, a special ability vomits bile, and he can even transplant body parts at the mall for alternate starter skills and buffs. This is built on a pretty standard looter structure complete with rarity colors and power levels, and you’ll send mountains of it to the scrap heap. While some collectibles are lost after death, an interesting quirk accelerates XP gain over time, eventually letting you skip entire levels/layers of hell with less grind.

You can bite enemies for health regen, and certain kills offer up a spherical core that lets you transform into your meal to gain new combat functions and abilities. You can freely swap between two chomped “styles” and Davy’s standard zombie mode to optimize cooldowns, or replace them if you preferred cores show up in a new group of mobs. Harpies glide, werewolves dash and slash, the lich can command fallen enemies as allies, and there are even weirder ones to discover as you progress further through hell, both literally and figuratively.

The wacky assortment of demons you'll fight are inspired by equal parts mythology and classic horror, and it’s initially fun to find new styles among them. Sadly, many feel utterly worthless, they’re lost after completing a few levels, and they’re inevitably harder to find as more get unlocked via progress. You'll soon be yelling at the screen as you’re offered every possible style but the werewolf one you want, and I’ll never forget my protracted fight against the Wyvern boss as a harpy because it was all that I had.

Tick-Tock Troubles

Against all common sense, Stupid Never Dies also features a time limit, adding an unusual stress element to each run, though occasional rewards and progress thresholds can grant a slight boost. This makes exploration a generally risky affair and, while it keeps the dungeon-running briskly paced, I often felt like I was missing out on a treasure or a preferred style as I rushed along.

I’m all for strange, even confrontational constraints in games; similarly set in a shopping mall, Dead Rising was lambasted on release for its permadeath and time limit. I loved that game and understood how it chose this route to maintain and manage its tension, but Stupid Never Dies feels like it’s on the wrong side of that gate.

I suppose that it makes some kind of sense, intending for you to complete levels quickly rather than fully concentrate on each individual mob. Maybe that similarly speaks to its lack of a dedicated lock-on, but it's poorly served by some horrid auto-targeting, turning most battles—and especially certain boss fights—into a chore. My face has continuously gone slack watching Davy whiff the air with an enemy right next to him or mistime a “Stupid Parry.”

The latter is a key offensive maneuver which allows Davy to catch an attack mid-stride and react with his own. However, with no formal targeting, have fun parrying a boss and eating some damage before they shunt off to the opposite side of the arena, your juiced-up riposte connecting with thin air. Ironically, your best bet in these encounters can be to just play it exceedingly safe, an approach which seems purely at odds with the game’s madcap attitude.

A Less Than Exquisite Corpse

Stupid Never Dies’ day-glo collage aesthetic proves central to its design. Menus, power-ups, and cinematics are constantly sketched over with bathroom wall scrawl and photograph clippings, which serves as a functional analogy for the slapdash nature of the game’s myriad systems.

Most body parts get turned into scrap, fueling a merchant that appears between dungeon layers to sell one-off buffs. However, the game’s economy is such that you’ll need to spend hours scrapping just for the chance to possibly buy a buff during your next run, a weak routine that eventually made my eyes glaze over. I had a similar reaction simply reading through the countless requirements and pricing details on the adjacent burger shop menu of upgrades, and it felt hopeless to try and track any desired unlocks.

And that’s all without mentioning the game’s initial tutorial, which halts Davy at every small step of progress to wrench him back to the mall for more lore dumps and nonsense. This eventually fades out, but it makes a bad first impression, especially to anyone already annoyed by the slow zombie dialogue or sensibly disturbed about what’s sitting in the freezer.

Risk With Little Reward

Its shiny, slimy aesthetic really does pop on the screen and travels some distance to charm, I’ll admit. At the best of times, Stupid Never Dies could have been one of those risky PS2 purchases, a whacked-out concept amusing to gawk at, but maybe not enough to fully commit to.

Contrary to the game’s initially promising sense of variety—a critical boon for any roguelite crawler—Stupid Never Dies is quickly overwhelmed by numerous discordant systems while lacking impactful ways to alleviate the struggle. I longed for the moment where I returned to the hub excited about my haul, looking forward to that meaningful upgrade I've had your eye on that will really change things on this next run.

That magic moment is sorely missing in Stupid Never Dies, and all the colorful animations and teddy bear cosmetics can’t possibly take its place.