San Francisco Developer’s Tenderloin ‘Zombie Shooter’ Game Ignites Backlash Over Homelessness

A San Francisco software developer has released a free, browser-based video game set in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood that casts the area’s homeless population as zombie-like enemies for players to shoot, triggering a wave of online criticism.

Developer Pierre-Louis Biojout unveiled the multiplayer game on Tuesday, describing it on X as a “Call of Duty style zombie shooter on the real SF streets.” He said he built it over a single weekend using AI coding tools, despite never having made a video game before, and said the game had already generated $300 in advertising revenue.

“San Francisco couldn’t fix the Tenderloin. So I monetized it,” Biojout wrote on X.

The post drew immediate backlash, with critics accusing Biojout of turning the city’s homelessness crisis into entertainment. “You think you’re being edgy but you’re just a huge piece of s–t,” one person wrote in response. Another called it “atrocious PR,” while a third wrote, “Guy makes a game where you shoot homeless people and thinks he’s the hero.”

Not all reaction was hostile. Some users praised the game directly, with one calling it the “best game I play so far this year” and another singling out a detail — “the zombie on the lime scooter gets me every time.”

Other defenders turned their criticism toward city government rather than the developer. “SF created and refuses to fix an urban wasteland,” one supporter wrote, arguing that officials, not Biojout, deserved the blame for conditions in the neighborhood.

Biojout has not backed away from the project. When one commenter told him the game was “not cool,” he responded with a two-word reply that only fueled further replies from critics.