The game, “Tenderloin Night Shift,” places players at Eddy and Jones streets, where they shoot figures described as zombies. The scene includes familiar city details, such as a 31 Balboa Muni sign and a stalled Waymo. Some targets carry food-delivery backpacks; another is hunched in a pose critics said evokes the “fentanyl fold.”

Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, whose district includes the Tenderloin, called the game “deeply disturbing and unacceptable.” He said turning violence against unhoused people into entertainment is dehumanizing and should not be normalized.

Developer Pierre-Louis Biojout said he created the game as a fictional zombie shooter inspired by a “Call of Duty” level set on Alcatraz. In an email, he said the characters represented a broad cross-section of San Francisco and that the recognizable streets and details were meant to make the game fun to play with friends. He also said he walks through the Tenderloin twice a day on his way to work.

Biojout promoted the game on X on Tuesday with the line, “San Francisco couldn’t fix the Tenderloin. So I monetized it.” The game is hosted on the website of his artificial-intelligence startup, NanoCorp, whose advertising appears on in-game billboards. Biojout said he built the game in a weekend using ChatGPT’s Codex and his company’s tools. He said the game had generated $300 in advertising sales.

The game offers players points for killing enemies and lets them upgrade from a pistol to weapons including a service carbine. Biojout is also selling advertising in the game, with digital billboard placements starting at $100 per week and a “sponsor blimp” priced at $3,200 per week.

Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said the game’s premise reflected a dehumanizing attitude toward residents of one of San Francisco’s poorest neighborhoods. Former Supervisor Dean Preston called it “gross” and said it amounted to “vigilantism involving killing poor people.” Preston urged city leaders to condemn the game and suggested the City Attorney’s Office and district attorney examine whether it violates the law.

A spokesperson for the City Attorney’s Office said she could not immediately determine whether the game broke any laws. She said the game was not an accurate depiction of the thousands of families who live in the Tenderloin and that glorifying violence against neighbors would not improve conditions there.

Christin Evans, a former member of the city’s homeless oversight board, urged Biojout to take down the game and consider donating any proceeds to Tenderloin nonprofits. She said many unhoused residents face addiction and mental-health crises without adequate support, and pointed to the role of rising rents in the city’s homelessness crisis.

Biojout said he had previously worked directly with unhoused people in France, an experience he said made him skeptical of how effective some programs are. He did not immediately respond to follow-up questions.