I played Zombie tag on London’s streets … did I survive?

Forget pounding the streets with an everyday running club. Thousands of people are using a phone app that turns exercise into an immersive survival game

The UK has running clubs of every variety: to discover local bakeries, litter pick or rave to electronic dance music. And now there are even clubs for those who want to be hunted through dimly-lit council estates. 

Thousands of young people have recently signed up to play Zombies, a survival game that encourages “stealth exercise”. 

Ben Roper, 38, started the game in 2023 but it has recently reached unprecedented levels of popularity. About 6,000 people have attended meet-ups in London alone. 

“There’s so much drinking and monetisation of adult culture that has left a lot of people I know feeling completely lost,” Roper, a film producer, said. “Kids have got a lot right and I think we can give adults permission to play.”

Anyone can mark out an arena and launch their own game using his phone app, PlayCulture, free of charge. In a digitally-enhanced version of tag, runners, holding their smartphones, have to evade capture for as long as possible and join the chasers if they are caught. 

A “zombie” converts a “survivor” by either physically tagging them (“biting”) or staying within Bluetooth range — about 15 metres — for five seconds (“infection”). 

Players constantly check the game map on their phones to see others’ approximate location and, to make matters more difficult, find the randomly-generated health checkpoints that keep them alive.

Survivors can also trade health points for power-ups, including a “cloak” that lets them disappear from the map for up to six minutes or an “anti-cloak” that reveals hidden players for 30 seconds.

“People who play video games take to this extremely well, and they are also getting a good exercise session once or twice a week, without even realising they’re doing it,” Roper said. 

More than 50,000 people are registered with PlayCulture worldwide. Zombies has been played as far afield as Vietnam, Australia and Mexico. 

Rachel Turner, 38, a banking analyst, helps to organise the London events. “I genuinely think it’s good for the world,” she said. “Do we stop playing because we have to or because we want to? Kids learn and make friends through playing games and I think adults do it too.” 

Roper started PlayCulture during the Covid-19 lockdown. Inspired by the success of video game streamers, he went full-time after winning a grant three years ago. 

“I was thinking, ‘This is great, but I just want this in the real world’,” Roper said. “It turned out — after about a year of mucking around with lots of very helpful friends — that yeah, it really does work.” 

Player safety is “the biggest factor” in his game planning. The induction materials include advice about navigating traffic or natural obstacles, and joining a game requires users to sign a disclaimer. 

Runners are also encouraged to wear brightly coloured vests, so members of the public understand the chasing is just a friendly competition. Roper said he had never had a complaint from the public in almost a decade of playing chaser games.

Roper’s business plan is to cover the cost of the app by making videos of him playing. That suddenly seemed more viable in March when his content went viral and attracted tens of millions of viewers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. 

“It went absolutely bonkers,” he said. “It became obvious I would need to immediately rewrite the app so that it could handle hundreds or thousands of simultaneous players.” 

Thomas Matheickal, 26, discovered the game on social media during the summer. “Each time it’s getting more and more fun. The more you learn about the game, the more the tactics evolve,” the software engineer said. 

Roper added: “There’s always something hilarious or exciting that happens. It creates moments of tension, and loss, and everything. It’s theatre.”

My night playing Zombies in central London

He came at us, grinning, out of the dark. With the game almost over, our group of survivors was heading back towards Waterloo but scattered when we spotted the red vest of a zombie. 

Through my bad luck or his good judgment, I was the one he chased. I sprinted down a side street, rounded a corner and dipped into an alleyway. Crouched in the shadows, I looked desperately for an escape route. 

Only 40 minutes earlier I had been one of 29 players assembled outside the Southbank Centre. Most of my prospective opponents looked quick. More ominously, I was the only first-time player. 

A kindly accountant named Adam let me follow him at the start. We jogged towards Borough Market before losing each other in a tangle of frantic players at a health checkpoint near the Oxo Tower. 

I then teamed up with Thomas and Dan: for the next 25 minutes we kept at least 200 metres from any red dots, meaning zombies, on the map. A dozen others were caught but our plan went well — until we returned to Waterloo. 

After my near-miss I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, but was quietly pleased with the turn of pace I had managed after a 6km jog. 

Then, disaster. At the end of the alleyway, there was nothing but shuttered gates. To make matters worse, my pursuer had doubled back and was coming down the street towards me. 

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Well, what choice did I have? I ran full-pelt at him and tried desperately to remember how I once played rugby: I feinted right, then left, and managed to squeeze past untagged. 

I made it out of the alley alive and, thanks to a lucky turn, had a fence between myself and the zombie. As the game had almost finished, I doubled over, panting, convinced I had survived. 

My chaser, Dagim, I later found out, was confused as to why I didn’t complete the escape. He simply tapped the “infect” button on his app and I was zombified with only seconds left on the clock.

Bluetooth infection — the one rule I had forgotten. “Heartbreaker: you were the last survivor to die,” my phone bleeped cheerfully.

Next time, I will remember. I’ve not had a thrill like that since the playground, so there will definitely be a next time for me.