ZombiesIRL: Survive the Apocalypse in Your Own 3D Scan
What if the scan of your own living room, office, or backyard became the battleground?
Survival shooters have always tapped into something primal — the need to run, aim, and think fast while something is closing in. ZombiesIRL adds a twist most games can't offer: the environment isn't a designer's invention, it's a real place. Racing up your own staircase with something chasing you hits differently when the staircase is real.
ZombiesIRL began as MatterPak Attack, a lightweight demo built to show off what RSET's engine could do beyond its original purpose. After strong feedback on that early version, the team set out to build it into a complete game.
A few years ago, the full game was pitched as a Kickstarter campaign, but the campaign didn't reach its funding goal. The underlying experience is still very much alive, though — it's available today through RSET Go and RSET Pro.
Three steps stand between a player and the horde: scan your environment, use the level editor to prepare defenses, then survive using makeshift weapons built from whatever objects turn up in that scan.
What inspired the 3D capture of this space?
The core RSET software was built working alongside the navy and military to create tactical shooter training simulations against AI-controlled opponents. Once the pieces were already in place — a first-person shooter, pathfinding AI, the Unity engine — turning it toward something lighter felt like an obvious next step. What started as a way to promote the underlying platform ended up taking on a life of its own.
How does it work?
The game runs on any Matterport scan. Once a Matterport account is linked, existing scans show up right in the in-game browser, ready to load, or a premade MatterPak can be purchased instead. From there, it plays with either a mouse and keyboard or a connected controller.
What's the favorite digital twin to fight zombies in?
Opinions vary across the team. An abandoned theater is a personal favorite — wide sightlines, and a genuinely unsettling atmosphere carried over from the original scan. Another team favorite is a hotel lobby with a circular first-floor layout, where open areas connect through tight corridors — a layout that happens to produce well-paced, tense gameplay almost by accident.
What are the benefits of Matterport digital twins more broadly?
Digital twins are built for exploring and documenting real spaces — accurate, to-scale models with uses well beyond gaming, including training, archival preservation, and theater design. ZombiesIRL just pushes that same underlying capability in a more playful direction.
What does RSET do outside of ZombiesIRL?
RSET's underlying technology was originally developed for the Office of Naval Research, built to rapidly model indoor spaces for training and post-action review. That work later extended into first responder training through a series of pilot programs, and RSET has since been used for litigation presentations, theater production design, and museum exhibits as well.
How do you see the game evolving?
Plans include an in-game economy for weapon and equipment trading, quests, multiplayer, and VR support down the line — along with eventually letting other Matterport service providers sell their own scans as playable maps.
ZombiesIRL runs on the same RSET engine used across the company's other work — a tool for exploring, improving, and training inside 3D scanned environments. The game is one expression of that engine; training simulations, litigation exhibits, and emergency-response planning are others.
Sources: interview with Bill Gregory, Founder & CEO of RSET, originally published via Matterport's blog; project details from zombiesirl.com.
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