Infection Free Zone Review: Defending My Real-Life Apartment Has Never Been This Glitchy
I have always maintained that in a zombie apocalypse, my local kebab shop would be a strategic stronghold, and thanks to Infection Free Zone, I finally got to test that theory.
The hook is undeniably brilliant: type in the name of your real-world town, download the OpenStreetMap data, and defend your actual house from hordes of the "Mad Virus" infected. It is the ultimate "I Am Legend" simulator. We are now approaching 2026, and the game has been cooking in Early Access for over a year and a half. While the fantasy of mounting a machine gun on my neighbor's roof is incredibly satisfying, the reality of playing Infection Free Zone is often a battle against a different kind of horror: jank.
The Ultimate Home Field Advantage
Let’s give credit where it’s due: when this game works, it is magical. There is a primal, lizard-brain joy in seeing a 3D render of your actual street and deciding to turn the local library into a fortress. The OpenStreetMap integration is surprisingly robust. I loaded up my hometown, and sure enough, the game recognized the layout perfectly.
The gameplay loop is standard colony sim fare: scavenge for food, build walls, research tech, but the context does the heavy lifting. You aren't just looting "Generic Grocery Store A"; you are looting the specific supermarket you buy milk from every Tuesday. It adds a layer of personal stakes that other zombie games simply can’t match. Recent updates have added laws and vehicle combat, which means I can finally sent a squad to drive a technical through the streets of my childhood. That is objectively cool.
The "Mad Virus" Is Actually Lag
However, the immersion breaks the moment you look too closely. The "Real World" data is a roll of the dice. In my playthrough, the game decided that a local kindergarten was a police station brimming with guns, while a massive forest was rendered as a barren wasteland. It’s funny, sure, but it makes strategic planning feel like a lottery.
Then there is the performance. For a game that looks this simple, it runs like it’s mining crypto in the background. When trying to play this game on one of my weaker side-machines I experienced freezes every 15 to 30 seconds that lasted just as long, turning a tense night defense into a slideshow. Now personally I was lucky not to encounter the following ,but other players are reporting straight-up crashes and save corruptions. It is 2026; we really shouldn't be dealing with optimization this poor in a game that has been public for this long.
The AI pathfinding also deserves a special shout-out for its stupidity. I sent a squad of three vehicles to an ambush point, and the guy in the sports car decided he was in Fast & Furious, raced ahead of the armored van, and got eaten before his backup arrived. If I wanted to babysit suicidal toddlers, I wouldn't be playing a strategy game.
The Artificial Elephant in the Room
We have to talk about the art. The developers have been open about using AI tools like Midjourney for assets. They claim they have "real artists" polishing the output, but let’s be real: you can feel the soullessness and lack of thought behind certain decisions.
As a journalist, seeing the "AI Generated Content" disclosure on the store page is already a massive turn-off. It gives the whole project a cheap, asset-flip vibe that clashes with the genuinely cool underlying tech. If you are charging €25 for a game, I expect a human to have actually drawn the UI icons, not a prompt engineer. It’s a moral grey area for some, but for me, it just feels lazy.
Shallow Graves
Once the novelty of "Hey, I can see my house!" wears off after about five hours, you are left with a fairly shallow survival game. You can’t build new structures freely from scratch in the way you’d want, you’re mostly just adapting what’s there. If you pick a rural area with no buildings? Tough luck, you’re screwed. The late game devolves into a repetitive loop of "wait for horde, shoot horde, repair wall." It lacks the depth of something like Frostpunk or RimWorld.
The Verdict
Infection Free Zone is a fantastic tech demo wrapped in a mediocre game. The ability to play in your own neighborhood is a gimmick that I absolutely love, but it is currently held back by severe performance issues, questionable AI art usage, and a lack of late-game depth. It is fun for a weekend of novelty, but asking €24.99 for this level of instability with quite the lack of QOL features is a tough sell.
If you absolutely must see your house in a zombie game, wait for a deep sale. Otherwise, keep your doors locked and wait for a few more patches.
Score: 6.7/10 - A brilliant concept that is currently stumbling over its own feet.
We at NLM received a key for this game for free, this however didn't impact our review in any way.