Austin residents may notice a swarm of camera-toting streamers wandering the city this weekend, all chasing a shot at $50,000 in a bizarre real-life survival game called Safe Zone. The event, organized by popular Kick streamer Ice Poseidon, invites any Kick creator to show up and try to outlast everyone else inside a boundary that can shift or change size — all while zombies, poison clouds and other hazards get thrown at them by their own viewers.
According to KXAN Austin, Kick streamers may descend on Austin on Saturday to compete for the $50,000 prize, with the streamer behind it all — whose real name is Paul Denino — having posted about the event since at least late September. The rules, laid out on the Safe Zone wiki, are straightforward in concept if chaotic in practice: “Safe Zone is an event hosted by Ice Poseidon, any Kick streamer is welcome to join; show up to Austin, Texas and compete to win $50,000,” according to iceposeidon.com. “The objective is simple: don't die, stay in the safezone, and endure,” the site adds.
How the Game Actually Works
Every contestant starts with 100 HP and is eliminated once that number hits zero, per the same wiki. Step outside the safe zone and there's a five-second grace period before the damage starts — after that, players lose 1 HP every two seconds they remain outside the boundary. The zone itself isn't fixed: Ice Poseidon can change its size or speed, or even split it apart, leaving contestants to scramble and reorient on the fly, as the site's rules describe.
Items add another layer of strategy. Contestants can carry up to three non-stacking items and trade with one another, with trades able to hold up to ten items at once, the wiki states. Die, and a gravestone containing your belongings appears where you were last seen — fair game for looting by other players. There's even a chance at a second life: an eliminated contestant can sometimes be revived within ten minutes of their death, according to the same source.
Zombies, Clouds and Viewer-Funded Chaos
The game's attacks page spells out just how much mayhem viewers at home can unleash on contestants in real time. One effect can summon 50 zombies into the safe zones for 20 minutes, forcing players to flee or fight through a horde while trying to stay within the boundary, per iceposeidon.com. Another lets a viewer pick a spot for a 25-meter cloud that lingers for 10 minutes, draining 2 HP every 10 seconds from anyone caught inside it.
There's also a delayed-strike option: an attack that lands 30 seconds after being aimed, dealing 10 HP of damage to everyone within 25 meters of where it hits, according to the attacks page. Not everything is hostile, though — care packages drop random items at random points in the safe zones, and crates hold items purchased by viewers for contestants to find. Administrators can also place a 30-meter safe area where anyone inside is immune to all damage, zombies and newly spawned poison, the site notes.
Austin Police Weigh In
With an unpredictable crowd of streamers potentially fanning out across the city, Austin police posted a message supporting safe participation in the event and urged participants to remain vigilant, per an X post cited by KXAN. Ice Poseidon reshared that post and reminded contestants to follow city and state laws while playing Safe Zone safely, the station reported. He has also said, in posts on X, that the only requirement to join is to livestream while competing on Kick.
This isn't the first time Ice Poseidon has turned Austin into the backdrop for a Kick-fueled contest. In 2024, he partnered with Kick on a citywide scavenger hunt that offered $20,000 to whoever found the final step, according to Dexerto. That event required competitors to stream on Kick throughout, though Twitch streamers were allowed to join by multistreaming onto the platform, and Kick said it was making a special category for the contest, Dexerto reported at the time.
A Prize Pool That's Hard to Pin Down
Exactly how big Saturday's event might get is unclear. Ice Poseidon's own events page lists one competition involving nine contestants locked up around the clock competing for $50,000, while a separate listing describes 50 Kick streamers competing for $100,000, according to iceposeidon.com. It isn't clear from the available information whether these listings describe the same event or two distinct ones.
Interest in the platform itself appears to be climbing locally — Google Trends has tracked the search term “Kick” trending in Texas for roughly the past day, per KXAN. Whether that translates into a flood of streamers actually showing up in Austin remains to be seen, but between the zombies, the shifting boundaries and the five-figure payout on the line, it's shaping up to be a weekend unlike most others in the city.
