Video games like Grand Theft Auto, Mafia, Just Cause, and Red Dead Redemption prefer to use fake cities inspired by real-world locations, even though their influences can still clearly be felt. Certain locations and landmarks will be exactly like you would see in real life, just with their names changed around. However, other studios aren’t afraid to go for it and set their games in real locations.
Most commonly, Ubisoft, with The Division, Assassin’s Creed, and its Watch Dogs series, will set its games in real cities throughout history. Marvel’s Spider-Man is set in New York, like in the comics. If you need a vacation but don’t want to physically travel, consider the following.
TheAssassin’s Creed series takes you to many different parts around the worldthroughout history, but the series' most grand recreation still has to be Paris during the French Revolution in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The setting is expertly recreated to be as historically accurate as possible, and because it’s the ‘City of Love,’ you also get to experience the romantic storyline between protagonist Arno Dorian and Élise de la Serre.
Some of the sightseeing attractions include the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Palace of Versailles, the Bastille, the Paris Catacombs, and you even get to scale the Eiffel Tower as part of a ‘time anomaly’ mission that will send you to Occupied Paris in WW2. The story is one of the series' most underrated, and the graphics still hold up as well as any of the modern AC games.
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 said, We already haveenough games that are set in New York. Let’s go to the capital for the sequel. So now, you can fully explore an accurate, open-world Washington, D.C. in the sequel game. Granted, it’s not Washington, D.C. as it looks right now, considering the apocalyptic premise of the series.
If you’ve never traveled to Washington, D.C., but have always wanted to check it out, some of the landmarks you’ll see in The Division 2 include the US Capitol Building, the Washington Monument, the National Mall, the Lincoln Memorial, the US Department of Commerce, and the actual White House itself. You can even venture inside the Smithsonian, but prepare to take on a lot of hostiles during your trip.
While only explorable in a brief mission, there has never been a more realistic and one-to-one representation of Amsterdam in a video game than 2022’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. If you wanted to walk around the canals of the city or pass by the Red-Light district (which the characters actually do in the opening cutscene of the mission) and just explore some of the surroundings, CoD makes it a reality.
The precise area is the Oudezijds Voorburgwal, a street surrounded by a canal, which features the historical 13th-century church, the Oude Kerk (translated to Old Church; the oldest structure in Amsterdam). When you see a side-by-side video of the real-world comparison, the attention to detail is incredible, right down to the random coffee shop that appears along the starting area before you walk across the bridge.
It wouldn’t be Indiana Jones without puzzles and an adventure that takes you around the globe, and MachineGames' first-person outing in Indiana Jones and the Great Circlewill transport you to a lot of settings. While there are the Himalayas and Marshall College in Connecticut, the explorable city-based locations include Vatican City, Rome, Gizeh (Giza), Egypt, as well as Shanghai, China, and Sukhothai, Thailand (Siam).
While not an open-world adventure, and your time in these areas is split across the story with minimal exploration, you still get to see a lot of wonders in these brilliantly designed environments. In Vatican City, you meet your companion, Gina Lombardi, while exploring the Vatican Gardens and surrounding areas. Then, you take out Nazis around the pyramids of Gizeh and get in a dogfight through war-torn Shanghai, before landing in Sukhothai.
Sleeping Dogs is a game that copies the Grand Theft Auto formula with a brutal combat system inspired by martial arts films, but unlike the GTA series, Sleeping Dogs uses the real-life location of Hong Kong as its open-world setting. As protagonist Wei Shen, you’re an undercover cop who’s trying to bring down the Triads, completing side activities and cruising around Hong Kong throughout the story.
Sleeping Dogs features four neighborhoods of Hong Kong, including Aberdeen, North Point, Kennedy Town, and Central. The areas are bustling with life and filled with amazing Hong Kong landmarks, like the Buddhist temple you could visit, which is based on the Chi Lin Nunnery. There’s also the BigLee restaurant, which is an homage to Aberdeen’s Jumbo Kingdom restaurant (which sadly sank in 2022).
It doesn’t get any more open-world New York than in the Marvel’s Spider-Man games from developer Insomniac, especially the newest installment, Spider-Man 2. In Spider-Man 2, you get to switch off as Peter and Miles, while also getting a wingsuit to better cruise the skies over NYC, and you get expanded neighborhoods, like Brooklyn and Queens (whereas the first game only features Manhattan).
you’re able to explore the iconic Coney Island in Spider-Man 2, and, in fact, that location is where you’ll meet Mysterio and take on the challenge of his Mysteriums, before ending these side activities with one of the best surprises. You, of course, can also climb your way to the top of the Empire State Building and then swing off, as well as the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge. And don’t forget to pay a visit to Times Square, Central Park, and the Wakanda Embassy.
Dead Island 2 creates a hellscape Los Angeles filled with the undead, but it’s still one of the most solid and detailed recreations of California’s largest city we’ve seen in games, with tons of iconic neighborhoods you’ll be visiting while slaying those hordes. For example, one of the locations you’ll encounter is the Halperin Hotel, a direct replica of The Beverly Hills Hotel (the name only changed for the game).
If you’re feeling like the beach, there’s the Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach. The streets, structures, and layout are very similar to the original locations in LA, more so than GTA 5 (even the paint color and graffiti elements), with just the right touches of disaster added to them to fit the zombie apocalypse setting. You also get to visit Hollywood Boulevard and the wealthy neighborhood of Bel-Air.
Head to the Shibuya district of Tokyo, Japan in Ghostwire: Tokyo. Well, a more nightmare version of it that is still incredibly detailed, as it is ominous and spooky. This first-person horror and magic-style shooter will have you vanquishing ghosts around Shibuya’s empty streets, as the citizens have all disappeared due to supernatural fog. It’s also from the developer behind The Evil Within and Hi-Fi Rush, Tango Gameworks.
Some of the eerie real-life places you can venture to are, of course, the Shibuya Scramble Crossing, which would normally be the busiest street crossing ever, with an average of 2,500 to 3,000 people at one time. Then, you can see Toho Cinemas, Shibuya Center-Gai, Tsukinami Dai-Ichi Park, Shibuya Station, and even Tokyo Tower. It’s all recreated as impressively realistic as possible.
While Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate allows you to tour historic London in the Victorian era, Watch Dogs: Legion takes you to a near-future version of London run by a fascist mass surveillance organization called Albion, which you have to help liberate the city from. The environment is sprawling, and in this version of London, you’re able to explore via flying on your drone (and as any character).
Most famously, you may tour Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Buckingham Palace. Everything is beautifully recreated and stays as authentic as possibleto British culture, with Blade Runner-style holographic ads and messages displayed around certain buildings throughout to give it that near-future look. Other sites of interest include Trafalgar Square, the London Eye, Downing Street, St. James’s Park and St. James’s Square, Piccadilly Circus, and Brixton Market.
The Yakuza series is set in Japan in an RPG and open-world brawler-style setting where enemies will approach you and want to fight you. One of the main regions where the games are set is Isezaki Ijincho, Yokohama, which is where you are in Infinite Wealth. Isezaki Ijincho is actually a fictional name standing in for the real-world district Isezakicho in Yokohama (statistically, the second-largest city behind Tokyo).
This part of Japan is known for its shopping centers, and the Isezaki Road here is modeled after the Isezaki Mall. There are tons of fake and real Japanese restaurants in the Yakuza series, too, like Yoshinoya and Gyu-Kaku. The cool part about Infinite Wealth is that the story also takes you to the tropical location of Hawaii, specifically Honolulu. It likewise has some true-to-life chains, like the ABC stores, and you get to visit Waikiki Beach (Aloha Beach in the game).
The Ala Moana Mall becomes the Anaconda Shopping Center in Infinite Wealth’s version of Honolulu. There’s even an 88 Tees shop you may spot in the game, a real-life clothing brand store found only in Honolulu.
