PC Gamer - Favourite Cities

PCGamer has a list of the best cities in PC gaming.

Hell's Kitchen, from Deus Ex

As a series, Deus Ex has plenty of cities to choose from. Mankind Divided has Prague; Human Revolution has Detroit and Hengsha; and Invisible War made an attempt at Seattle, bless it forever. But only the original, ugly as it is, really captured the scale of a city. Its version of the Hell's Kitchen district of New York feels ominous and towering, sure, but, in comparison to the latter games, also spacious. Its streets are wide, making JC Denton feel like a small part of this huge place. Lots of games struggle with scale, but Deus Ex really captures the sense of a city's size.

Sure, it's not the most remarkable looking of the Deus Ex series' cities, and its backing music isn't as memorable as Hong Kong, but it feels like a real place. It's dark, dingy, and covered in recognisable detritus. As interesting as the paradoxically more futuristic cities of the prequels look, I appreciate how the familiarity of Hell's Kitchen serves to heighten what's different about the world. Plus, it's got a great bar. That's about 90% of the requirements of a great videogame city right there.

-Phil Savage

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More information.

Sigil is not on the list? Fail.

joxer said:

Sigil is not on the list? Fail.

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Good thinking, Joxer. Sigil should be on the list. Even so, I think it is quite an original list, one that we don't see everyday.

Athkatla and Vivec for me.

does Korinis count as a city? Probably not...

TheMadGamer said:

does Korinis count as a city? Probably not…

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Khorinis was awesome, although it's more like a village by today's standards.

Novigrad is the most impressive city in a game for me. Baldur's Gate will always be a favorite though, and Athkatla too. I agree Sigil should be on the list as well.

Not sure if I agree about Rapture though. It's a great setting, but it never felt like a city to me.

JDR13 said:

Not sure if I agree about Rapture though. It's a great setting, but it never felt like a city to me.

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I would have picked one of the cities from the Assassins Creed series instead of Rapture. That felt more like a series of semi-joined corridors and areas than a city.

I would have also probably picked Arkham City over Mirrors Edge, though I haven't played the new one, so it may be better in that respect than the first.

Another vote for Novigrad!

Which game ?

joxer said:

Sigil is not on the list? Fail.

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Sigil is the city in Planescape Torment

Novigrad as well.

Wasn't sigil also in nwn2 ?

Gardens of Ysa from KoA: Reckoning.



Also a big fan of Baldur's Gate. Love how the city is constructed, it's huge and has many buildings to explore, each with something different to see. They also present it deep into the game, completely flipping the game on its head at that point. Sheer genius, IMO.

Love Midgar from FF7, too. One of the most atmospheric cities in an RPG I've played. Climbing the wall to the Shinra building is one of the most memorable moments in any RPG for me. The moment when you leave the city and realize there's a whole, huge world to explore, it's also a very memorable moment. The game overall is greatly enhanced by the backgrounds and odd camera angles at times.

Khorinis is great, too. Somewhat smaller in size than most but bustling with life and has a whole cast of fun, interesting characters to chat with and things to do. It's enhanced by the AI scripts and various ways you can handle quests. One of the best designed cities as well, and I love the idea of the "gated" upper community that you have to work to get access to.

Shoot, any city from Morrowind. My most memorable is probably Balmora because when I got there for the first time, my jaw dropped. I started examining the buildings and couldn't believe that you could actually enter every single one of them! A lot of older RPGs back then had cities with houses you could enter, but many would just be for decoration.

There's many others I could name but these are some quick ones I thought of. Many great cities to be found in the RPG genre, for sure.

Novi-grad...the scope, detail, districts, content, ambiance. It's actually based on city we have here in Croatia.
Interesting thing is CDPR recently hired a real architect for helping them design city that Cyberpunk will take place in (most of the time, at least).

joxer said:

Sigil is not on the list? Fail.

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I really don't think so. Planescape was an awesome game but Sigil was just kinda there, if I remember correctly. (It has been almost 20 years now.)

What really needs to be there is Paragon City from City of Heroes. IMHO, it has as much personality as the rest of the cities in that list all put together! The clean-city Atlas Park, the run down slums of King's Row, the docks of Independence Port, nature-gone-wild Eden, the forest maze (and serious name dropping) of Perez Park, spooky Croatoa, the big hole of The Hollows, parallel versions that Portal Corps opened up… it goes on and on. And you don't just walk around in it, either: you're speed-running/jumping/flying/teleporting through the city! Figuring out the fastest way to get to the next mission was a game in itself.

It's really not even a fair comparison, honestly. An entire MMO was set there with content being developed over years of time.

paradise city? lel

Sigil definitely, as Joxer mentioned. And, L.A. from Bloodlines.

Another vote for Khorinis over here. And also a preference for Athkatla over Baldur's Gate.