10 Games Where You Explore REAL WORLD PLACES 

The realism in LA Noire is absolutely insane. When it came out, I showed it to my dad who grew up in LA in the late 50s. There used to be a jungle themed restaurant called Cliftons that he loved as a kid. So we figured out where it used to be and went there in the game and the restaurant was there, perfectly recreated as he remembered it!

Ubisoft’s attention to detail when it comes to world design is astounding. If only they put that much effort into the rest of the games they put out.

As a Chicago native, the first watch dogs was a fairly accurate recreation of the city. It's weird that it's not represented more in all forms of media.

TLOU2 was really a "nothing like it" experience for me as someone who lived in seattle. It really is such an accurate depiction, and I had so many "yo wait, i've been here!" moments playing it. From the beginning when Ellie arrives on her horse, I literally said "are we getting on I5?" only to lose it seeing the street sign lol. So many times i had to stop and take in the city i knew falling apart, it was so surreal

I remember playing the Division 2 and realizing I’m standing next to my real world office building recreated shockingly accurately. Very cool.

I’m from Hong Kong and Sleeping Dogs really deserves some credits. The dev team did a fantastic job of capturing the essence of the city. I was studying abroad when it first came out, and the game reminded me of home big time

Ive always loved the assassins creed series for this exact reason... especially the Desmond Miles arch is filled with truly amazing reconstructions

Kingdom Come was such an underappreciated game on so many levels.

The Getaway should've definitely gotten a mention. It's so accurate to central London that my dad was a taxi for me, when I was a kid trying to find out where to go

The detail about the cathedral on AC unity, is so detailed that the game was used as model to rebuild and restore the place after it was burned down is quite amazing

I've spent more than the past decade describing what i want in gaming, basically saying "you know what they do with GTA or Assassin's Creed? I want more of that." Like my favorite thing in video games is having a detailed, real, or realistic world to explore. I imagine the same is true of many people who love exploration but don't have the money (or willingness to put up with airports' BS) to travel.

I still remember how surreal it was when I played True Crime Streets of LA as a kid and suddenly realized I knew where I was in the city, which made me go investigate landmarks I could drive to through memory of the real world. The experience really reminded me I was in a video game because my knowledge of the real locations was constantly confronting the compromises being made to represent those locations in an early 2000s open world video game. It is weird how in retrospect, I didn't experience that dissonance when I played GTA San Andreas which heavily invokes LA, but since it is still ultimately a fictional location and to feel like LA, I didn't think about it as much.

Watch dogs 2 is probably my all time favorite real world game setting.

Kinda surprised and a shame the Yakuza/Like a Dragon games weren't in this list. They are infamously known for their accurate representation of the actual real world places/town let alone the time period of the setting the game takes place on i.e Kamurochō/Kabukichō from Tokyo,Dōtonbori/Sotembori from Osaka,Yokohama, Onomichi,Kyoto etc. Each and Every shop,bar and restaurants you come across were actual real places with one of the most popular one being the super store,Don Quijote..RGG really did their homework when it comes accuracy and playing the games really worked well as a tourist attraction

No mentioning of The Getaway and the sequel The Getaway Black Monday? They scanned the enitre London City Center 1 to 1 back in the early 2000s, making it one of the most expensive games back then. Plus the real life Cars and even Stores made the game absolutely immmersive. If you ever make a second video with real life places, you should definetely include those games.

Watch Dogs 2 is such a underrated masterpiece

The Division 2's rendition of DC is amazing! One of my earliest memories of dating my husband is our visit to the Air & Space Museum and the first time I did the mission in that location I was quite overcome with nostalgia. Sadly my daughter's current apartment was only one block outside the Div 2 map. I soooo wanted to send her a photo postcard of 'me' standing outside her building!

Surprised that the Horizon games didn't get included. It's impressive how easy it is to recognize landmarks in them. And Vegas in HFW is just incredible.

Test Drive Unlimited 1 and 2 should have been given a spotlight as they take place in Oahu and Ibiza. Both locations are fairly detailed, while also being the size of their real life counterparts.

I work in central London and Watch Dogs: Legion is so accurate to even the small side streets that I could direct my way around without using the map. Not the best game but so impressive

Thank you for including LA Noire, I loved that game, the city realism and facial capture was amazing back then. Also, it was just in the intro, but the New York public library was rendered very realistically in Dead to Rights in 2002. I think the city itself was pretty realistic too in Dead to Rights & Retribution.

Just to add on to the AC Unity. The Notre-Dame Cathedral was so exact in the game that after the devastating fire, they used the 3D game model to help rebuild the Cathedral. Such an awesome story of the good video games can do for the world.

My favourite video game franchise is assassin's creed and one of the reasons for that is simply because of the fantasy of exploring the almost authentic old/historical settings. I guess that's almost all ubisoft open world games which are also some of my favourite games of all time. Great video btw👍

As someone who can’t really go out into the world with how expensive that is. At least video games, movies, and shows have my back 😂 I get a taste. Even if it is a little bit. Of what it’s like to be out of America. And I’m thankful for it! Seriously, from games like Assassins Creed, Persona, and even the Yakuza games. I really appreciate the level of detail some of these devs do. It’s so cool!

Unity is so immersive, Ubisoft is insanely good at that with Assassins Creeds, Watch Dogs, The Division etc..

The rolling hills in Kingdom Come: Deliverance are like nothing we've ever really seen before and when it rains while riding your horse across these fields they almost look photorealistic. Quite an achievement. These devs seem to be the only ones who've ever got this right.

The True Crime games L.A. and New York were recreated almost accurately in those two games back on the PS2 and XBox, it was wild to see an almost accurate L.A. and New York in those games back then, It was well done with the hardware/software it was done with at the time.

I went to school in Manhattan for 4 years, exploring the city as well. So when Spiderman came out, I loved walking down the streets and avenues, looking for landmarks and places of been. Obviously not exact but I was surprised at how nearly accurate some things were.

As always, an extremely cool video guys, thanks for that. However, I missed a game that would have definitely fit on the main list. The Fallout 4 version of Boston includes some sights. Fenway Park aka Diamond City in particular is quite detailed. ✌

Damn Falcon lol, you forgot to add for AC Unity that Notre Dame was so accurately recreated that the companies doing the reconstruction to Notre Dame IRL are actually using Unity as a big reference due to the near-perfect accuracy

Kingdom Come: Deliverance and L.A. Noire are two of my favorite games, primarily because of the crazy amount of immersion. If you're familiar with the area and know where some of the old landmarks are, you can even drive by landmark, as most local Angelinos do. Especially in Hollywood. The First National Bank is right where it should be at Hollywood and Highland, the Brown Derby's just south of Hollywood on Vine, Graumann's Chinese is there on Hollywood, as is the Egyptian, Musso & Frank Grill and the Roosevelt Hotel; The Mocambo Club is on Sunset... I used to drive by that big church at the corner of Highland and Franklin on my way to work every day. I've found a few places that weren't included, but kind of rare; they did their homework.

This list needs a Part 2, please. There's numerous comments with valid mentions of other games including, but not limited to, Yakuza series, Euro truck simulator 2, American Truck Simulator, Test Drive Unlimited, The Getaway. The list can go on.

I cannot explain just how much I would love to see a follow up to L.A. Noire. With today's advancements in game technology it could be an amazing achievement. The game doesn't even have to be a direct sequel or called L.A. Noire 2. Just take any other big city of that time (Chicago Noire, Miami Noire, NYC Noire) and go all in on something that could be a total classic in the making.

It honestly drives me nuts that we don't get more games these days that seek to recreate, in as much detail as possible, parts of our world. I think there's a huge appetite for this kind of game. Like how big is that Truck sim game on steam vs how many people actually want to pretend to be a truck driver? I think most people are clearly interested in that game because it allows you to explore a lot of places.

This video is significantly cooler with 40% more real world pictures of the places that are referenced.

Another game like this would be the Yakuza series, while certain places aren't real, some of the parts of Kamarocho that you explore are actually real places you can go to!

The attention to detail in Kingdom Come Deliverance is amazing.

Shout out to The Getaway series. Had come out a few years before I moved to London and I used it to get my bearings around central London

Fun fact, Ubisoft actually helped rebuild the Church of Notre dame when it was burnt down. They provided the authorities with all the data they collected to recreate the church in the game which was used to recreate it IRL. Life imitating Art, Imitating Life.

As someone who used to spend summers in Venice Beach with his aunt I can still remember the feeling of playing Tony Hawk 2 and getting to the Venice Beach Graffiti Pit level and screaming "I skate there at the top of my lungs"

I've seen a post about a school group that got lost while touring a city in Italy, and one if the boys led them through the back streets to the church they got lost trying to get to. When the teacher asked if the boy had been to Italy before, the boy said no, he knew where to go from playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. Some games are crazy accurate with their locations And them there's games like Minecraft, where players can build replicas of cities that are scarily accurate given the materials available, but that's a topic for another video :)

I love Infamous Second Son's depiction of Seattle. Thank you Falcon and GR Community❤!

As someone who lives in New York, Spider Man 3 was way more accurate than the new Spider Man 2. In the old SM3 game I was able to find where all of my houses have been, where as in the new SM2 none of those places exist in the game. SM3 went the extra mile.

You guys are amazing truly. Bringing fresh content daily, making my dinner perfect🤌🏼

How did you miss out on 'The Getaway' series which perfectly recreated the WHOLE of London?!

I remember getting the first Watchdogs because I lived in Chicago at the time. Downtown was well done, while surrounding neighborhoods were abridged, to put it mildly. Expected it to be though :p

at this point, I'm conviced Gameranx makes these top 10 videos as an excuse to get to talk about Kingdom Come more often. haha

thanks falcon//. your voice is like a therapy for me .. i sleep to u taalking about random gaming stuff.. i love it.... gameranx is fun! its all i need '

As a citizen of Detroit, i can confirm RoboCop Rogue City is about 79% like Detroit irl.

The ghostwire entry makes me appreciate persona 5 more lol didn't realize how well they made Shibuya in it

Denver deserves a game! The weather simulations would be ground breaking! If you know, you know

Watch Dogs 2's San Francisco and Spider man's Manhattan are not the exact reproduction but a shrunk down version. However there is a video game franchise which you didn't even mentioned: True Crime. They were reproducing the exact Manhattan in the second game and big part of the real L.A in their first game

Division 2's Lower Manhattan from the Warlords of NY DLC is also INSANE too. One of my good friends was a tour guide from BigBus and he loved being able to recognize actual landmarks he would be able to point out in-game. It was to the point where we discussed putting together an in-game tour of Lower Manhattan interspersed with real-life videos and discussions from actual tour guides. Unfortunately, due to family health issues, he had to move out to Missouri before we could sit down and really turn that from a concept to a product. :\

Here you go people: 0:17 - Dead Island 2 (Los Angeles) 1:59 - Assassin's Creed Unity (Paris) 3:55 - Watch_Dogs 2 (San Francisco) 5:18 - Kingdom Come Deliverance (Sázava?) 6:46 - Marvel's Spider-Man (New York City) 8:38 - The Last of Us Part II (Seattle) 10:07 - Ghostwire Tokyo (Shibuya) 11:46 - L.A. Noire 13:28 - The Division 2 14:58 - Flight Simulator 2020

8:42 imagine doing all that work just for gameranx to say there's something wrong with you 😂

I was very surprised to see lots of Colorado landmarks and a version of Denver in Horizon Zero Dawn

I was hoping Crysis 2 would make this list. Not only were the buildings there, it was also geographically accurate to a large extent which made it the first game I already mostly knew my way around the first time I played it.

Cleveland looks a lot like a Fallout game. Does that count?

One you missed is The Saboteur by Pandemic Studios (a very good forgotten game from 2009). It takes place in World War II Paris and is crazy accurate geographically.

Another Gameranx banger, thanks Falcon!!

The very reason why I'm into gaming is virtual tourism. I love exploring places of the world that I may not have chance to visit in my lifetime.

Flight Simulator is something else. I live in a pretty rural area and I even managed to find my house. That's insanely impressive

I personally love exploring DC in The Division 2. It needed more people on the streets aside from the patrols and gang on gang fights. Having regular people surviving on their own, our character could supply goods and even a side quest with a unique reward. It would have given me better experience but other than that, I still enjoy enjoy playing Division 2 and experiencing its cool looking world.

Woah, prolly one of my fav recent videos from y’all, well done 👏

Fun fact In the real world you can also visit real world places

I remember having to drive through West Virginia with my girlfriend and passing by the iconic Capitol building there. She's a massive fan of Fallout 76 and she was shocked at seeing a place she had been to virtually many times and felt a bit of unease seeing the downtown locations in person, before the apocalypse.

I love it when developers recreat real-world locations in video games! I love the realism, and as someone who can't travel super easy, it's nice to be able to explore the real world.

Horizon Zero Dawn uses Denver as a setting. Red Rocks Amphitheater and Mile High stadium are both major locations in the game.

Metal gear solid master collection is a world where you can explore places like enemy's. It's a great game.

Hello, Falcon!!

FINALLY some love for Ghostwire. Having been to Tokyo more times than visiting my own hometown (literally), the area around Shibuya is indeed a 1:1 representation. I went to Tokyo just after finishing the game, and walking the same way I did in real life vs the game, it is absolutely spot on, even in measurement. The street furniture, general signage, and down to the convenience stores are all very well done. There are also lots of cultural references that any western gamer can learn just be playing the game and exploring its open world.

It’s unfortunate Dead Island 2 developers couldn’t secure the licensing to have “Toe Rings” in Venice Beach.

I love it, You guys are so inspiring! Great Idea with this one, playing Assassins Creed Odyssey made me want to visit Greece! I had no idea there were so many islands!

i am surprised HITMAN triology didnt make it to the list. 😅😅 I mean they have literally covered every part of the world and that to with extreme details.

In TLOU2 the first time I went through the arcade/bar/restaurant, whatever the hell the place is supposed to be (Envision a Dave and Buster's, I guess), I took my time and looked around at everything and was blown away by the detail. I couldn't help but think, "I wish a place like this really existed in our city." Not sure if it's modeled after a real business, but if it is then that place must be jumpin' with people all the time. Multiple bars, a sit down restaurant area, an adults only lounge area for sports games and shit on the TV, multiple game/arcade areas and even prizes available, and a separate area for PC gaming, maybe to host local e-sport competitions. It's crazy.

Fun fact - The team in charge of rebuilding Notre Dame Cathedral after the fire used AC Unity as a kind of 3d blueprint. The game is apparently perfect down to the smallest brick and it allowed them to get to places and see details they wouldn't otherwise have been able see.

If you brought up Flight Simulator I would like to give an honorable mention to Euro (And probably American) Truck Simulator. While the roads in each city are quite limited you do get recognizable landmarks everywhere. My home town has buildings I have seen in real life before and I recognize cities I have visited while travelling IRL. Not to mention they have added photo op locations for extra awesome landmarks, think Hagia Sofia or Berlin TV Tower. Absolutely amazing (and educational!) to hop behind the wheel and discover Europe.

Appreciate the work you do Falcon! ❤️❤️❤️ Though, I'm surprised how Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West is not included considering you explore remnants of the old worlds, including Los Angeles and Las Vegas. But good work all the same.

I love the Hong Kong vibes in Sleeping Dogs. Not a recreation per se, but nailed the feeling imo.

Great video. Hopefully there will be a second installment that covers some of the other games that are popping up in the comments.

I'm sure i heard somewhere that after the Notra Dame fire, architects actually consulted Ubisoft regarding using their representation of it to help with repairs.

I was really impressed by Ghostwire Tokyo. Just walking down the streets and backalleys in this game is so much fun, since I'm a fan of japan. ^^ Have to install this game again and finish it again. :D The first time I was that impressed by an open world of a game was with AC Syndicate. ^_^

A fishing game around my areabased loosely on my life would be a top hit. Mechanics are: 1. Minivan vehicle with a roof mounted kayak in a national park 2. Perhaps limited fuel 3. Selling fish for money that are hard to find in the first place 4. Unkillable bears that might bother you 5. Bushcraft survival mechanics such 6. Hunger

The Get Away for the PS2 was crazy good back in the day. I played it with my uncle when it first came out and we found his place of work just by following the streets he memorised working in the city

Thanks for the consistently great content, makes my day

Im so glad that you put LA noire and watch dogs 2 here ! Nice video❤

The details in the TLOU universe are insane. I remember there was a creator who visited most of the main locations for a video to do a side by side recreating aone of the scenes 😂 it genuinely feels like thats what Seattle would become in an apocalypse. Great watch as always 👊🏿

Eyyy! Another great video 🤘

Watch Dogs 2 was the main reason I wanted to visit San Francisco, and when I was there I mostly listened to the game's soundtrack and radio playlist while roaming. It was incredibly fun

I wouldn't mind if they released Ghost wire Tokyo as a standalone walking simulator. It just looks so good

Also Far Cry 6. The capital of Yara does an amazing job of recreating Havana. Especially with how much harder and/or difficult it is to film/extract data from Cuba. First time I played it, I showed it to my dad and he actually recognized a few spots

LA Noire desperately needs a sequel. I’d love one set maybe in 70s LA. It was a great concept and deserves to be revisited.

Im suprised racing games with real world track locations arent given a mention here. Some of the details you see at tracks like Monaco and the Nurburgring Nordschleife are the best you can see in a game.

I lived in Seattle for 20 years...and now I have to play "The Last of Us 2". Thank you _so_ much. 😋

I’ve spent many real time hours in Ghostwire Tokyo just admiring the beauty of the landscape, the attention to detail is incredible

One of the first game that I remember being accurate was Getway on the PlayStation 2 which was around central London including the central park, Piccadilly and surrounding areas

assassins creed unity and syndicate will forever remain the masterpieces that never got love.

A game that also made a huge impression on me when it comes to the virtual transformation of the city is Midnight Club LA. I know it's also Rockstar and in GTA V we had a great virtual LA, but in the Midnight Club there were also real restaurants, cinemas, shops, which gave an amazing feeling of being in this city. Considering it's a racing game, I'm even more impressed with how well this city was captured

Notre-Dame in Unity was apparently so accurate that the game was used to aid in the reconstruction of the cathedral after the fire.

Its amazing how amazing Ubisoft makes it real worlds from Chicago/San Fran in WD1&2 , New York and Washington in Division 1&2, England/Greece/Egypt/Baghdad/Paris in Ac games Hawai in Crew 3 , Amazing