The Most Iconic Fictional Cities in Video Games

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Ignacio Weil

Gaming - November 10th 2025, 18:30 GMT+1

Cropped baldurs gate 3 city — Baldur’s Gate – Baldur’s Gate 3

Strolling into the sprawling world of this game, you quickly realise that the iconic city of Baldur’s Gate itself gets a little overshadowed by the sheer scale of everything else – yet it remains the emotional anchor. The neon-light-free streets, cobbled lanes and magic-infused docks offer a bucolic contrast to every crisis you’ll inevitably face. You’ll wander through market squares, taverns, shadow-ridden alleys, and feel the weight of decisions echo off the stone walls. It’s the sort of place where “fast travel” feels like a misnomer because the city’s character invites you to linger. If your party bugs or war trolls show up at your doorstep, their relocation suddenly matters to you. And yes – when someone says “Baldur’s Gate”, you might picture the gate itself, but the lived-in city beyond it tells the real story. | © Larian Studios

Cropped Night City Cyberpunk 2077 — Night City – Cyberpunk 2077

If you thought your own city was hectic, wait until you jump into Night City – where every neon sign, hologram and body mod is screaming for attention. The game world builds its own personality: ultra-skyscrapers with deep shadows, street vendors selling more than hot dogs, and alleyways that double as philosophical reflection zones (ironically). You feel like you’re part of a living ecosystem – gangs, corporate overlords, busted AI, street runners, the works. It’s not just a backdrop: Night City is hungry, it wants your time, your decisions, your loot. One moment you’re cruising through traffic, the next you’re pondering the value of your own humanity next to a rain-slicked freeway. And you know you’re messing around here – still, you kinda love it. | © CD PROJEKT RED

Novigrad The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt — Novigrad – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Welcome to Novigrad: a medieval-fantasy metropolis that somehow crawls with enough life, markets and secrets to fill ten smaller games. You enter via docks, stroll past red-tiled roofs, taverns filled with banter and bar-brawls, and you might still look up to admire soaring cathedrals. Geralt of Rivia might be on a monster-slaying contract, but the city invites you to twist the plot: side quests, moral tangles, bribes, drunken nobles, and enough moral grey to scare a palette. You’ll ride through it, stumble in its alleyways, fall for its architecture, then face the ugliness hidden in the shadows. For an open world, Novigrad doesn’t feel like filler – it feels like a place worth staying in. | © CD PROJEKT RED

Yharnam Bloodborne — Yharnam – Bloodborne

Don’t expect cheerful sunshine and friendly NPCs in Yharnam. This city leans so far into gothic horror it wears cobwebs just for style. You arrive as a Hunter and the city greets you with chiming church bells, faint whisperings of beasts in the night, and architecture that seems to implore you to run. There are layers: Old Yharnam, Cathedral Ward, Upper echelons – each throne of dread in its own right. But behind all the terrifying facades lies a compelling atmosphere; you're not simply slaughtering beasts, you’re navigating desperation, dogma and ancient secrets. Yharnam *looks* like a playground for the brave (or foolish), but really it’s more like a puzzle box built from nightmares. | © Sony Computer Entertainment / SCE Japan Studio

Los Santos Grand Theft Auto V — Los Santos – Grand Theft Auto V

Imagine Los Angeles gone rogue, inflated, turned up to eleven – welcome to Los Santos, and by extension, the sandbox of chaos that is this game. Palm-lined boulevards, sprawling suburbs, sun-soaked beaches, and somewhere in there you’re stealing cars, evading cops, juggling three protagonists and feeling the weight of every poor life choice you make. The city breathes: traffic jams, tourist selfies, homeless encampments, and high-rise mansions – all with the potential to become your playground or your prison. You don’t just visit Los Santos; you *live* it, for better or worse, and you leave with stories of bank heists, highway chases and the kind of regret only a ridiculously open sandbox can provide. | © Rockstar North / Rockstar Games

Cropped Dunwall Dishonored — Dunwall – Dishonored

You can practically *smell* the plague in Dunwall – a city so gorgeously miserable it could make Charles Dickens blush. Industrial grime meets aristocratic cruelty, and somehow, you’re the masked wildcard sneaking through it all. It’s part Victorian London, part dystopian fever dream, where whale oil fuels both the city’s lights and its corruption. Every corner whispers secrets, from collapsing tenements to lavish manors dripping with hypocrisy. You’ll blink (literally) across rooftops, stalk guards through shadowy alleys, and maybe – just maybe – spare a few souls in between assassinations. Dunwall doesn’t just host your story; it breathes and decays right alongside it. | © Arkane Studios / Bethesda Softworks

Whiterun Skyrim — Whiterun – Skyrim

Ah, Whiterun – that first city every Dragonborn swears they’ll just “visit quickly” before getting lost in side quests for ten hours. It’s the beating heart of Skyrim, perched proudly beneath Dragonsreach and teeming with merchants, guards, and the occasional drunk Nord yelling about Talos. It’s the kind of place where you can buy a sword, join a brawl, get a bounty, and accidentally adopt a child all before sundown. Whiterun feels cozy yet epic, a safe haven between mountain adventures and dragon ambushes. And yes, even after a thousand hours, you’ll still hum along to its theme while crafting too many iron daggers. | © Bethesda Game Studios

Cropped imagen 2025 11 05 121311187 — Gotham – Batman: Arkham City

Dark, deranged, and utterly magnetic, Gotham’s soul lingers even when the story takes place inside the infamous Arkham Asylum. It’s the city that made the Bat – a gothic sprawl of gargoyles, neon grime, and alleyways that have seen too much. Inside Arkham, the line between city and psyche blurs; every corridor feels like a reflection of Gotham’s madness. You don’t just fight criminals here – you’re knee-deep in the living embodiment of corruption and chaos. Even as you glide through the shadows, it’s impossible not to feel the city’s pulse beyond the asylum’s walls, waiting to pull you back into its beautiful nightmare. | © Rocksteady Studios / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Cropped New Vegas Fallout New Vegas — New Vegas – Fallout: New Vegas

This isn’t the Las Vegas you know – it’s the Vegas that survived nuclear annihilation and somehow still found time for showgirls, robots, and power struggles. The Strip glows like a radioactive mirage, surrounded by wasteland factions and moral ambiguity thicker than NCR bureaucracy. You gamble, you scheme, you get shot at by a robot cowboy – it’s all part of the charm. Beneath the neon lights, every choice reshapes the Mojave, and the stakes (pun intended) couldn’t be higher. New Vegas is a strange, seductive reminder that humanity will always find a way to rebuild… and rig the tables. | © Obsidian Entertainment / Bethesda Softworks

The Citadel Mass Effect — The Citadel – Mass Effect

The Citadel is what happens when sci-fi utopia meets intergalactic bureaucracy – a sprawling hub of alien diplomacy, secret plots, and too many elevators. Its polished halls and dizzying scale make you feel like a tiny cog in a massive cosmic machine, but it’s also strangely welcoming. You might stop by to file a report with the Council and somehow end up saving the galaxy… again. Between the gleaming wards, neon clubs, and overheard arguments between turians and salarians, it’s the closest thing to a living galaxy capital. The Citadel reminds you that even in space, the universe runs on politics, gossip, and side quests. | © BioWare / Electronic Arts

Rapture Bio Shock — Rapture – BioShock

Descending into Rapture feels like diving straight into the deep end of human ambition – and watching it drown beautifully. The city is a submerged Art Deco wonderland, built on the dream of absolute freedom and crumbling under the weight of its own ideals. Lights flicker through cracked glass tunnels, splicers mutter lullabies in the dark, and Andrew Ryan’s voice echoes like a ghostly sermon. It’s equal parts haunting and hypnotic, a cautionary tale dressed in style. Every corner of Rapture reminds you that even paradise needs maintenance – and maybe a few less plasmids. | © 2K Boston / Irrational Games

City 17 Half Life 2 — City 17 – Half-Life 2

City 17 doesn’t need to tell you it’s oppressive – it just lets you *feel* it. The Combine’s cold architecture, the drones hovering overhead, the sterile propaganda blaring from screens – it’s dystopia perfected through design. There’s something chilling about how ordinary it all looks, like tyranny became a public service. You slip through resistance hideouts, watch citizens shuffle in silence, and start realizing how fragile rebellion feels under alien rule. City 17 isn’t flashy, it’s quietly terrifying, and that makes it unforgettable. It’s the kind of place you escape once… but never quite leave behind. | © Valve Corporation

Silent Hill town — Silent Hill – Silent Hill

Welcome to the fog. It’s not just weather – it’s a mood, a curse, and a masterclass in psychological horror. Silent Hill takes the mundane and twists it into something profoundly unsettling: familiar streets warped by trauma, reality peeling away like damp wallpaper. The siren wails, the world shifts, and suddenly, nothing is safe – not even your own mind. It’s the rare fictional town that feels alive precisely because it’s so dead. And yet, players keep coming back, flashlight trembling, heart pounding, hoping for answers that never really come. | © Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo

Midgar Final Fantasy VII — Midgar – Final Fantasy VII

If cities had personalities, Midgar would be a chain-smoking industrialist with a god complex. Towering reactors suck the planet dry while neon slums simmer beneath them, forming one of gaming’s most iconic class divides. It’s both awe-inspiring and grotesque, a monument to progress at any cost. You explore its stacked sectors, chase eco-terrorists, and question who’s really saving the world. Midgar feels timeless – a city that predicted our modern anxieties long before the remakes and reboots. It’s gritty, grand, and impossible to forget once you’ve seen its skyline. | © Square Enix

Cropped Raccoon City Resident Evil — Raccoon City – Resident Evil

Raccoon City is the definition of a nice place gone horribly wrong – a cheerful Midwestern town turned zombie buffet. At first glance, it looks like a postcard suburbia; then you notice the blood trails, the broken windows, the polite moans coming from around the corner. It’s a city built for catastrophe, its police stations and hospitals now survival arenas. Every alley feels like a coin flip between safety and horror. What makes Raccoon City iconic isn’t just the outbreak – it’s the creeping sense that this could happen anywhere. | © Capcom

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Every gamer has that one city they never quite left behind – whether it’s the neon chaos of Night City, the gothic despair of Yharnam, or the questionable “hospitality” of Raccoon City. These digital metropolises aren’t just backdrops; they’re living, breathing characters that shape the stories we play through (and occasionally rage-quit from).

In this list, we’re taking a joyful stroll – or desperate sprint – through the most iconic cities ever rendered in pixels and polygons. Some sparkle with promise, others drip with danger, and a few make you question why you ever set foot there in the first place. Grab your fast travel pass – we’re going on a tour through gaming’s most unforgettable cityscapes.