USD ($)
EUR (€)
Video games are great. They have the ability to transport us away to wonderful places and let us meet new people... I’m talking about video game characters, not actual people. Actual people are iffy at best. I’ve been playing games most of my life and have had some amazing adventures and seen some truly amazing places. But if some of those places were real, I’m not sure I’d want to actually go there. In real life, I don’t have superpowers, weapons, or cheat codes (that I know of), so I’d be in actual, very real danger. So, with that in mind, here are five fantastic video game locations you probably shouldn’t visit if they were real:
The Oldest House (Control)
Buildings are a pain in general. They’re big, they’re everywhere and, typically, they’re full of people. Well, the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) headquarters - The Oldest House - is worse than a normal building. For a start, the FBC studies Altered World Events (AWEs) and collects and studies Objects of Power from these AWEs. They do this all from the comfort of The Oldest House, which has unleashed several inexplicable doings. To make things worse, The Oldest House is an Object of Power itself. Its interior is far larger than its exterior and, if that wasn’t enough, it constantly shifts into supernatural realms that defy the laws of spacetime. You’d need more than a floorplan to find your way around.
Midgar (Final Fantasy VII)
The iconic starting city of Final Fantasy VII is a dystopian nightmare. It’s the headquarters of Shinra, which, on the surface, is an energy company. But it does a lot of sinister things, like exploiting the poor and sucking the life out of the planet. It’s basically what would happen to London if Boris Johnson and the Conservative party owned British Gas. Most people live in poverty in slums, while the super-rich live in luxury on plates suspended high above. The whole city is full of monsters, guards with guns are everywhere, and the general population are suppressed & lied to constantly by corporations. It looks cool, but I wouldn’t go there unless Cloud and the whole Avalanche crew were with me.
Gotham (Arkham Trilogy)
I’ve been to New York, it was lovely. Except for the crowds, traffic, noise, Americans, and prices that didn’t include tax. During my stay, New York was celebrating the longest length of time without a murder - 22 days. I was there for a weekend, in that time that “streak” was lost. Gotham is like that, but also has the added danger of supervillains. Yeah, it’s got Batman, but if you play Arkham City or Arkham Knight then you’ll know that Gotham goes through a lot before Batman saves the day. Frankly, the thought of walking down the street and randomly bumping into a Riddler trophy isn’t great. There are over 300 dotted around Arkham City, so the odds of activating one while heading to the shops are pretty high.
Raccoon City (Resident Evil II and Resident Evil Nemesis)
If you live in a city that has an old mansion on the outskirts, and people who go there disappear on the regular, then you should consider moving. Resident Evil showed us that these mansions all contain secret laboratories that create viruses. Yeah, you should move. In Resident Evil II and Resident Evil Nemesis, these viruses find their merry way into Raccoon City and ruin stuff for everyone. You could be bitten by a zombie, punched by Mr X, or blown up with a rocket launcher by Nemesis. I haven’t even mentioned giant spiders, insects, sewer monsters (including a giant alligator), lickers, hunters, or the special ops team from Umbrella Corps. And if you want to escape, you better have big pockets and be good at puzzles.
Rapture (Bioshock)
On paper, Rapture is great. The harder you work, the more rewarded you are. There are no limits to what you can do. The underwater city of Rapture starts off great. It looks beautiful, has a banging soundtrack and, in the DLC for Bioshock Infinite, you even get to sample it before the downfall. But it’s the “no rules” thing where it starts to get a bit squiffy. No rules quickly slips into no laws. People start going off the deep end and experimenting on people against their will. Eventually, everyone becomes addicted to a thing called “Adam” that grants users special abilities. They all start fighting. Everyone goes insane and they start killing each other. Suddenly, there are massive guys in deep-sea diving suits called “Big Daddies” who are essentially walking tanks, protecting little girls (called Little Sisters). They extract Adam from the dead and are hunted by the living. Everything ends up an Art Deco nightmare covered in 20 shades of crazy.
And That’s That
Want do you think of my list? What video game locations would definitely not be on your bucket list? Let us know on Zatu social media and I’ll see you next time. Take care.