Video game cities that seem like a absolute nightmare to live in

[Ventrue]

Carcer City, a city so corrupt that a Hollywood director can bribe the police to look the other way while a fat deranged guy in a hollowed pigs head with a chainsaw and packs of roaming gangs high on drugs can walk at night looking to kill for a snuff film.

 

[Tablet County]

Neverwinter and Baldur's Gate seem like they'd kinda suck seeing as bad shit keeps happening there. And don't even get me started on Sigil.

 

[SIMIΔN]

There's a game called Spec Ops: The Line where you're fighting through an abandoned Dubai, evacuated because it was being pounded by intense sandstorms. It's a pretty great environment, a big modern city overwhelmed by sand

It's a fun game. A pretty basic shooter, but it has a cool Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now kind of story and is also remembered for an infamous scene involving white phosporous

There was a game called Spec Ops: The Line. Unfortunately it's no longer purchasable due to expired music rights. I think you can still reinstall it, if you already have it on steam but I'm not certain.
Great game, horrid place to live

Neverwinter and Baldur's Gate seem like they'd kinda suck seeing as bad shit keeps happening there. And don't even get me started on Sigil.

Neverwinter and the city of Baldur's Gate only seem bad because the games only cover times of crisis. Most of the time the city is safe and stable, with honest guardmen and leadership. Even the Thieves Guild hates violence.
Life seems pretty decent by both modern and medieval standards; You can learn and benefit from magic, good gods offer you a good afterlife and miraclous medical treatment. Taking Wyll's dad from BG3 as example, social mobility is great if you are talented, going from merc to co-ruler.

 

[Almighty Space Duck]

Stratholme
Also the city Crazy Taxi takes place in just because crossing the road may be the last thing you ever do.

 

[el bandito loco]

that village in the first Diablo would suck, Raccoon City would suck because you'd get nuked after a Zombie invasion, Most towns in the original Pokemon would suck there's dangerous mutant freak animals everywhere and kids running around making them fight with their super powers, everyone is either old as fuck or a teenager, and there's always like 3 houses and no fuckin beds and way more people than could fit in them. most dragon quest towns/cities would suck, weird shit happens like people get turned into dogs or stone, demons are always attacking, the Kings are always barely functional retards or possessed by a monster, adventurers come in your house and go through your drawers/cabinets and break your vases or pots at all times of the day or night.

actually I think the only safe bet for a video game location that might be okay to live in would be from licenced kids games based on cartoons that seem like relatively pleasant places. that or boring ass generic opening areas where you just run around to learn controls and leave for your quest after talking to someone and setting off. The problem is a lot of games take place in cities that are essentially the same as real world places, just worse to facilitate story and gameplay. and if it's not that even if it seems fine, for the same reasons the place will be overly dangerous because you could get killed by random bats flying through town at night, neighborhood dogs going crazy, super strong birds who fly way too low. A normal person wouldn't survive without staying extremely lucky anywhere outside of a harvest moon town

 

[Pedophobe]

Any of the cities in Deus Ex?

They somehow made NYC seem like a nicer place to live than Paris or Hong Kong.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

Lut Gholein sounds like a hellhole even without Diablo messing things up. According to the townsfolk only the risen dead are a new occurrence. which means the lightning-spewing mutant beetles, fucked up vultures, giant man-eating maggots, many-eyed dog-things and feral human-cat hybrids are part and parcel of living in the desert.

 

[Mojo Thief]

For all its faults, Cyberpunk 2077 does a great job making you truly feel just how miserable a place Night City really is. There's so much violence you could reasonably expect to either get shot or see someone get shot on a daily basis, all of the food is disgusting lab-grown soyslop, clean water costs most of your meager salary, most of the population are illiterate morons, and the only way you can make a living without landing a cushy job at a megacorp is to turn to crime.

Basically modern California with a lot more neon.

 

[JesusChristDenton]

City 17.

I've heard it's safer there.

 

[Mr Snrub]

Dunwall from Dishonored. A victorian steampunk shithole full of rats and plague.

Solid game though.

 

[Sexy Senior Citizen]

Yharnam, from Bloodborne. A city of blood-mad citizens ruled by an iron-fisted theocracy and overrun by werewolves, vampires, and worse things.

Fear the old blood, Kiwis.

 

[Inside your walls]

Prehevil from Fear and Hunger 2: Termina. It's a Silent Hill town ramped up on steroids featuring Old God-like figures from Lovecraft's books.

You got:
>Old God figure isolating the town and forcing the people
stuck there to fight each to death, if they refuse to participate,
the God transforms them into a fucked up reflection of themselves.

>Streets are full of enemy military, unhinged worshippers of other old Gods
and homicidal residents that already suffered the mutations.

>Even authority-figures like the Church in the town is ran by a corrupt Old God worshipping
group that conducts experiments on orphans.

>Generally supernatural fuckery

>Eastern Europe

 

[Cougar Pump]

They somehow made NYC seem like a nicer place to live than Paris or Hong Kong.

True. Hong Kong did get the most banging music though

 

[Asian tech support]

Meta opinion: video game cities that aren't hellscapes/shitholes in some way aren't interesting or good, but conversely, not every hellscape or shithole video game city is a good city (obviously).

New Atlantis is a hellscape that might be clean and livable if you're a sanpaku-eyed mystery meat, but is a horrible city.

Novigrad is a shithole where you'd wind up dead in a ditch, but is an excellent city.

 

[Book Thief]

Paradise from Postal 2. You've got rampant crime, violent protesters, terrorists, creepy rednecks, cannibalistic butchers, rabid dogs, and eventually, the place gets overrun with zombies that swear, gets nuked, and turns into a Mad Max-esque post-apocalyptic universe where weather is so chaotic that it changes depending on what block you're on.

Oh, and to top it off, you've got a random asshole who may or may not kill you or piss on you on a whim.

 

[Flatline]

Harran from Dyling Light. A city overrun with zombies and parkour-loving freaks.

 

[eatler]

True. Hong Kong did get the most banging music though

Yeah this had to be the coolest song for Hong Kong.

 

[Peasant]

The city of Glass from Mirror's Edge. It's a dystopian hellhole and the game does an excellent job of making you feel claustrophobic as you traverse the levels between the skyscrapers. Some cities might already be like it in this world...

As it turns out, this is a wildly optimistic depiction of a totalitarian panopticon city because the streets aren't covered in shit and there isn't a robbery every 5 seconds.

As for my contribution to the thread, the quality of life in Fallout seems to vary widely depending on which game you're looking at. If you're a tribal, then things aren't too bad unless you happen to run into a mutated abomination while taking a piss. But if you're one of those people who tries to make it in the city, then apparently you're subject to some unseen HOA who mandates that you're never allowed to clean up the centuries old garbage and rubble littering your property. Maybe you could argue that you're trying not to look too affluent so you'll be less attractive to raiders, but it's not like they need any incentive to come murderfuck your whole family. Fallout characters are the laziest people ever conceived.

Plenty of people have harped on this point, but the worst example in the franchise is probably Diamond City. For 157 years, a group of people has been squatting in a baseball stadium with no attempts to expand. For comparison, the first American British colony of Jamestown was established in 1607 in what is now modern-day Virginia. 157 years later in 1764, All thirteen original colonies were well established and America would be declaring independence in a little over a decade.

 

[Abbadon's Gate]

For all its faults, Cyberpunk 2077 does a great job making you truly feel just how miserable a place Night City really is. There's so much violence you could reasonably expect to either get shot or see someone get shot on a daily basis, all of the food is disgusting lab-grown soyslop, clean water costs most of your meager salary, most of the population are illiterate morons, and the only way you can make a living without landing a cushy job at a megacorp is to turn to crime.

Basically modern California with a lot more neon.

That's even turning aside the fact that everyone has become so numb to all the violence that they literally have a daily body count lottery where people try to guess the number of murder victims for cash.

That and all the "legends" of Night City are people who operated outside of the law and died doing whatever they were doing.

 

[thhrang]

City 17 from the Half-Life 2 beta, which has a distinct atmosphere from the retail version. This one is even more dystopian.