Direct Recreation
Some games recreate real cities or landmarks with remarkable accuracy, allowing players to recognize familiar streets, buildings, and skylines.
Examples: Grand Theft Auto V, Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Real-World Game Locations
Step into the worlds of your favorite games. Explore the real-life inspirations behind iconic virtual landscapes.
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Game World Origins
From Real Places to Virtual Worlds
Every unforgettable game world begins with inspiration.
Behind bustling cities, ancient temples, rugged deserts, and mysterious forests are real places that helped shape the environments players explore. Some games faithfully recreate actual landmarks, while others blend architecture, geography, and local culture into entirely new worlds.
This collection helps you discover the real-world locations that inspired some of gaming's most iconic environments, revealing how reality becomes interactive storytelling.
How Real Places Shape Video Games
Unlike films, which capture existing locations through a camera lens, video games transform reality into playable worlds.
Developers often travel, photograph, scan, and research real locations before adapting them into virtual environments. Sometimes the recreation is remarkably faithful, while other times multiple destinations are combined into a single fictional setting.
These real-world inspirations give game worlds a stronger sense of authenticity, helping players feel connected to places they may never have visited in person.
Different Ways Games Use Real-World Locations
Not every game represents reality in the same way. Developers draw inspiration from real places in several different ways.
Regional Inspiration
Instead of copying a single location, developers combine landscapes, architecture, and culture from an entire region to create an original world.
Examples: Black Myth: Wukong, Ghost of Tsushima.
Fictional Worlds with Real Foundations
Many fictional settings borrow heavily from real geography while introducing new stories, histories, and civilizations.
Examples: Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Elden Ring.
Historical Reconstruction
Some games recreate historical locations based on archaeological research and historical records. These environments allow players to experience places that have changed dramatically over time.
Why Players Visit Real Game Locations
For many players, exploring the places behind a game creates a deeper connection with its world.
Standing where a virtual city was inspired, visiting an ancient temple that became a fantasy dungeon, or seeing the landscape that influenced an open-world adventure offers a new appreciation for the creativity behind game development.
Real-world exploration turns digital memories into tangible experiences.
United States
Grand Theft Auto V
Explore Los Santos in real life! Visit iconic locations in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and the Salton Sea area that inspired San Andreas.
Hollywood Sign & Griffith Observatory
Los Angeles, California
GTA V
Santa Monica Pier (Del Perro Pier)
Santa Monica, California
GTA V
Salton Sea (Alamo Sea)
Salton Sea, California
GTA V
United States
Fallout Series
Journey through the Wasteland. From the Mojave Desert of New Vegas to the Capital Wasteland of D.C. and The Commonwealth of Boston.
Las Vegas & Mojave Desert (New Vegas)
Las Vegas, Nevada
Fallout
Boston, Massachusetts (The Commonwealth)
Boston, Massachusetts
Fallout
Washington, D.C. (Capital Wasteland)
Washington, D.C.
Fallout
United States
The Last of Us Part I & II
Follow Joel and Ellie's journey across the post-apocalyptic United States. Visit real-world locations in Austin, Boston, Pittsburgh, Wyoming, and Seattle.
Jackson, Wyoming (Survivor Settlement)
Jackson, Wyoming
The Last of Us
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Hunter City)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The Last of Us
Boston, Massachusetts (Quarantine Zone)
Boston, Massachusetts
The Last of Us
China
Black Myth: Wukong
Journey to the ancient temples and grottoes of Shanxi Province, China that inspired the breathtaking world of Black Myth: Wukong.
Xiaoxitian Temple (Little Western Heaven)
Xixian County, Linfen, Shanxi, China
Black Myth: Wukong
Yuhuang Temple (Jade Emperor Temple)
Jincheng, Shanxi, China
Black Myth: Wukong
Yungang Grottoes (UNESCO)
Datong, Shanxi, China
Black Myth: Wukong
Hanging Temple (Xuankong Temple)
Hunyuan County, Datong, Shanxi, China
Black Myth: Wukong
Yingxian Wooden Pagoda
Yingxian County, Shuozhou, Shanxi, China
Black Myth: Wukong
Foguang Temple (Mount Wutai)
Mount Wutai, Xinzhou, Shanxi, China
Black Myth: Wukong
Chongfu Temple
Shuozhou, Shanxi, China
Black Myth: Wukong
Worldbuilding Starts with Reality
The most believable game worlds rarely appear out of nowhere.
Artists, environment designers, architects, historians, and cultural researchers often spend years studying real places before transforming them into interactive experiences.
A mountain range may inspire an entire kingdom. A single temple might become the centerpiece of an unforgettable quest. Even fictional cities often inherit the street layouts, architectural styles, and atmosphere of real-world destinations.
Understanding these inspirations reveals another layer of craftsmanship behind modern game development.
Explore Games Through Their Inspirations
Every location tells two stories.
The first belongs to the real world, its history, culture, architecture, and landscape.
The second belongs to the game, how developers reimagined those places through art direction, level design, and interactive storytelling.
By exploring both, you can experience video games from an entirely new perspective, discovering the creative process that transforms reality into unforgettable virtual worlds.
Why Do Game Developers Use Real-World Locations?
Creating an immersive game world requires more than imagination. Real places provide visual reference, cultural authenticity, and environmental detail that are difficult to invent from scratch.
Developers often study cities, historic landmarks, natural landscapes, and traditional architecture to understand how people move through spaces and how environments tell stories. Modern technologies such as photogrammetry, LiDAR scanning, drone photography, and high-resolution reference photography make it possible to capture real locations with extraordinary accuracy before adapting them for gameplay.
Even when a game is set in a fictional world, its environments often reflect real geography, architectural traditions, or cultural heritage. This blend of observation and creativity helps make virtual worlds feel believable while giving players a subtle connection to places that exist beyond the screen.
Inspiration vs Recreation
Not every game location is designed the same way.
Some developers aim for near-perfect recreations of real places, allowing players to recognize landmarks almost immediately. Others use reality as a starting point, blending multiple locations into an original world that feels familiar without directly copying any single destination.
Understanding this difference helps players appreciate the creative decisions behind environmental design and worldbuilding, while also setting realistic expectations when visiting the real-world locations that inspired their favorite games.