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StaceyPowers

What makes a video game location feel “real”?

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Well, when developers put in real life locations, it helps make it feel more realistic. Most games make up their own locations, but they are inspired by real life locations. If I ever were to make a game, I think I'd utilize my hometown as a location, just because I think it'd be cool to do. 

There are games that have real life locations, like L.A. Noire, Watch Dogs 1 and 2 I believe, and a few others. Games like GTA will be inspired by locations. Liberty City is New York, Vice City is Miami Florida and San Andreas is meant to be California. A lot of the locations in GTA titles mimic what real life locations in said areas look like. 

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It really depends on the mindset of the level designer. Most build their levels to accommodate the gameplay, and thus the locations feel artificial and tailored. The tomb raider games suffer from this greatly.

What they should do is either base it on real world locations or at least real world requirements. For example if you want to build an office complex in a game, see if the same design would work in reality, if not, throw it out and start again, or better yet  forget that you are working on a videogame, and act as if designing a real place.

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It's the extra details in things and AI that doesn't fall away as you leave or enter an area. It could be a simple crack in the street with grass coming out of it. The synchronization of sounds and villagers going about their business instead of standing there waiting for god who knows what. It is the weather system, bugs/animals. Props that make it seem like someone was just there. Props can be as simple as litter laying around. With the right music, it can speak to you and give an emotional attachment to whatever vibe it wants to display. 

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One of the amazing features that makes me to settle in for a video game is when the location is very much realistic. And GTA series are simply that way, Assassins Creed series have good pathways (location). I simply love the game series due to their appalling location. 

Edited by Head_Hunter
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Depending on the real world which the game's world is trying to replicate would decide what's going to be in the game that's going to make it look real for me. Take for instance in Spiderman games, the replication of NYC in the game's city designs makes it look real enough for me. 

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Above anything else to make a location feel real it has to be lived in wheter it's by npc's, animals or whatever creature you want. Npc's have to go about their way and have their own agenda not just be there to give the player a hint or just to sell are your junk to. The city or place doesn't necessary have to based on a real life city or place for that matter, the original fable was one of the first games that i felt like this is a world where other people live in and are not here because of me. I feel like the yakuza games also give a sense of lived in world that is not rivaled to this day and probably why not name one of the best and most underrated open world games out there sleeping dogs as this is how you create an interesting world, i've been to hong kong myself and must say the whole sleeping dogs world made me feel like i'm actually a tourist in Hong Kong at times combined with asian music and atmosphere you have a videogame location that feels pretty darn close to the real thing.

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Since most popular video games are American-made, and since I don't live in America, no environment would ever feel real to me. lol New York City would always be a fantasy world to me since I don't plan to fly to America any time soon.

Besides, no locations in a game could ever be real enough for me anyway unless I could touch the grass and smell the polluted gas, something video games still couldn't achieve in 2022, unfortunately.

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20 hours ago, Empire said:

Easy going easy said this out of the box, MSFS2020 🙂 Look around in that simulator and feels damn realism and feels like you are there flying 🙂

That's very correct. The aircrafts in MSFS2020 are so real that you can hardly differentiate it from being a game to what you have in real life. They did a wonderful job with that!! 

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14 hours ago, Heatman said:

That's very correct. The aircrafts in MSFS2020 are so real that you can hardly differentiate it from being a game to what you have in real life. They did a wonderful job with that!! 

default aaircafts are good to look at however they are CRAP as I look at study level aircraft in msfs2020 - hance payware 😛 

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11 hours ago, killamch89 said:

If mimicking real locations in the world - landmarks and the overall layout of the city. Also, small stuff like some infamous graffiti on a small street and the mannerisms of the NPCs could provide that immersive feeling. Graphics also play a huge factor obviously.

They did that a lot in GTA 5 with multiple sighting of different real life locations throughout the game. They should be up to 15 or more if I remembered correctly. 

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