The best open-world games set in real cities

Plenty of open worlds invent their cities from scratch. The ones that stay with you are often the ones built on a real place: you recognise a skyline, a bridge, a street market, and suddenly the game feels like a trip. Here are our picks of open-world games set in real cities, or so closely modelled on one that locals point out their own street.

A note on “real”: none of these are maps. Every game squeezes, reshapes and invents. Distances shrink, districts move, and the people and businesses are fiction. What they capture is the feel of a place.

Hong Kong: Sleeping Dogs (2012)

You play Wei Shen, an undercover police officer sent into a triad in Hong Kong. The city is the star: neon street markets, cramped flats, harbour views and street races. Its development had a rocky start under another publisher before Square Enix took it on and renamed it. It is on PC and consoles; the Definitive Edition followed in 2014.

San Francisco Bay Area: Watch Dogs 2 (2016)

Ubisoft’s hacker sandbox takes you across San Francisco, Oakland, Marin County and Silicon Valley, in a map more than twice the size of the first game’s Chicago. It is bright, satirical and full of the Bay Area’s tech culture, from start-up offices to waterfront parks.

London: Watch Dogs: Legion (2020)

The sequel moved to a near-future London under heavy surveillance, with landmarks from Piccadilly Circus and Camden Market to Big Ben and the Tower of London. Its twist is that you recruit ordinary Londoners and play as them.

Victorian London: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (2015)

Same city, 150 years earlier. Syndicate is set in 1868, with twins Jacob and Evie Frye fighting through a city of steam trains, river traffic on the Thames and horse-drawn carriages, with a grappling hook for crossing the rooftops.

Revolutionary Paris: Assassin’s Creed Unity (2014)

Unity is set in Paris during the French Revolution, with crowds that fill the streets and landmarks such as Notre-Dame to climb. It had a famously buggy launch, but its Paris is still one of the most detailed historical cities in games.

New York: Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018)

Insomniac’s Marvel version of New York, centred on Manhattan, is built for swinging between skyscrapers. It began on PlayStation; the Remastered edition came to PC in August 2022. A fictional hero in a real skyline, and a very good way to see Midtown at speed.

Shibuya, Tokyo: Ghostwire: Tokyo (2022)

Tango Gameworks chose one district, Shibuya, rather than the whole city, and recreated it in rich detail: crossings, shrines, back alleys and rooftops, emptied of people by a supernatural event. It is on PC and PlayStation 5. Reviewers disagree on whether it is truly open world or a set of open areas that unlock as you go.

Kabukichō, Tokyo, in disguise: the Like a Dragon series

Sega’s long-running series is set mostly in Kamurochō, a fictional district modelled closely on Kabukichō, the real entertainment district in Shinjuku. The fit is close enough that fans visit the real streets to find the game’s landmarks. It is a smaller, denser kind of open world: a few blocks you come to know by heart.

The edge of Ajegunle, Lagos: AJ Cities

Our own game, so take this as a description rather than a ranking. AJ Cities is a free, 18+ open-world browser game set in an invented estate on the edge of Ajegunle, the Lagos neighbourhood nicknamed AJ City, near the ports of Apapa. The real neighbourhood is the setting; the estate, its streets and everyone in it are fiction, and the layout is original rather than taken from a map.

It is a small world, not a city: Abraham Adesyan Estate, June 12 Street, a club called Prizm, and the bush with its street football pitch. The sky follows the real Lagos sun, and in AJ’s story you play a man deported from London, trying to raise money to get past the gate police. It runs in a browser on a phone or a computer, with nothing to download. See every location on the places page.

How to choose

If you want to drive and explore, the Bay Area of Watch Dogs 2 and the Hong Kong of Sleeping Dogs are the most fun to cross. If you want history, the two Assassin’s Creed cities are walking tours with a sword. If you want density, a few streets you come to know like your own, try Kamurochō or the estate in AJ Cities. And if you just want to see a skyline from above, nothing beats swinging over Manhattan.

At a glance

Why so few in Africa?

Look at that list and one thing stands out: almost every big real-city open world is in North America, Europe or East Asia. African cities, among the biggest and liveliest on earth, are rarely the setting. That is part of why we built a Lagos one. If you want more, read Lagos in video games and open-world games set in Africa.

What open-world game is set in London?

Watch Dogs: Legion is set in a near-future London, and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate in Victorian London in 1868.

Which open-world game is set in Hong Kong?

Sleeping Dogs, from 2012, in which you play an undercover officer inside a triad.

Is there an open-world game set in Lagos?

AJ Cities is a free browser game set in an invented estate on the edge of Ajegunle, Lagos. The neighbourhood is real; the estate and its people are fictional.

Are these cities accurate maps?

No. Every game reshapes and shrinks its city. They capture the feel of a place, not its exact streets.