With the caveat that no video game city is ever a one-to-one recreation of its real world counterpart because of design and memory limitations, I've come up with the best cities to visit digitally while being stuck at home. I'm mostly sticking to open-world games so you can really walk around and explore the city the game is set in without doing too much actual game stuff (like, you can ignore the narrative and just walk/run/drive around).
LONDON
Watch_Dogs: Legion: This version of London is more explorable than any previous iteration, and it's also the most up-to-date. Plus, you can visit a bunch of pubs and that is a good time. Unfortunately, it's also full of fascist PMC soldiers and a bit too near future dystopia to have an entirely chill time.
Honorable Mentions
The Getaway: This would have beaten Legion because it's the better game, but it's also a PS2-era game, which means its open world is quite empty and devoid of life (and too damn small), but man, remake this in the modern era and there would be no better digital London.
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate: While it does take place mostly in London, it's Victorian London, so doesn't really belong on this particular list (but it is super cool).
NEW YORK
Marvel's Spider-Man and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales: The two games basically use the same map, but the original takes places during summer while Miles takes place during winter, so you have your pick of season. Both let you swing across Manhattan and visit real-life locations as well as stuff that only exists in Marvel Comics/MCU. Unfortunately, you're bound to Manhattan, and cannot visit the other boroughs.
Honorable Mention
Grand Theft Auto IV: This is a much bigger map, and does let you visit the other boroughs (except for Staten Island because who gives a fuck) as well as a bit of New Jersey, but it's not actually New York. No, here, it's called Liberty City and while I can visit the general area where I lived in Astoria, Queens, the neighborhood is called Steinway, Dukes, so points off for that.
HONG KONG
Sleeping Dogs: Not even a contest. We have to make do with Hong Kong Island alone (and not even all of it because size restrictions) and can't visit Kowloon or the New Territories, but the Hong Kong we get is excellent. You can race up to Victoria Peak and ride the Mid-Level Escalators. You can eat pork buns and get a massage. And you can buy a Monkey King outfit to fight the jiang shi from another world.
Honorable Mention
Shenmue 2: A far smaller map than the one in Sleeping Dogs, it does let you visit Kowloon, though it's the Kowloon of the 80s, complete with the Kowloon Walled City (the other area you can visit is Wan Chai). Also, Shenmue and Shenmue 2 are like the forerunners of open-world games, so their age really shows.
TOKYO (AND OTHER PARTS OF JAPAN)
Yakuza series: Almost every Yakuza game lets you explore at least Kamurocho, which is a thinly-veiled stand-in for Kabukicho, a red-light district in Tokyo, but various games let you also visit thinly-veiled stand-ins for parts of Osaka, Okinawa, Fukuoka, Hokkaido, Nagoya, Hiroshima, and Yokohama. But they're all pretty small maps, unfortunately, and you end up seeing all of any given area in the first 30 minutes or so.
Honorable Mention
Persona 5 Royal: Not really an open-world game, it does let you explore quite a bit of Tokyo. Unfortunately, it's almost always on a time limit as the game forces you to go to class, meet with friends, invade bad guys' dreams and fight their worst aspects, etc. There's very little time to just chill and explore.
SINGAPORE
Chinatown Detective Agency: This game isn't actually out yet, and while it's not open world (it's a point-and-click adventure game), it is mainly set in Singapore. Also, we Kickstarted it, so it better be good. Pretty much every other game with a level set in Singapore is almost always at a shipping yard because that's what Singapore gives the world of video games, apparently. Hitman 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Battlefield 4, and Call of Duty: Black Ops III all have shipping yard or shipping yard-adjacent levels set in Singapore, so not great for visiting (the one in Battlefield 4 is controlled by China for video game reasons). Also, none of them are open world either.
Honorable Mentions
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: Yes, LEGO Chow Yun Fat does say "Welcome to Singapore!" No, this isn't open world either.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla: There's a lake somewhere in the middle of England circa 878 AD that's shaped like Singapore. Yeah, I got nothing.
SEOUL
Not a single friggin' game set in Seoul? You bastards.
Any other open-world games that take place in these or other cities that are nice to walk around in and explore? Let me know!
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