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  • Bayonetta:
    • About half of the first game is set in an isolated, highly-guarded city called Vigrid, which is stated to be somewhere in Europe, with no further detail. The last parts of the game move to a metropolitan island called Isla del Sol. It's quite possible that these areas are somewhere in Spain: the people of Vigrid are all very religious (nearly 70% of Spain's population identifies as Catholic), "Isla del Sol" is Spanish for "Island of the Sun", and the train icon on the map in the cutscene preceding Chapter 1 stops very close to where Spain is.
    • Bayonetta 2 is primarily set around Noatum, a fictitious town somewhere in Kazakhstan according to the pre-Chapter 1 map cutscene. Apparently, Kazahkstan is home to an impossibly tall mountain with a mysterious gate at the top.
  • Bullworth, the setting of another Rockstar Games title in Bully, bears a strong and obvious Hollywood New England feel. Word of God puts it in New Hampshire specifically.
  • Paradise City in Burnout Paradise resembles Miami, but it has mountains to the northwest, which don’t exist in Florida.
  • C-12: Final Resistance presumably takes place in the United Kingdom, judging by everyone's British, Scottish, or Irish accent. Even then, one could argue that the voice actors and actresses are simply voicing characters who are supposed to be American, Canadian, etc. And since the game takes place in a Crapsack World full of Scenery Gorn, there's no landmarks or areas to pinpoint where the setting might be.
  • Condemned: Criminal Origins takes place in Metro City, which is a highly decayed industrial city, most likely located somewhere in the Rust Belt.
  • The location of the Last City in Destiny is left ambiguous, but generally implied to be in the Americas. The sequel gradually narrows it down to "somewhere in South America", with Season of the Seraph finally giving a concrete answer - based on orbital views, the Last City is at or near Santiago, Chile.
  • The eponymous team of occult detectives in Detectives United are headquartered in a location called Silent Hollow, as is sister organization the Mystery Trackers. However, the games never say where Silent Hollow is supposed to be. The only clue is that it's probably somewhere in the United States, because the main characters are indicated to have driven to Louisiana in the first game's bonus chapter.
  • Devil May Cry:
    • The manual of Devil May Cry is the only source in the entire franchise where it was ever mentioned Dante is American, but in which specific state and city his office is located is never mentioned. Likewise, the fact that Dante is supposed to be American is never mentioned anywhere again in the following sequels and adaptations, possibly throwing a wrench on his supposed nationality as well. Further complicating this, Hideki Kamiya stated in an interview that the original profile for the character listed Dante as "A British man, stylish, doesn't smoke."
    • Devil May Cry 2 and Devil May Cry 4 present completely fictional locations like Dumary Island for 2 and Fortuna Island for 4, where it is completely impossible to determine where they are located. Dumary Island looks like it's Mediterranean inspired as it's said its inhabitants are composed of people who came from it. Fortuna on the other hand, looks like it kept itself locked in time in a quasi-medieval setting, but with some Italian inspiration.
    • Despite being a modern-tech urban city, the Limbo City of DmC: Devil May Cry is completely fictional even though there are certain aspects of the game that try to connect with real-life nations and geography, such as the British Union flag sewn on the left arm of Dante's coat.
    • Devil May Cry 5 brings in Red Grave City with its mixture of British and American architecture and urban design. Yet again, it's not established in which country the city is located. It's also revealed Red Grave City is Dante and Vergil's birth place as their childhood mansion is located in it, although it isn't mentioned if Dante's Devil May Cry shop is set there as well. No one also says if it's the same city in DMC3 where the Temen-ni-gru was summoned, which all traces back to Dante's supposed nationality in DMC1; if he is American, then Red Grave City should be located in the United States, but again, nothing is ever said or made clear. Not helping the matter is that Mission 2 of DMC5 (set in Red Grave City) starts in a shopping mall based on the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a real-life famous mall in Milan, Italy.
  • Donkey Kong Country: Donkey Kong Island's location is still officially unknown, although several aversions have been pointed outnote .
  • The city of Harran in Dying Light is somewhere in the Middle East near a lake. Where in the Middle East is a bit more confusing, everyone in the city speaks English and all the signs are in English (though this could be a Translation Convention), there are Polish flags around the city, the Old Town has an Ancient Persia look while the Slums are very modern looking, and some supplementary material says it use to be part of the Ottoman Empire.
  • EarthBound Beginnings takes place in the United States — in a completely unidentifiable part of the country that has no ports and just one mountain, and where they name all of the towns after various holidays.
  • Fallout is usually very clear about where it takes place, complete with recognizable landmarks. Fallout: New Vegas continues this trend: the game is set in the remnants of Clark County, Nevada. Its Downloadable Content Expansion Packs have their own maps with their own set locations: Honest Hearts takes place in Zion National Park, Utah; Old World Blues takes place at Kingston Peak, California;note  and Lonesome Road takes place around Death Valley, in California. However, Dead Money never states the location of its setting, other than being the Sierra Madre (a spur of mountains jutting out from the Sierra Nevada mountains). While this puts it somewhere in modern Nevada or Arizona, it's difficult to determine much else about the location. This contributes to the quasi-mythical feel of the expansion; notably, you can't return to the Sierra Madre after leaving, unlike other DLC locations. This could mean it is a Vanishing Village.
  • Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters are both set in South Town, which is somewhere in the U.S. Non-game material heavily implies that it’s in Florida and heavily inspired by Miami, though it also has some similarities to Orlando (such as the presence of a Friendly Neighborhood Chinatown and a No Communities Were Harmed version of Disney World).
  • FEAR is set in Fairport, whose location is never officially stated. The third game’s strategy guide claims it’s in the Northwest, but that doesn’t fit with the Point Man landing there in a helicopter he took all the way from Central or South America.
  • Final Fight’s Metro City (as seen in the intro of the first game) is somewhere on the East Coast of the United States. Seeing as its port leads directly to the Atlantic Ocean, fan speculation either places it as New York City or close to it. New York does explicitly exist in the Street Fighter Shared Universe (as seen with Street Fighter III and the Brooklyn-born Alex, and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 showing Haggar running for mayor of New York).
  • While later Grand Theft Auto games were set explicitly in pastiches of New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, some of the earlier games keep the location of their cities deliberately ambiguous.
    • The setting of Grand Theft Auto 2 is literally called Anywhere City, practically daring players to pin down its location. Among other things, it houses the Russian Mafia, the Yakuza, and a Confederate-flag-waving redneck gang.
    • Liberty City in Grand Theft Auto III was located somewhere on the East Coast, based primarily on New York but also taking influence from other cities in the northeastern US. Liberty City Stories increased the New York influence, most notably by adding another Italian district located at Fort Staunton on Staunton Island, but by Grand Theft Auto IV, they gave Liberty City a complete redesign to make it into an explicit copy of New York.
    • The prologue of Grand Theft Auto V, and one later mission, take place in North Yankton, a rural Midwestern state with brutal winters. The one town visited, Ludendorff, bears a German name indicating that the area was likely settled by German immigrants, as much of the upper Midwest was. The real-life Yankton tribe is a subset of the Western Dakota people, indicating that North Yankton is likely the GTA universe's fictional version of North Dakota.
  • Half-Life 2 is set in City 17; all we know about it is that it’s somewhere in Eastern Europe. The Half-Life wiki suggests that it’s based on Sofia, Bulgaria; the game’s art director is from there, and various Cyrillic signs are in Bulgarian. But it’s also implied that it’s a former Soviet country, putting it further north; the canal system and forest imply St. Petersburg, although Riga, Latvia is another candidate. The Overwatch Nexus is modeled after the Parliament of Serbia. And the second Destroy All Humans! game has a throwaway joke that City 17 was once the game’s own Eastern European Springfield, Tunguska.
    • A background detail in Half-Life 2: Episode One practically confirms the city as Riga, Latvia. There is a map showing City 17 with a river called the Daugava flowing through it. This is the name of a real river that flows through... you guessed it, Riga. There are also other bits of evidence. The skyline of Riga resembles City 17's, City 17 is coastal and borders a sea (Riga is the only coastal city that the Daugava flows through), the lettering on most signs is Russian suggesting an ex-Soviet country, and there's also occasionally Swedish lettering, suggesting that City 17's not too far away from Sweden (Latvia is a stone's throw away from Sweden, and hosts many Swedish businesses). Finally, there's numerous restaurants with signs that translate to "Café Baltic", which would match Riga's location in one of the Baltic States.
  • Harvest Town often makes references to real life people, countries and shows, and one character is explicitly stated to be a fan of Japanese heroism and Naruto, indicating that the game is set somewhere in the real world. However, Harvest Town itself is clearly not based on any specific location in the real world.
  • Hitman: The World of Assassination Trilogy has a habit of doing this:
    • Hitman (2016) has a fictional small coastal town of Sapienza, Italy (located somewhere off of the Amalfi Coast apparently), while repeated mentions of Khandanyang are also heard in background dialog (most likely based on North Korea, given they too are run by a military dictatorship), but with no solid placement of where it is on a map.
    • Hitman 2 has the fictitious jungle town of Santa Fortuna in Colombia, the fictitious town of Whittleton Creek in Vermont, and two non-existent islands; The Isle of Sgàil (a Gaelic Scottish island), and HAVEN Island (an island located somewhere in the Maldives).
    • Hitman 3 has The Sceptre (an obvious Expy of the Burj Khalifia) found in Dubai, Club Holle (largely based on the real life Club Berghain) in Berlin, and Ambrose Island (a remote island in the Andaman Sea).
  • Jet Set Radio is set in “a city that is not found on any map, called Tokyo-to. But people just call it Tokyo.” However, its locations only bear a vague resemblance to the real-life Tokyo. Grind City, on the other hand, is a mishmash of Chicago, New York, and the U.S. West Coast.
  • Carcer City from Manhunt, through references and Canon Welding with the Grand Theft Auto games, is located somewhere close to Liberty City. Most fanon puts it in New Jersey, specifically in Newark or Camden, two cities with reputations as real-life Wretched Hives not unlike that of Carcer City, though Cleveland and Detroit are also popular candidates. Grand Theft Auto IV pushed it out of northern New Jersey, with Alderney City serving as a pastiche of both Jersey City and Newark while an in-game stat suggests that Carcer City is anywhere from 60 to 100 miles from Liberty City (in real life, Camden is just under 100 miles from New York).
  • Earlier Metal Gear games tend to take place in unspecified locations. Outer Heaven in Metal Gear is supposedly 200 miles north of the Galzburg region of South Africa, which is itself a Springfield. Zanzibar Land in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is only mentioned as being part of the former Soviet Union, while the real island of Zanzibar is off the coast of Tanzania (the game's manual however does show it on a map: it's basically in the Badakhshan region). Later games, though, tend to take place either in real locations (e.g. an area of the Hudson River near lower Manhattan in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty) or fake ones explicitly marked on a world map (e.g. Shadow Moses Island in Metal Gear Solid which is in Alaska).
    • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a straight example, taking place in the Tselinoyarsk region of the Soviet Union. We receive exactly no hints as to where this is, other than that its topography includes swamps, forests, canyons, and mountains. The novelization of Guns of the Patriots implies that Tselinoyarsk later became Zanzibar Land, though this might not be canon. In any case, Snake performs a HALO jump out of a plane not long after the pilot mentions passing the Pakistani border and infiltrates Tselinoyarsk afterwards on foot, so it could be in Tajikistan... or there could have been a time cut after one of the many exterior shots of the plane. It's not clear. To make things more confusing, the opening of the Virtuous Mission features a slideshow with a map that zooms in on central Siberia during the briefing, implying Tselinoyarsk is there, contradicting the other hint given seconds prior of it being close to the Pakistani border.
    • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots features missions in locations called "the Middle East", "Eastern Europe", and "South America." The European city is obviously Prague as shown by everyone speaking of Czech, but the other two locations are nondescript. Until you check the credits, which reveals that they were supposed to be Morocco and Peru.
  • My Summer Car is set in the rural Finnish town of Alivieska. There is no town in Finland by that name, although there is an Alavieska and a Ylivieska.
  • Nanashi no Game is set in a fictional Japanese university called “Nanto”, which also happens to be another name for the city of Nara. There’s also a subway going to the university (also called the “Nanto Line”), one apartment building is based on a real building in Fukuoka, and there’s a visit to Nakano Broadway, a real shopping mall in Tokyo.
  • It's never specified where in the world Otter Island is set. The ending credits include photographs revealing that Otter Island was based on a real location; when asked about this, creator Mizzen was intentionally vague for privacy reasons (and so players can make their own theories) but stated the game's setting is intended to be somewhere in Northern Europe. It's mentioned raccoon dogs are sometimes seen on the island, which are native to East Asia but also widely present in parts of Europe due to being introduced there in the early 20th century.
  • Some of the maps in Overwatch are futuristic Springfields for particular countries. For instance, Ilios is a generic Greek resort town. Though there are exceptions with many of the maps being factories, estates or even movie sets (Rt. 66) rather than towns proper.
  • Paper Chase: The setting is intentionally vague, as reflected in the name of the institute: Anystate University (in the BASIC version) or Anycity College (in the Inform version). While the BASIC version mentions that it's in the U.S.A., the Inform version doesn't even have that.
  • PAYDAY: The Heist has several heists that looks like they take place in either Chicago or Pittsburgh due to how the cities look in each level, but even the developers don’t exactly know where the heists take place in. The Undercover heist is explicitly stated by one of the characters to take place in Washington D.C., while the Counterfeit heist is noted to take place around Pensacola, Florida (albeit a heavily-fictionalized version of it). PAYDAY 2 meanwhile almost entirely takes place in Washington D.C. (with a good chunk of the DLC heists taking place outside of it, up to and including a pair that take place in Russia and Alaska), but it's not really stated which neighborhoods the levels take place in.
  • The Persona series likes to do this, which is odd because most other games in the Shin Megami Tensei series are explicitly set in Tokyo.
    • The first game is set in Mikage-cho, apparently part of an unnamed larger Japanese city. There is a Mikage-cho very close to Kobe in real life, but we don't know if it’s the right one.
    • The Persona 2 duology invented Sumaru City, which is somewhere on Japan's east coast, near to but distinct from Mikage-cho. Then again, most of the first game’s cast is also present, implying that Mikage-cho is part of Sumaru.
    • Persona 3 features the city of Iwatodai; all we know about it is that it's also located somewhere on Japan's east coast and pretty much owned by the fictional Kirijo Group.
    • Persona 4 is set in the rural Dying Town of Inaba, with the nearest large city being the also fictional Okina City.
    • Persona 5 notably averts this, by taking place in the very real city of Tokyo.
  • Police Simulator: Patrol Officers takes place in the city of Brighton, a fictional metropolis located on the East Coast of the United States, with exactly where not mentioned. Even the state the city is located in is known as the "State of Franklin".
  • The Police Quest trilogy is set in the town of Lytton, which is allegedly somewhere in California.
  • Reality-On-The-Norm: It's never made clear which country Reality even lies in. At the beginning of Invasion of the Space Aliens..., the characters argue whether it’s in America or Britain, with the narrator chiming in to claim that it lies in Australia. In any case, the city seems to have its own currency, “Reality Dollars”.
  • Resident Evil:
    • Raccoon City, the location of the first three games and Operation Raccoon City, is located somewhere in the American Midwest. This is contradicted by very variable geography, very warm autumns, and a sign with a 212 area code (which is Manhattan in New York City). The novelizations put it in Pennsylvania, while the most popular fan theory puts it in the Ozarks, specifically as a fictional version of Springfield, Missouri. Other contenders include Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, and South Dakota.
    • Resident Evil 4 is set in an unspecified Spanish-speaking European country, and Word of God says this was intentional. That said, Spain is the only major Spanish-speaking country in Europe, the currency is the peseta (the former Spanish currency before the Euro), and Luis Sera tells you that he "used to be a cop in Madrid" (implying that Spain exists even if it’s not the setting).
    • Resident Evil 5 is set in Kijuju, a Bulungi in what is supposed to be West Africa. Its official language is Swahili, though, which is spoken in East Africa. Its currency is the Naira, which is used in Nigeria. The flag on Irving’s boat is just the Pan-African flag with stars added to it. Basically, it’s all over the continent.
    • Resident Evil: Damnation is set in Edonia, supposedly a southern Slavic country. It’s also the name of what was once a real region of southeastern Bulgaria and northern Greece, but that doesn’t seem quite what they were going for.
    • Resident Evil 6 is set in the fictional Chinese city of Liangshang, although its urban structure and appearance make it seem like a copy of Hong Kong.
    • Resident Evil 7: Biohazard at least commits to a specific state and region by taking place somewhere in Louisiana's coastal wetlands (as seen in the intro), but it's on the outskirts of a town called "Dulvey", which is itself fictitious.
    • Resident Evil Village continues the series tradition, with the titular village only ever being described as somewhere in Eastern Europe. However, the long-established Dimitrescu family have Romanian names and the local currency is the "lei", hinting that its location is somewhere in Romania.
  • Saints Row and Saints Row 2 take place in the fictional city of Stilwater, which has been implied to be a city in the Great Lakes region. Possibly in Illinois or Michigan. Saints Row: The Third takes place in Steelport, which is loosely based on New York City and Pittsburgh. It’s safe to say that Steelport and Stilwater are close to each other; Steelport could also be in the Great Lakes region, as it’s surrounded by water, or it could be in western Pennsylvania like Pittsburgh.
  • In Shepherd's Crossing, the game's titular town is located in an ambiguous location. The first game has a vaguely European atmosphere, with red brick houses and the clothing of the townspeople. The second game, however, gives several characters South American-inspired clothing, while others have a preference for Himalayan dishes, making it a sort of South American/Indian Subcontinental mashup.
  • The Silent Hill series has very few clues as to its setting; only a lake, forests, and vaguely New England-ish architecture.
    • Silent Hill itself is all over the place. The original manual describes the town as being in New England, but the first two games have what appear to be Michigan license plates, and Downpour and Shattered Memories both suggest Michigan as well. The atmosphere and environment fit both locations. The town also happens to be near a body of water called Toluca Lake, which does exist – in California. Other games suggest it’s specifically in Maine.
    • Other games are set elsewhere, but those locations are Springfields as well. Silent Hill: Homecoming is set in Shepherd’s Glen, which is given a location that doesn’t fit with where everything else was established around Toluca Lake.
    • The movie version is very strongly inspired by Centralia, Pennsylvania, a real-life Ghost Town thanks to a decades-old underground coal fire, but it’s explicitly in West Virginia.
  • Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow has a clever spin on this; the good guys know that the Big Bad is planning to deploy some sort of weapon in “the Springfield demonstration”, but they don’t know which one because there are so many Springfields in the country. It’s theorized that this is why they chose a Springfield as a target.
  • Style Savvy is set in an unspecified city that's implied to be somewhere in North America, but exactly where is unknown.
  • Touhou Project is set in Gensokyo, which exists within a barrier somewhere in Japan that’s mountainous and landlocked. Fan speculation places it in Nagano (Yatsugatake being around helps), but there's really no way of knowing for sure, and there are no official maps of the place.
  • The Uncharted series, naturally. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune takes place in the Panamanian jungle and a uncharted Pacific Island (although a specific bearing is given in relation to a Kriegsmarine map).
    • In Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, obviously the Istanbul Palace Museum really exists, and the city "between Greater India and Tibet" is clearly Katmandu, but Tenzin's village and the monastery aren't specific beyond "the Himalayas". note 
      • The only clue to where the beach bar the first cutscene takes place at is a blackboard with "Handsome Nathan" written on it in Greek.
    • Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception: Subverted in the first act with a detailed recreation of South London and the city skyline, as well as the Syrian Crusader fort
    • Uncharted 4: A Thief's End: Drake has settled down in New Orleans (which appears to be his home town in the childhood flashback scenes), but the castle in Italy where the auction is taking place, the church in Scotland where the crucifix leads the group, and the location of Libertalia itself are all unknown.
  • The first four generations of Pokémon take place in regions based off of Japanese locations and where the areas existed in relation to each other were mapped out by the creative team. However, starting in Generation 5, the games began taking place in regions based of western countries that, despite all of them taking place in the same world, are portrayed as existing completely separate from each other with no indication of where they're supposed to be located.
  • Urban Dead is set in the zombie-infested city of Malton, which could be anywhere in the world. It features U.S.-style malls, British-style pubs, a lot of African art, and many further contradictions. It’s been speculated to be everywhere from England to America to Canada to South Africa to Belize (although fan consensus has settled on England – or some mysterious area of South Africa that gets snow every December).
  • Valve based the maps of Team Fortress 2 on the environs of the American Southwest without giving any actual clues as to where 2Fort, Hydro, Badwater, etc. are located. The fandom has a lot of fun finding real-life analogues for all the bits in the game. The War! update did put Badwater in New Mexico.
  • Valkyria Chronicles takes place in Gallia, a fictional country that would be located near Poland but which takes most of its cultural and architectural cues from the Netherlands. The creators resolved this by putting Gallia in Europa, Europe’s fantastic counterpart.
  • Darkmoon Island, the site of the monthly Darkmoon Faire on World of Warcraft. While the exact location of the island is a mystery, it's likely to be between the Maelstrom and Northrend, due to being in the Great Sea, ability to catch fish found only in northern Azeroth, and there's occasionally a tuskarr visiting the faire (tuskarr are said to die just a few days after leaving their own climate, so the island is likely close to Northend). In any event, it can only be accessed by portal during the Faire; despite (or possibly because of) shipwrecks around the island, it can't be reached by ship, even though it does have a dock.

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