[Lorric]

I'd like someone to show me and anyone else who wants to somewhere huge and impressive in a game. Not a game that's set in a city like a Grand Theft Auto, I'm thinking RPG, but it doesn't necessarily have to be an RPG. We can also talk about truly impressive cities in games.

Let me introduce you to one which you may well not have seen: Lenele from Summoner. The game's 14 years old and it still holds up pretty well and inspires some awe in me watching this video. I played this game not long after it was released and I was just blown away by Lenele at the time. It is immense, diverse, and beautiful, but not in a gorgeous, squeaky clean sort of way. It's hard to explain, just have a look for yourself. I don't think you'll regret it if the topic idea is appealing to you.

The guy in the video knows pretty much exactly what he's doing, only talking to the quest NPCs and buying stuff and look how long it takes. I spent hours upon hours running around in Lenele, which you come to very near the start of the game, exploring every inch of it and talking to all the many, many NPCs, who do a great job of fleshing out the game World for you. It feels like a real city. So yeah, have a look at the video and feel free to share your own examples if you're interested. I'm particularly curious to know if there's anywhere bigger than Lenele or that even compares to it. I'm not a big RPG player so I don't know, but Lenele is easily, easily the largest settlement I've ever seen in such a game. Here's the video:

[Phantom Hoover]

i really liked steelport

[zookeeper]

Well, surely not bigger scale-wise, but the capital city in Outcast was pretty impressive. The smaller towns were cool too, but only because they seemed like real places, while the capital was all that but also really big. Here's a clip.

Ah, Outcast, one of the best games ever...

[deathfun]

Well, surely not bigger scale-wise, but the capital city in Outcast was pretty impressive. The smaller towns were cool too, but only because they seemed like real places, while the capital was all that but also really big. Here's a clip.

Ah, Outcast, one of the best games ever...

Dear god it must be uncomfortable to stand like that let alone run like that, with your hands sticking out and shizznit

I've found a lot of MMOs seem to always make large cities primarily to ensure no bottlenecking of the sheer amount of people on it (Aion comes to mind immediately)

I'd also have to go with Fallout 3. You could spend hours and hours exploring the ruins of D.C. and the tram tunnels

[Hades]

The actual 'cities' in Fallout 3 were hilariously tiny, though. Scale was not its friend.

[TrashMan]

Well, surely not bigger scale-wise, but the capital city in Outcast was pretty impressive. The smaller towns were cool too, but only because they seemed like real places, while the capital was all that but also really big. Here's a clip.

Ah, Outcast, one of the best games ever...

Indeed it was. A gem.

[Lorric]

Thank you for the contributions so far.

There's something I forgot to mention though, which I'll add here: Summoner is a game.

[Grizzly]

i really liked steelport

On the same level: I found Stillwater to be much more impressive actually - Steelport is rather... generic.

[deathfun]

i really liked steelport

On the same level: I found Stillwater to be much more impressive actually - Steelport is rather... generic.

I would've actually like to have seen the new Stillwater
The cutscene they had with the bridge seemed to have made Stillwater into something far more impressive

Course, that is just a cutscene

I'd also like to add Dead Space 2 to this list. Sure, you're not exploring *all* of the city, but you're covering quite a bit of ground in it throughout the game, and there's still far more left unexplored

[NGTM-1R]

Mournhold from Morrowind is probably the only gaming city I've ever felt was actually decently sized and not weirdly empty or wierdly crowded. (Something I'd argue the Summoner example has a serious problem with. ) I'm curious how it'll look in the MGO when I get there.

GTA III/SA/IV/V have always aspired to large, organic-looking cities, but it's rarely worked out for them primarily because they either overcrowd the street or have no one on it; there's no middling level of foot or car traffic most of the time.

[Klaustrophobia]

While not really huge, the cities in Assassin's Creed are decently sized and the best, as NGTM says, organic cities I've ever played in.  It could be called overly crowded I guess, but I think it fits with the setting.  It's about the only game with civilians I've played where I just naturally feel I'm in a crowded city and not just looking at a randomly placed civilians or a token crowd scene that do a REALLY poor job of selling "this is a living city with civilians in it."  (I've never played GTA).

[Scourge of Ages]

I've recently started playing Guild Wars 2, and the city of Divinity's Reach struck me as one of the most impressive cities I've ever seen in a game.

It's BIG. Not as huge as a game like GTA or Saint's Row will have, but it'll still take 5 to 10 minutes to straight run from one side to the other, and much longer if you want to circumnavigate it.

But more important than the size of it, I was struck by the variety of landmarks and architecture. There are slums with cottages  and apartments, nicer living areas with mansions, gardens, recreational areas with carnies and circuses, a number of commercial and service districts, guilds, a palace, a stadium of some sort, pubs and book carts, and just enough generic NPCs to make it feel lived in without being overcrowded.

[Dragon]

I'd say, Daggerfall and Sentinel, from Daggerfall. Those were truly huge, and looked just as big as regional capital cities should. Mournhold was also good, but you only got to see a small part of it.

[Lorric]

I've recently started playing Guild Wars 2, and the city of Divinity's Reach struck me as one of the most impressive cities I've ever seen in a game.

It's BIG. Not as huge as a game like GTA or Saint's Row will have, but it'll still take 5 to 10 minutes to straight run from one side to the other, and much longer if you want to circumnavigate it.

But more important than the size of it, I was struck by the variety of landmarks and architecture. There are slums with cottages  and apartments, nicer living areas with mansions, gardens, recreational areas with carnies and circuses, a number of commercial and service districts, guilds, a palace, a stadium of some sort, pubs and book carts, and just enough generic NPCs to make it feel lived in without being overcrowded.

This is exactly what I was hoping to get out of this thread and more. There's a bunch of videos on Youtube, but I found an excellent one. I don't do MMOs, so there's no way I'd have found this by playing games. It makes me think of Lindblum from Final Fantasy IX. It's probably bigger than Lenele is. It's a magnificent piece of work. Very beautiful. A work of art. And it was a most pleasant and relaxing experience watching the video I found. I'll share it below. Thank you. There are more cities in that game I see. Maybe I'll have to see those too sometime. I like how they've actually set up points throughout the city that you can go to where the camera will leave your character and pan around letting you soak in the beauty. Also it's distinctive the way there's so much change in elevation throughout the city. Normally these settlements are pretty flat if not completely flat.

[Colonol Dekker]

The getaway.

Foggy old London town.

Novel in its accuracy but lack of detail.