Summary
- Open-world games like Cyberpunk 2077 depict dangerous cities where chaos and threats are everywhere.
- Games like Crackdown and Dying Light offer challenging environments with different types of dangers.
- The setting of the game plays a crucial role in creating atmosphere and tension, enhancing the gameplay experience.
Open-world games are built on the principle of being free, yet a cost is often incurred by being shot at, mutated, mugged, or morally depraved. The dystopian wastelands, the gang-ridden alleys; some cities are not only a setting, but a hostile power in their own right. These games do not simply drop the player in a sandbox, but instead drop them into a highly volatile war zone where one can only survive on instinct, strength, or sheer chaos.
7 Most Iconic Cities In Open-World Games, Ranked
Thanks to their iconic designs, the cities of Grand Theft Auto, Cyberpunk 2077, and The Witcher are de facto capitals for gamers everywhere.
Most open worlds are all about exploring and discovering things, but the dangerous cities on this list subvert this idea as everything, including the street, the corner, and the shadow, can be potentially deadly. It can be the anarchistic futurist verticality of Pacific City or the corporate horror of Night City, but these settings excel at creating atmosphere and tension, not to mention providing the best possible gameplay. These are the best open-world games set in dangerous cities, ranked in terms of how completely deadly their chaotic civilizations are.
7 Cyberpunk 2077 - Night City
Dystopia, But Make It Neon (And Deadly)
Cyberpunk 2077
- Released
- December 10, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol
Night City is a breathing, chrome-covered, blood-tainted, and corrupt monster of corporations. Cyberpunk 2077 offers players a chance to explore neon-soaked alleyways, glittering skyscrapers, and futuristic vehicles where technology and bloodshed intersect. This at first might seem like a dream for most people, to live in a futuristic world where everything is controlled by technology and people can get high-tech augments, no longer bound by any sort of disability. What most people don't realize is giving in to these advancements means giving up on their free will.
The threat of Night City is not just physical, but ideological. They are uncontrollable mega-corporations, gangs, and rogue AIs. Cyberpsychosis makes individuals into uncontrollable menaces, and law enforcement becomes judge, jury, and executioner. Any stroll down the street can be fatal in situations involving side gigs, ambushes, and failed hacking attempts. It is a big city in which peril has become part of the program, and each of the neon signs could be the last one that players ever see.
6 Crackdown - Pacific City
Supercops In A City Of Chaos, Mutants, And Mayhem
Crackdown
- Released
- February 20, 2007
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure, Open-World
Crackdown places players in Pacific City, a massive urban war zone overrun with crime, mutant threats, and chaotic anarchy. It is a city in which the police have lost control and three great criminal organizations run the streets. Players jump into the genetically enhanced boots of an Agent whose mission it is to bring order to chaos—at any cost, including explosions. The open-world design of the game promotes vertical exploration, allowing players to climb tall buildings, find elusive agility orbs, and experience a feeling of unparalleled momentum as their skills upgrade on the fly.
The pure lawlessness of Pacific City is what makes it an especially dangerous place. Gang territories are strictly guarded and crowded with enemies armed with heavy artillery. Mutants roam through the Freak Breach at night, making it a survival challenge. The city always fights back, no matter how chaotic it can be; it turns every step towards the future into full-speed superpowered dominance.
5 inFAMOUS Second Son - Seattle
Superpowers Meet Surveillance In A Dystopian City
inFAMOUS Second Son
- Released
- March 21, 2014
WHERE TO PLAY
InFAMOUS: Second Son remakes Seattle under the control of the Department of Unified Protection (D.U.P.), a paramilitary organization that chases, pursues, and persecutes individuals with supernatural powers under their authority. The game is played as Delsin Rowe, a Conduit who steals powers and uses them to navigate a city filled with checkpoints, drones, and armed patrols. The dystopian and rainy sprawl is not only completely open but is tied to its vertical gameplay, offering rewards to players for going skyscraper-scaling and rooftop-jumping to fight the authoritarian rule.
It is not only the authoritarian presence of the era that makes Seattle so menacing; it is the grip through which the ideas of fear and observation enslave the city. Citizens report on Conduits, propaganda drones spread false information, and entire city districts are closed to the public. Such a repressive environment forces people to always be on their guard, as military conflict might arise at any time, and each of their actions leaves a lasting impression on the city. It is a vividly visualized place of conflict where power comes at a price.
4 Disco Elysium - Revachol
A Dying City Trying To Pull Everything Down With It
Disco Elysium
- Released
- October 15, 2019
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ due to Blood, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs, Violence
- Genre(s)
- RPG
Revachol is not a place that is dangerous due to beasts or bombings; it is dangerous because it seems too plausible. With this rotten post-revolutionary metropolis in Disco Elysium, decay, corruption, and despair ooze from every gutter. Players are detectives trying to find a ruthless murderer in a rapidly failing society, while simultaneously grappling with their own flaws and an extremely broken character. The city itself emerges as a character, mouthing its chatter through political graffiti, charred ruins, and the broken people trying to find some meaning or a way to stay alive.
The threat of Revachol comprises psychological and social weight. It is a town filled with poverty, ideology, and trauma, merging into a dense mist of dread about the impending end of existence. This is not a shoot-em-up, but a silent menace, a timely murder, and a feeling that it is already too late. Any decision leads to something shocking and tragic, and the more players investigate the situation, the more perilous the revelations become. It is a memorable submergence into city corruption and self-destruction.
3 Tom Clancy's The Division - New York City
Pandemic-Era Collapse Meets Military-Grade Mayhem
Tom Clancy’s The Division
- Released
- March 8, 2016
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood, Game Experience May Change During Online Play, Intense Violence, Strong Language
- Genre(s)
- Third-Person Shooter, Open-World
Tom Clancy's The Division is set in snow-covered New York City following a devastating plague that destroys society as people know it. Zones are quarantined, pits are full of dead bodies, and plundered shops cover the streets as gamers find their way through a gruesomely realistic copy of a city on the verge of collapse. Players are tasked with restoring order as part of an elite sleeper agent unit, and they fight against the likes of Cleaners, Rikers, and LMB, all of whom are content to shoot first and ask questions later.
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The danger of NYC, in this case, lies in the fact that it looks rather possible. Groups of vagrants take over whole neighborhoods, snipers hide on rooftops, and even the notorious Dark Zones are free-for-alls where everyone is just as likely to use bullets as the players are. The sheer magnitude of the threat, combined with the elements of environmental narration, creates an environment in which there is little to no hope, and safety cannot be assured. This is street combat in an eerie reality.
2 Batman Arkham City - Arkham City
One Giant Superprison, What Could Go Wrong?
Batman: Arkham City
- Released
- October 18, 2011
WHERE TO PLAY
Arkham City is not a city; it is a prison sector in the heart of Gotham walled off to keep all the major criminals and psychopaths at the center of a single urban hell. It fits this twisted and deadly version of Gotham like a glove, starting at the frozen base of the Penguin to the Joker and his acid-filled funhouse. In the role of Batman, the players track villains from the rooftops and plunge into alleys to counter new and rising threats in one of the most thoughtfully realized open-world maps in superhero gaming history.
The worst thing about Arkham City is that there is absolutely no law or order, at least, no regular kind of law and order, unless Hugo Strange's laws are considered. There are gang wars on the streets, oppressed political dissidents on their knees pleading, and every bit of territory on the national map is enemy territory. Batman's use of stealth, gadgets, and fighting abilities is consistently put to the test, and the plot keeps up the heat with primary antagonists potentially around every corner.
1 Dying Light - Harran
A City That Eats The Living (And Itself)
Dying Light
- Released
- January 27, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Survival Horror
In contrast, the fictional Middle Eastern city of Harran in Dying Light can be the quintessence of danger in an open-world environment. The city is in quarantine due to a mysterious viral epidemic, and the survival shooter places its players at the scene of a city center crowded with zombies. The undead are slow during the day, but they become vicious and swift at night. Players are required to apply parkour skills to explore the rooftops, gather resources, and discover ways to survive not only the dead, but also groups of other human beings, which are, in many cases, even worse than the infected.
The day-night cycle adds another dimension of danger to Harran. Once the sun goes down, the metropolis turns into a hunting ground controlled by Volatiles, vicious monsters capable of moving faster than regular zombies and killing almost anything. The suffocating vertical ordeal, characterized by the constrained structural configuration of Harran, renders the environment hostile and unforgiving after sunset. Each run is a race towards death, and each safe area is an epicenter in a metropolis that strives to kill its players at every turn.
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