Fans decide on the ‘worst’ city in video games
When it comes to video games, they can't all be cheerful locales like Kirby's Dream Land, Animal Crossing islands, or Stardew Valley. From underwater nightmares to zombie-infested cities, and nuclear-ravaged wastelands to derelict space stations, we find ourselves being drawn to these haunted locales.
After all, we tend to play video games for their atmospheric backdrops, with cities in games like GTA: Vice City becoming whole beasts of their own. There are plenty of places we'd love to live, but equally, there are plenty of nightmarish cities we wouldn't be packing the moving truck for. But, what is the worst city in gaming?
What is gaming's 'worst' city
The all-important question was asked on Reddit, with a variety of responses splitting fandom. The most upvoted choice is BioShock's Rapture, with one supporter writing, "Undoubtedly one of the worst cities to be at. Claustrophobia in the form of a city. Maniacs with guns.
"Chemical crazed kids. Needle-fisted, armoured suit wearing psychos that fly around. Brutes armed with drillers. Underwater and badly lit. Plus, just to survive, you need to keep altering your genetics and pump in chemicals." Another added, "Don't forget the creepy little girls that get magical power-juice sucked out of them."
When someone else championed Raccoon City, another pointed out, "Even before it all went undead! Cops were corrupt to the highest level. Local Gov owned by pharmaceutical megacorp. Said pharmaceutical megacorp regularly kidnaps people for experiments. Generally crap and crumbling infrastructure."
Mocking the core of the Resident Evil games, someone chuckled, "Don't forget the weird obtuse puzzles everyone has obsessively built into pretty much every public building in the city." Our favourite was a joke about how the neighbours bite.
Skyrim, Warhammer, and Night City
Click to enlargeWe could be here all day, but there's a strong case for Skyrim's Markarth. As one person wrote, "Markarth, easily. Even the beds are made of stone! Oh, yeah, and the whole Forsworn thing," it was echoed by someone else saying, "Even worse, all the steps! I would not want to live in a city where I have to 4 levels of stairs everytime I need to grab some air."
Rounding off the list of (un)popular cities, we had someone writing, "Any Warhammer 40,000 city. Literally ANY OTHER universe is a fucking dream." Let's not forget Call of Duty 4's Pripyat, which is also pretty grim in Stalker. We also love someone's musings on Night City, concluding, "Listen choom, if I want to chrome until I’m full borg don’t be a gonk about it. I got the eddies."
Let's give an honourable mention to the crime-riddled chaos of Arham City, but we all know the real answer. We know it's not a city, but if you wanted to include towns in the mix, Silent Hill is a literal hellscape. House prices might be cheap, but just imagine having Pyramid Head for a neighbour.
