It’s justified to feel a bit disillusioned with the dearth of San Francisco representation in popular media. Though there are some notable exceptions (San Andreas, Bullitt, Ant-Man), the settings for countless major movies are, if not New York or Los Angeles, literally anywhere other than one of the West Coast’s most iconic locations.
Fortunately, the world of video games has excelled where Hollywood has sometimes fallen short. Not only do new triple-A titles feature quintessential San Francisco landmarks quite prominently, but so too do many beloved classics from the early days of the video game industry. We’ve assembled a selection of both older titles and new releases that all allow players to gallivant through a digital simulacrum of the cherished city.
See also: Test Your Team-Building Skills And Conquer These 5 Best San Francisco Escape Rooms
Horizon: Forbidden West
View this post on Instagram
Guerilla Games’ 2017 Horizon: Zero Dawn clinched a Game of the Year nomination with its staggeringly detailed graphics, multi-dimensional characters, unexpectedly thoughtful plotline, and dynamic third-person action gameplay. Its sequel builds on the triumphs of its predecessor and adds to it next-gen graphics and a new map for the player to sink their teeth into: a post-apocalyptic West Coast landscape dotted with dilapidated San Francisco landmarks. If you’ve ever wanted to ascend a crumbling, vine-festooned Golden Gate Bridge, this is your game.
Watchdogs 2
View this post on Instagram
Ubisoft’s Watchdogs franchise garnered buzz among the gamer crowd for its ambitious attempts to incorporate hacking, glitches, and other cyberspatial phenomena into its gameplay. Its second installment follows protagonist Marcus Holloway, a young but gifted hacker, as he and renegade hacker collective DedSec contend with a big bad tech corporation bent on ushering in a hellworld of ubiquitous surveillance. The game’s open-world map permits players to zip about impressively faithful recreations of a near-future San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Oakland, and even Marin County.
See also: Our Ultimate Tourist Route For Optimally Sightseeing All Of San Francisco
Marvel’s Avengers
View this post on Instagram
In Crystal Dynamics’ 2020 Avengers, players can literally live out their superhero fantasy and - with some friends online thanks to cooperative multiplayer - erase swaths of evil robots with Iron Man’s wrist-rocket, all on the Golden Gate Bridge.
Crazy Taxi
View this post on Instagram
One of the most iconic racing games to have graced arcades the world over, Sega’s Crazy Taxi owes much of its success to an absurdly simple and absurdly effective premise: zoom about an open-world, pick up passengers, and chauffeur them to their desired drop-off point as quickly as humanly possible (before a timer runs out). While not explicitly set in San Francisco, the map clearly draws liberal inspiration from the city, with countless Lombard-esque streets, near-vertical hills, and rows of colorful Victorian homes.
Fallout 2
View this post on Instagram
Bethesda’s genre-defining Fallout franchise has, in addition to CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher, set the standard for open-world role-playing games over the course of over two decades. The second installment in the franchise features a San Francisco ravaged by nuclear war, with its landmarks either leveled or claimed by the city’s new occupants: mutant-monsters, cultists, or scavengers.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
View this post on Instagram
The fifth installment of Rockstar’s storied franchise, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas gives players free reign to unleash utter havoc in the streets of multiple West Coast locales, one of which is the city of San Fierro.
San Fierro (definitely not a fictionalized version of San Francisco...) touts a virtual Lombard Street, Pier 39, and, of course, the Golden Gate Bridge (but don’t worry; it’s still definitely not just diet San Francisco).
See also: Awaken Your Inner Music Geek At SF's Best Alternative Independent Record Stores
Photography by: JESHOOTS.COM/Unsplash
