I did some searching online for a game that is placed in a specific contemporary urban or suburban setting (such as Washington, DC or Hagerstown, Maryland, or San Francisco, California...or Amsterdam in the Netherlands) WITHOUT some fantastical Governmental or crimebusting plot. I think it would be interesting to have situations like finding out that someone has broken into your car, or dealing with an aggressive panhandler or evangelist; finding out that your local bank has made a mistake and failed to credit your account, resulting in overdrafts; losing your heat in the winter; getting a steady stream of spam phone calls; a leaky roof; unexpected road closures...with just enough exaggeration for comic effect. You could, if desired, appeal to magical beings and dieties, but they would usually either tell you that your problem wasn't in their department, or cast a magic spell that didn't work. Better yet, the magic spell could merely compound the situation. Your character could even play the part of someone who always casts their vote for a losing candidate. It would be fun to see more realism in games.
I've long said that the real test of a good open-world game is how well it handles moments of mundanity in the world, as those are the moments where you really "inhabit" the world. And there are a bunch of more modern games that focus on more mundane activities in life, like Power Wash Simulator -- although you rarely find games set in real cities, because you get into licensing issues pretty quickly. Even with Fallout 3 set in the DC area, we avoided most real-world township names.
I did some searching online for a game that is placed in a specific contemporary urban or suburban setting (such as Washington, DC or Hagerstown, Maryland, or San Francisco, California...or Amsterdam in the Netherlands) WITHOUT some fantastical Governmental or crimebusting plot. I think it would be interesting to have situations like finding out that someone has broken into your car, or dealing with an aggressive panhandler or evangelist; finding out that your local bank has made a mistake and failed to credit your account, resulting in overdrafts; losing your heat in the winter; getting a steady stream of spam phone calls; a leaky roof; unexpected road closures...with just enough exaggeration for comic effect. You could, if desired, appeal to magical beings and dieties, but they would usually either tell you that your problem wasn't in their department, or cast a magic spell that didn't work. Better yet, the magic spell could merely compound the situation. Your character could even play the part of someone who always casts their vote for a losing candidate. It would be fun to see more realism in games.
I've long said that the real test of a good open-world game is how well it handles moments of mundanity in the world, as those are the moments where you really "inhabit" the world. And there are a bunch of more modern games that focus on more mundane activities in life, like Power Wash Simulator -- although you rarely find games set in real cities, because you get into licensing issues pretty quickly. Even with Fallout 3 set in the DC area, we avoided most real-world township names.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5G-2qTupCk