What five locations would you choose for a VR shooter game?

The Game Room
1

You’re designing a highly advanced virtual reality first person shooter that people can play with each other. The only thing left to do is pick five separate environments to act as arenas. Each arena will be a square mile in size and a perfect replica of a real world location as it exists in 2026.

What five locations would you choose as arenas and why?

My choices would be New Orleans, Tokyo, the Amazon, the Appalachians and Venice.

2

Disneyland
Downtown Hollywood
Tijuana
The USAF boneyard near Tucson
The Ring of Cinotes, Yucatán

Why? Because I’ve already picked out the best hiding spots.

3

I’d put Little Roundtop at Gettysburg on the list. Also the Badlands in South Dakota.

4

The City of London would be one of them. The central part called The City is already nicknamed The Square Mile even though it’s now slightly larger. To remedy this, I’d take out the part west of Blackfriars Bridge since it’s unimpressive enough to me that if I’ve been there I don’t remember it. And then I’d be able to add in the Tower of London, so if there is a scenario where there are two competing teams, they can be based at the Tower of London and the Barbican, both of which have elevated spots with good lines of sight and would be based on opposite ends of the map.

5

Pyramids of Giza
Buckingham Palace
Sydney Harbour and Opera House
Some kind of enormous hospital
The Paris sewers

6

I think that the way the scenario is set up, we can pick Paris and get the sewers included in that for free. As well as the Eiffel Tower and whatever other above-ground locations are in our square mile (I don’t know Paris well enough to know what the most interesting square mile is, but it has to include Eiffel).

I think that there are two keys to a good location. One is that it should be familiar to as many players as possible, because recognizing the locations is part of the fun. This definitely favors major world cities like Paris and London. The other is that it should be tactically interesting, with things like a lot of changes of elevation both inside and out, places that are hard but not impossible to get to, both good vantage points and lots of cover, etc.

7

Lots of good stuff named already. My contributions:

  • Abu Dhabi, for all the height. I’m not sure how the scenario works, but if it’s feasible, this scenario would make ample use of wingsuits, rappelling, and maybe helicopters.
  • the Vegas strip, for the casinos and for a “heist” game mode (one team is security, the other team tries to get in and get out)
  • Niagara Falls, for a Scavenger Hunt scenario: each team starts in a different hotel/restaurant with a list of items to collect from the other side of the falls