It seems that the next big trend in video games is going to be the rendering of real-life cities rather than the creation of new worlds. Gone will be the Liberty and Vice Cities of years gone by, as games will be set against more familiar backdrops.
According to a story on theinquirer.net HellGate: London, the Diablo 3 vision of the original game's creators, will only mark the beginning as more and more new titles will attempt to realistically render well-known cities and bring them to your PC or console.
The biggest such title to appear, according to the website, is GTA: London, the next installment in the GTA series which if true, would see the franchise heading in a new direction as the past few titles have focused on fictional locations.
The idea of rendering existing cities and locations for video gaming purposes is, of course, not new and many titles have already attempted it with the disappointing Driv3r and the not-too-bad Getaway being two recent examples. It is however, the power promised by the next-generation of consoles and PCs that will provide developers the necessary tools to create the very large environments required for accurate depictions of real-life worlds. The idea is to make gamers feel familiar with what they see, adding a fantasy fulfillment aspect to gaming such as saving the city you live in for example.
GTA: London will have a brand new engine built for the PlayStation 3 hardware and is expected to offer multi-threaded support and all the visual beauty that the G70 can handle. The game will feature most of London's hot-and-not-so-hot spots including the West and East ends the City probably the orbital Motorway 25 (also known as the world's largest car park) and a few other tourist spots.
GTA: London is expected to appear during Q4, 2006 (a full year away) and no PC or XBox 360 versions should be expected for at least 6 months following that.
