Although L.A. has been done so many times, the best games set in Los Angeles do more than rely on stereotypes passed on by other media. Great L.A.-based games have to do at least one of two things: create a Los Angeles map that feels familiar to residents, or capture the culture, vibe, and/or history of the city.

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Luckily for gamers, dozens of games have recreated virtual versions of Los Angeles that feel authentic to residents. Maps may not be 1:1 recreations of areas, but they’re accurate enough to do tours with. Also, they have the L.A. je ne sais qoi that is unique to the location and history.

10 Need For Speed Underground 2

L.A. Car Culture At Its Finest

People in Los Angeles are quick to point out that Need for Speed Underground 2’s L.A. is more of a hybrid between their city, San Francisco, and Vancouver. NFSU 2’s L.A. is more than that, as it has a few more features borrowed from other cities. Still, it is unmistakably L.A.-coded, with wider streets and a hell of a lot less traffic to actually make street racing viable.

Fidelity aside, NFSU 2 is remembered fondly for introducing cool new car models and focusing on tuner cars. Hydraulics and nitrous boosts were also present, as well as an extensive tuning system reminiscent of mods used in street racing at the time.

9 True Crime: Streets Of LA

Explore L.A.’s Different Boroughs In The Open-World

Directed like an action movie, True Crime: Streets of L.A. can be surprisingly goofy at times. Its shooting missions transform the open-world sandbox into an on-rails shooter, complete with Time Crisis-like reticles. Fighting, stealth, and driving missions also feel wholly different, and failing any of them will branch the story into an alternate continuity.

In terms of being true-to-L.A., this game did surprisingly well in condensing the city and recreating landmarks. Staples Center, Chinatown, and Figueroa at Wilshire, among others, got in with some streets that should be familiar to commuters.

8 Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Accurate Depiction Of What L.A. Looks At Night

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, of course, can’t be relied on to navigate real-life Los Angeles the way people can with Dead Island 2. Plumbing the depths of L.A. at night and witnessing what the clans’ various holdings look like gives players a different look at the city.

The World of Darkness is probably what residents think about when asked what’s the worst thing about L.A. Homelessness, dodgy street corners, and clubs that would fail a health inspection crowd VTM:B's street corners. Yet it has an alluringly dangerous, Toreador-like charm that will likely carry over to Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2's version of Seattle.

7 Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland

Goofy Teen Movie-Inspired Look At Punk L.A.

Tony Hawk’s Underground and Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland’s story modes are general send-ups to teen dirtbag movies and 80s-to-00s skater culture. Wasteland takes after Underground 2’s goofy mood and goes full teen movie, complete with an eclectic art direction that made L.A. look vibrant and grimy at the same time.

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Wasteland’s Los Angeles took the city’s iconic locations and turned them into skate havens. These areas, save for the fictional ones, were beloved to skaters in the period and critical to the SoCal scene.

6 Midnight Club: Los Angeles

Pretty Good Racetrack Version of L.A.

One thing gamers can’t fault Rockstar for is their capability to sometimes add unnecessary fidelity to a game map. Midnight Club: Los Angeles’ free roam L.A. is bigger than the previous game’s three cities and has dozens of landmarks worthy of snaps in the game’s photo mode.

Naturally, the older game isn’t perfect and is a few years out of date, even in the year it was made, but it brings to mind that games like Midnight Club: Los Angeles make their maps years before release. What matters is its accurate enough that driving from LAX to Rodeo Drive in-game feels familiar to real L.A. residents.

5 Dead Island 2

If L.A. Really Was Hell-A

Brand deals are difficult even for big-name studios, so Dead Island 2 can be forgiven for swapping some names for generic replacements. What it didn’t settle for is its fateful recreation of the L.A. skyline and hit locations. Although the Beverly Hills Hotel is Halperin Hotel in Hell-A, its location on the map and facade are almost 1:1 in accuracy.

Aside from the map and facades, the vibe of a zombified Los Angeles is also pretty accurate. Even with braindead zombies milling around, the attitude, feeling, and sheer detail made Hell-A a damn good map to take with several legendary weapons.

4 Fallout & Fallout 2

New Government Borne From L.A. Boneyard

Fallout and Fallout 2 were iconic and had a different tone than what the games would be known for later. Their Los Angeles, known as the Boneyard, had been swallowed up by nuclear destruction and desertification. Still, survivors breathed new life into Hollywood, Irvine, Santa Monica, and other pre-war sites, far removed from their glamorous past.

The TV series expanded on what Fallout and Fallout 2 couldn’t show due to limitations. The Griffith Observatory became the New California Republic’s stronghold following Shady Sands’ annihilation, Santa Monica became the crux of three major vaults, and the entire city became the site of a functional cold fusion reactor.

3 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

The First Truly Large-Scale Attempt At Open-World L.A. And Nearby Areas

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was, at the time, ground-breaking for the amount of work put into recreating a 90s Los Angeles. Rockstar went above and beyond to include Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Northern California in an already packed map. Gamers would spend months, and even years, unpacking the map because of its intricacy.

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With both San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto V in the rearview, San Andreas can be said to have a historical place in gaming. Photo accuracy wasn’t enough anymore, as cities needed to feel alive, filled-in, and cultural-accurate, like San Andreas’ bustling towns.

2 L.A. Noire

Captures The Feeling And Culture Of 1940s L.A.

L.A. Noire’s lasting legacy as a game is its digital recreation of historical sites. Although obviously not a perfect, street-to-street recreation of post-war L.A., the landmarks Team Bondi chose to perfect were stunning. Grauman’s Theater, Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles Union Station, and Chinatown, among its 30 or so landmarks, brought old wonders back to digital life.

A recreation of L.A. Noire is a fever dream now with Team Bondi’s shutdown, but as information preservation becomes more of a concern, having an accessible resource like L.A. Noire can’t be debated. This level of fidelity also works on a gameplay level, as triple-A connoisseurs always want living, authentic cities in their open worlds.

1 Grand Theft Auto 5

The Most Detailed Recreation of 2013 California So Far

It might seem excessive to include Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in the same list, but each game represents a different era of L.A. Obviously, San Andreas is a nostalgia trip, featuring locales that have been stripped down or changed drastically since its release. Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto 5 is faithful to the appearance and vibes of Los Angeles in the new 10s.

Grand Theft Auto 5's little details, like streets and intersections that only locals know, feel comfortable to residents, especially people who lived in the area around the game’s release. Crafting the game also made Rockstar develop new tech to simulate a living city, and not merely create an imperfect doppelgänger. It’s this level of immersion they hope to bring to Grand Theft Auto 6’s Miami, the Everglades, and the rest of Florida.

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