Shack Chat: What video game location do you wish you could visit?

Shack Chat is back once again, our weekly feature each Friday where we’ll ask the Shacknews staff to give their opinion on a particular topic, then open the floor to our dedicated Chatty community to provide a diverse mixture of thoughts on the subject. It’s a great way for us to get to know one another better while inspiring healthy debates with all of you passionate gamers out there. 

Question: What video game location do you wish you could visit?

Super Mario Sunshine’s Isle Delfino - Asif Khan, It’s a me!

Super Mario Sunshine is a criminally underrated game. Everyone went goo goo ga ga over Cappy in Super Mario Odyssey, but OG Mario players have more respect for F.L.U.D.D.  I would hope Mario would let me try out his water powered jetpack. I could even check out some of the most perfectly designed platforming experiences with Sunshine's secret levels. Piantas seem like super friendly folks, and I bet they will bring you a fancy drink with umbrellas in it if you ask nicely. A lot of these other Shack staffers want to go hang with Geralt in a hot tub, but I will be chilling on Isle Delfino having a great time with jetpacks, secret levels, and stuff.

LSD: Dream Emulator  - Brittany Vincent, Senior Editor

I'm a huge Osamu Sato fan, and I was responsible for nailing one of the first interviews with him in years – so I'm emotionally attached to his games. LSD: Dream Emulator is one of my favorites, and you've got to see what it looks like to understand why anyone would want to visit. It's trippy, surreal, and downright scary at times. But there's nowhere like it in the world, and I'm curious what it would feel like to enter that world, constantly changing, resetting, with terrifying textures on the walls and everything in between. What's it like to live inside of a dream? I think this game could tell me – and I want to see it in action.

The Witcher 3’s Toussaint - Josh Hawkins, Some guy

Ah, the land of blood and wine. Introduced in The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine expansion, this colorful and intriguing world is just ripe with all manner of excitement. Of course, there’s also dangers lurking around every corner. As far as beautiful worlds go, Toussaint takes the cake. Not only are their sprawling forests and mountains, but there is plenty to do throughout the land as you partake in various events and the such. Perhaps the only thing turning me away from this beautiful paradise, though, are the vampires. I’d certainly hate to end up as someone’s midnight snack, so maybe it’s best that we can’t just hop on a boat and make our way over there.

The Witcher 3’s Toussaint - Kevin S. Tucker, School of the Wolf

Of all the beautiful places I’ve visited in video games, Toussaint is the first location to spring to mind when considering where I’d like to take a little vacation. Sure, the world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is full of demonic beasts hiding just out of sight, but the same could be said of just about any other video game environment. At the very least I could hide among the high-walled hills of Beauclair, opting to leave vampires alone for the night and instead head down to the docks for some adult entertainment.

Alternatively I could go out and lounge around the windmills littered about the Gorgon Foothills in western Toussaint. As long as I can ride the countryside and soak in the sights of its many vineyards — hopefully without any of the vines coming to life and goring me — there’s no in-game location I’d rather visit more than Toussaint.

Forza Horizon 3 - Chris Jarrard, Lives Life a quarter mile at a time

Sure, the world of Forza Horizon 3 is just a mockup of Australia, but it sure is pretty. It's easy to forget all the terrifying posion frogs, spiders, snakes, 'roided up kangaroos, squealing koalas, sharks, and bogans when you're speeding through the lush seaside greenery at 180mph. Now nearing its third birthday, the game still has a legitimate argument as best looking title available and is also more fun than a case of Foster's and some loaded handguns. 

The environment has everything from the desert outback that becomes a reddish-purple marvel at sunset to the sunny shores of Surfer's Paradise. I'll often log in to do some races and end up joyriding around the world. Just being inside Playground Games' playhouse is a treat and writing this out is making me want to dive back in.

The Witcher 3’s Kaer Trolde in Skellige Isles - Bill Lavoy, Not a Witcher

I’ve played through the main campaign of The Witcher 3 about four times, once on PS4 and three times on PC. There’s a moment in each playthrough that I look forward to more than any other; Geralt’s arrival in Kaer Trolde of the Skellige Isles.

While I prefer the Skellige Isles to all other locations in The Witcher 3, Kaer Trolde has a vibe that cannot be matched. The colder weather means characters tend to wear heavier armor. The rough seas instantly give a feeling of a hard life. The Kaer Trolde castle that exudes a feeling of history and combat. It’s all wrapped up in a Viking bow, and it’s by far the one place I would choose to visit, and I sort of could if I vacationed in the right countries and lands.

It’s not just the Viking, feeling, though. It’s the journey. Everything up to the point Geralt reaches Kaer Trolde is frantic. His search for Ciri keeps gamers on an emotional fence, and the world he works through before Skellige is rather ugly. Suddenly, Geralt arrives in this beautiful place that is full of honor and tradition. It feels like home, and even Crach an Craite feels like someone you’d love to know, so long as you were on his good side.

Andromeda Galaxy, Mass Effect: Andromeda - Sam Chandler, Grossly Incandescent

Video game locations aren’t exactly the most calm and serene places to visit. More often than not, they’re war-torn, overrun with monsters, or just plain destroyed. However, if I could visit one video game location at its peak, it would have to be the Andromeda galaxy from Mass Effect: Andromeda.

While Mass Effect: Andromeda was a critical disappointment, what it did offer was one thing humanity might never experience: visiting another galaxy. I have a deep love for space and the universe we live in, and it pains me deeply that I will, realistically, never be able to travel to another star system, see a black hole in person, or just experience high-level space travel.

Even if I was confined to the ship, just being in the Andromeda galaxy would be incredible. It’s the closest galaxy to ours and yet it's unlikely humans will ever reach it. It would be phenomenal to see the stars in the sky, the different planets and moons, and to just witness another corner of our universe.

Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule - David L. Craddock, Longreads Editor

I’m not one to travel much in real life--seeing new places and meeting new people is great; it’s the traveling part that cramps my style--but there are so many virtual worlds I’d love to visit that I’d fill up my passport book with commemorative stamps: Hyrule from Ocarina of Time, Full Throttle’s post-motorcycle wasteland, hell in Doom and Diablo. On second thought, most of the video game worlds I want to visit are more treacherous that a booby-trapped house from Home Alone, so maybe I’d only survive one or two at the most.

Given that, I have to prioritize, and choose Hyrule from 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s a hazardous place, but only if you run head-long into new territory without scouting. I could while away weeks, months, even years carefully exploring, cooking, and bartering until a Lynel inevitably gores me out of my Hylian boots. Until then, I’d have a cracking good time.

Lumiose City - Donovan Erskine, Intern

I’ve always wanted to visit Paris, and like millions of others, I wish I could experience life inside the world of Pokémon. Lumiose City would give me the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Originating in Pokémon X and Y, Lumiose City is the heart of the Kalos region. I’d love to try the Pokémon worlds iteration of French cuisine, see professor Sycamore’s lab, and visit Prism Tower!

Disagree with our picks? Think we're a bunch of clowns? Let us know in the Chatty below.

In the meantime, check out this awesome top 10 of additional in-game locations we'd love to visit. 

Shack Staff

Shack Staff stories are a collective effort with multiple staff members contributing. Many of our lists often involve entires from several editors, and our weekly Shack Chat is something we all contribute to as a group.