Hic Sunt Dracones - Games with illustrative maps

I've always had a soft spot for when a game would go the extra mile by drawing their ingame maps to suit the artstyle or setting. A good map is a near-useless map; aesthetics first, floriated and adorned with mythological beasts, a warped sense of scale, downright drunken to look at. List idea mainly struck me when I realised heartless blobby vector diagrams of collision data were sucking my blood.
I realise there are likely hundreds of titles that do this, but why not make a start at cataloguing the best ones? Feel free to suggest titles that are unafraid to break out the pen and paper and sketch out a stylised chart.

I realise there's a decent amount of subjectivity here, so my criteria is just:
- The map itself has to be ingame, not a fanciful recreation in supplementary material, such as a guidebook or manual.
- I'm not keen on vector topologies just because they have an earthy colour scheme

Gravity Rush
Gravity Rush
Wildly respect the nerve to have a strictly 2D map on a game all about verticality
https://www.justpushstart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/2012-06-17-224116-1.jpg
Blacktail
Blacktail
Particularly noteworthy for also being animated!
https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Blacktail-Map-Shrine-Icon.jpg
Final Fantasy XIV Online
Final Fantasy XIV Online
Admittedly its sub-maps are dry "walkable area" blobs, the larger-scale continental ones are wonderful. On a whole a decent attention to detail across the board in this game imo, pay some attention to the way every map is framed.
https://www.ffxivinfo.com/images/maps2/l/eorzea-1.jpg

5 Comments


1 year ago

Disco Elysium has an illustrative map depicting an optimist blossoming Ravachol, contrasting the real war ridden slum it is.

1 year ago

Pentiment has a map that looks like it was drawn by the main character

1 year ago

Huh, I meant the Final Cut version, apparently they updated it. Never knew.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/discoelysium_gamepedia_en/images/7/75/Final_cut_map_.jpg/

1 year ago

Oh jesus christ, first I've seen of this too, looks sick beyond belief

11 months ago

stumbled across this list browsing around pentiment and absolutely love it!!
the drakengard franchise has painterly tapestry-esque maps across all three entries, as well as the first nier game maintaining the style ^^

d1: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PqjM_ObUxoo/XhKfgotH5gI/AAAAAAABWMw/sXjMtn7JBXIVnmUeubty8_uF_-2TN_KNgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Drakengard_%2528PS2%2529_50.jpg
d2: https://lparchive.org/Drakengard-2/Update%2036/4-clocktower14.jpg
d3: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/drakengard/images/c/ca/DOD3_Midgard_Map.png/revision/latest?cb=20140507055258
nier: https://video-game-guide-walkthrough.supersoluce.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/17/NieR-Replicant-Walkthrough-Damaged-Map-010.jpg

HQ images are hard to find... i'm a little mad automata abandoned this wonderful artistic aesthetic ;;


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