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

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
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

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

1 year 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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