While GTA 6 City of the Week looks at one location in the USA and evaluates it as a possible setting of the next installment in Rockstar Game's popular open-world action adventure franchise every week, Foreign City of the Week, as the name suggests, looks beyond the borders.

Sticking to Europe this week too, we're going to look at a city which has possibly had a greater mark on ancient and medieval history than any other. While it doesn't quite have the stature of being the capital of a massive empire spanning continents anymore, it is still considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world (with reason) and retains much significance in Europe. We are, of course, speaking of the city built on the seven hills.

Rome

The Eternal City is no stranger to being featured in media and popular fiction. Both the eras of the Roman Empire and that of the Italian Renaissance are extremely frequently explored in video games, movies, TV shows and literature. The rich history of the city reaches back over two and a half millennia, with the area having been inhabited long before the foundation of the city, making it one of the oldest settled areas of Europe.

However, this extremely rich, vibrant and infinitely interesting history has caused modern Rome to be pushed back in terms of media and fiction. Even Rome during World War II has gotten more pop-culture treatment than modern Rome. In fact, off hand I can only name one video game, Alpha Protocol, which takes players to a current-day Rome. I don't doubt that there are more, however I can't recall them — if you can think of any, feel free to write it up in a comment below!

That said, I'm pretty convinced Rome would be a perfect setting for a game with a modern-day timeframe. However, would a GTA game fit the city? To kick things off, Rome is a city of almost 3 million residents, a number which increases to over 4 million when looking at the larger metropolitan area surrounding it.

Rome is known as the capital of two nations due to the presence of Vatican City within its borders. This is the only example of a sovereign state presiding within the city of another. The Vatican also greatly boosts the city's already overwhelming tourist appeal, by attracting innumerable pilgrims each year.

The city has acted as a capital for some nation or other ever since its foundation in 753 BC, making it the oldest city we've ever examined in a City of the Week post. Rome, though a sprawling metropolis and global city, isn't your typical concrete jungle of towering skyscrapes wreathed in glass. Luckily most of the historical architecture survived the perils of history, resulting in a city which closely resembles what it possibly looked like during the Renaissance, while still retaining a modern touch.