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.
Rome has retained its status as an international scientific and cultural center with countless institutes, such as the American Institute, the French Academy, the German Archaeological Institute and many others finding their homes here. The city is also filled to the bring with various universities and other educational establishments.
Rome's economy developed in a way to completely lack heavy industry, manufacturing and such. Instead, the city is based around primarily intellectual industries, such as IT, aerospace, defence, telecommunications, and services. The two main industry that need to be named, however, are banking and tourism.
Now, they may not be the largest ones in terms of revenue, but they have the greatest cultural significance for the city. The very concept of modern banking is thought to have originated from Rome, during the renaissance (though a basic and preliminary system similar to it was utilized earlier, already during the First Crusade), making it the cradle of financial services as we know them today.
The other, tourism, speaks for itself, really. Rome is littered with landmarks with such density that even if you actively tried avoiding anything of significance, you probably wouldn't be able to. Every two streets, there is a charming old church tucked between the houses. Every few blocks there is some major landmark, ruin, museum or gallery that has been listed in at least 100 travel book or blogs as a "must see" location.
From a geographical point of view, Rome fits GTA pretty damn well. Though the city itself technically isn't coastal, the larger metropolitan area around it is, and the city proper itself is just a stone's throw from the beach. The wilderness around it is a natural beauty, with rolling mountains, lush forests, a three large lakes to the north and more.
Italy is pretty narrow in this region, so taking into account the large area the map will take up outside the the city itself, meaning that the map could include the whole stretch of the country coast to coast latitudinally. Aside from Rome, the area is filled with charming little Italian towns which would act as great secondary locations, with somewhat larger ones like L'Aquila, Tivoli and Pescara being best for these roles.
