A game map can make a real place legible
In Fallout 76, West Virginia is not reproduced as a precise, mile-for-mile map. The game condenses and reshapes real geography to make a playable world. But its landscapes and recognizable places preserve enough of the state’s identity for players to connect what they see on screen with somewhere they could visit.
That recognition matters. A familiar landmark or stretch of mountain scenery gives players a mental map: the fictional setting feels rooted in a particular place, rather than in a generic wasteland. The game’s post-apocalyptic story changes the meaning of those surroundings, but it does not erase their geographic character.
The contrast becomes the invitation
Tourism promotion could turn that tension into an advantage. The ruined world provides the game’s drama; the real state offers the striking landscapes and places beneath the fiction. A campaign can use players’ familiarity with the virtual version to invite them to encounter the actual one—and to see how much of the game’s setting draws on a real landscape.
The result is an unusual kind of destination marketing: the game does not depict West Virginia as an untouched vacation brochure. Instead, it makes the state recognizable through an imagined future. That contrast can leave players curious about the mountains and places that survived the journey from real map to fictional wasteland.
