So this is a little off-topic — not to mention
more than a bit dated — but I've been working on a project for the past several years, trying to map all of the real-world L.A. locations that developer Team Bondi replicated (with varying degrees of accuracy) in the video game
L.A. Noire. Really just for my own amusement, since the game’s more than 15 years old, but the more I got into it, the more obsessive I became. I used various landmark listings, found
MartinTurnbull’s
Photo Blog (which I still check
daily — not to mention having since read all of his novels), checked out
esotouric’s resources (naturally picking up a copy of
The Raymond Chandler Map of L.A. and reading
The Kept Girl), and eventually found
this site. It’s taken me forever to go through (all the way from page 1 of NLA 1.0), but this site has been an absolute godsend.
So mostly, I just want to say thanks to all of you. What started as a list of a few dozen locations has now ballooned to nearly
1,000. I went into the game and plotted them
all on a map (which I keep updating as I discover still more locations).
If anyone’s interested in checking it out, the “master” map — which I’ve dubbed “
The Ultimate L.A. Noire Touring Map” — is available
here (with a higher-resolution version
here).
I created this as a game resource, so that map
also has a bunch of fictional locations featured within the game narrative. But specifically for real locations, I created a page on the
L.A. Noire Wiki with a full listing of
Historic/Additional Landmarks present in the game, as well as one for
Real-World Businesses and Points of Interest (i.e., non-landmark but still historically accurate locations). And that’s in addition to the 30
official landmarks called out in the game itself. I took in-game screenshots of all of the locations, and did little writeups on each (from the perspective of 1947, when the game is set). I also added some notes when the developers made location (or time) shifts for a particular location — which they did
frequently, since the game map area
is limited, and there are a few things they no doubt wanted to add in for atmosphere or gameplay.
And then I also found a feature on that site where you can create an
interactive map — which I went ahead and did
here. (You can zoom in and turn various categories of location on or off to make it easier to see.)
(I also post on the
r/lanoire subreddit with a new location every day — now up to post #471.)
I know none of this is quite like posting
real photos of Noirish L.A. locations, but I figured it was at least photo-
adjacent. And I just wanted to share, figuring some of you fine folks might find it of interest. (And just to be clear, there’s no commercial aspect to any of this — I’m just doing it for fun.)
Of course, if anyone finds any errors (and I’m
sure there are plenty of them), or has suggestions for places I should look for, don’t hesitate to let me know! (I keep a list of the locations that
aren’t in the game, mostly so I don’t waste time looking for places I previously ruled out, and that’s even
longer than the list of those that
are.)
Mad love to you all, and thanks again for all of the amazing work here!
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Revisiting Los Angeles in LA Noire
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