New GeoGuessr Variant Forces Players to Admit They Know Los Santos Better Than Their Own Neighborhood
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — In a bold step forward for cartography, gaming, and the delicate art of pretending you “go outside sometimes,” an indie developer has unveiled a new location-guessing game that replaces the entire planet Earth with the only places modern humans can reliably navigate: famous open-world video games.
The project—being described by early testers as “educational,” “deeply humbling,” and “a targeted attack on my social life”—borrows the premise of GeoGuessr, in which players are dropped into a random location and must identify where they are. The twist is that instead of being stranded in rural Latvia or an unmarked Serbian bus stop with a single ominous telephone pole, players are now dropped into Grand Theft Auto V, Skyrim, Cyberpunk 2077, and other iconic digital landscapes.
In other words: finally, a geography game for people who can’t point to Belgium but can find Ammu-Nation blindfolded.
“We Wanted to Make Geography More Realistic” Says Developer, Refusing to Elaborate
The developer, who introduced the game with the working title GeoGuessor (But For People With Priorities), explained the motivation behind the project in the kind of earnest tone usually reserved for moon landings and new pizza toppings.
“Everyone kept telling me GeoGuessr is about learning the world,” the developer reportedly said. “But the world isn’t even properly balanced. There are too many countries, the spawn rates are inconsistent, and the signage meta is overpowered.”
In the new game, players are dropped into a random point somewhere in a rotating set of open-world maps and must pinpoint their location using in-game environmental clues: skyline silhouettes, road textures, storefront branding, architectural vibes, and the presence of an NPC standing slightly too close for comfort.
Crucially, there is no helpful street sign reading “WELCOME TO WHITERUN,” because developers understood this would make the game “too accessible” and “a threat to the community’s identity.”
Gameplay: Use Every Ounce of Your Brain, Mostly to Recognize a Specific Dumpster
Like the original GeoGuessr, players can pan around and move through the environment. Unlike the original GeoGuessr, players will immediately understand where they are and still somehow be wrong.
Early footage shows a player confidently guessing “downtown Los Santos” based on a familiar freeway overpass, only to discover they were actually “near the other freeway overpass,” roughly seven meters away, earning a humiliating score and an existential crisis.
Another player correctly identified they were in Night City within three seconds—then spent the next two minutes trying to remember whether that particular neon noodle shop was in Watson, Japantown, or “the district where I got run over by a motorcycle last week.”
The game is expected to reward:
Map knowledge (200+ hours minimum; 600+ hours recommended)
Obsessive pattern recognition (“This lamppost is definitely from Patch 1.3”)
The ability to interpret vibes as coordinate data
Emotional memory (“I recognize this corner because I died here repeatedly”)
Skyrim Mode Immediately Declared “Unfair,” “Cruel,” and “Basically Weather-Based Guessing”
Not all maps are created equal. According to testers, Skyrim mode introduces a unique challenge: every location looks like either “a mountain” or “a slightly different mountain,” and clues often include vague statements such as “cold,” “gray,” and “someone is yelling at me.”
One competitive player described the experience:
“I thought I was near Riften because the trees looked damp,” they said, still shaking. “But it was Falkreath. Or maybe I just projected dampness onto the forest because of my own inner sadness.”
In response, the developer has reportedly introduced advanced tools such as Compass and Hope, but conceded that Skyrim will always be difficult because “the entire province is designed to look like you’re about to begin a side quest you don’t want.”
The Competitive Scene Erupts Overnight, Immediately Becomes Unpleasant
Within hours of release, the game’s community formed naturally around the most sacred tradition of the internet: becoming impossible to be around.
Players began uploading tutorials with titles like:
“How to Instantly Spot the Difference Between East and West Night City (Idiots Only)”
“Los Santos Highway Meta Explained (Stop Guessing Like a Casual)”
“Skyrim Geo Breakdown: Snow Quality Tier List”
Soon, arguments erupted about whether it is “ethical” to include maps with repeated assets, and whether recognizing a specific trash bin is “skill” or “a cry for help.”
A self-described “purist” insisted the game should only include maps without fast travel, because “real guessers suffer.”
Another demanded a “Hardcore Mode” where you spawn in GTA V as a pedestrian and must guess the location while being lightly hit by traffic every eight seconds.
Education Experts Praise New Game For Teaching Valuable Life Skills, Like “Knowing Where Ammu-Nation Is”
Despite being clearly engineered to validate gaming addiction as a hobby, the project has attracted cautious interest from educators.
One teacher said the game could “encourage spatial awareness and critical thinking,” though they admitted students now regularly talk about “geography” in sentences that include the phrase “I’m pretty sure this is near the casino heist setup.”
A parent group also expressed optimism, noting that at least their children are now “interacting with maps,” even if those maps include a suspiciously high number of alleys designed for dramatic car chases.
“It’s better than TikTok,” said one parent. “At least now my son is learning the layout of a fictional city he’ll never visit, rather than watching someone dance next to a caption about trauma.”
Tourism Industry Panics as Players Attempt to Visit Places That Don’t Exist
Meanwhile, the tourism sector is bracing for what experts call “the inevitable,” as a generation raised on open-world familiarity begins trying to book flights to locations like:
Los Santos
Whiterun
Night City
That one spot in Red Dead where you found a perfect hat once
A travel agent in Chicago described a recent interaction as “deeply concerning.”
“A customer asked for a hotel with a view of the Vinewood sign,” the agent said. “I explained that’s not a place. They asked if I was new.”
Officials are urging calm and reminding the public that while Los Angeles exists, it cannot be navigated exclusively via muscle memory from stolen cars and police pursuits.
Planned Expansions Include “DLC Packs” and “Maps That Will Destroy Friendships”
The developer has teased upcoming additions, including:
Red Dead Redemption 2 — where every guess is “somewhere scenic and emotionally devastating”
The Witcher 3 — where your main clue is “peasants suffering in a specific arrangement”
Fallout — where the only sign says “KEEP OUT” and the rest is radiation
Elden Ring — where players will not have time to guess because something is already charging at them
There are also rumors of a “Streamer Mode,” which automatically generates a dramatic sound effect whenever a player says, “Wait, I know this place,” and then proves they do not.
Final Score Screen Reportedly Reads: “Congratulations, You Should Call Your Family”
After each round, the game shows players a score and the correct location—along with a gentle reminder of the psychological weight of knowing exactly where you are in a city that does not exist.
Testers say the experience is thrilling, competitive, and oddly intimate.
“It made me realize something,” said one player, after nailing a near-perfect guess in Cyberpunk. “I have a mental map of a fictional metropolis, but I still can’t remember where I parked at the grocery store.”
The developer said that was the intended effect.
“This isn’t just a guessing game,” they said. “It’s a mirror.”
At press time, the game’s top-ranked player had achieved a 99.8% accuracy rate, could identify specific intersections from the angle of the shadows, and was last seen whispering, “This curb texture is definitely South of Vinewood,” before walking into a real tree.
Correction: An earlier version of this article implied players were “learning geography.” We regret the error. They are learning where the good loot is.