If I Could Live Anywhere In A Video Game, It Would Be The Citadel From Mass Effect
The Citadel is a colossal space station home to 13 million people from all over the universe, like an intergalactic New York City. Commander Shepard visits the Citadel in every Mass Effect, and it's always my favourite location—especially the version we get to explore in the first game. It's a bustling hub of trade, diplomacy, politicking, and awkward dancing when Shepard has one too many shots of Serrice Ice Brandy.
It's BioWare's take on an O'Neill cylinder—an orbital human settlement proposed by physicist Gerard K. O'Neill. In his 1976 book The High Frontier, O'Neill imagined future spacefarers living in vast rotating cylinders with simulated atmosphere, gravity, and sunlight. Different takes on the concept have appeared in other media, including early Hideo Kojima game Policenauts and Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, but the Citadel beats them all.
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O'Neill's book is famous for its evocative illustrations—including one that was almost certainly the inspiration for the Presidium. This is the first district of the station you visit in Mass Effect, and it's an impressive sight. The pristine white architecture, simulated blue sky, and lush vegetation reflect its importance as a centre for finance and politics. But it also means it's full of rude, haughty high society types. The real people live down in the Wards.
Down here you'll find markets, residential districts, and seedy clubs—as well as the headquarters of Citadel's cops C-Sec. Compared to the Presidium, the Wards are it's dark, claustrophobic, and dangerous, but that's exactly what makes it so interesting. The gloomy neon-lit ambience of the Wards has its own charm, and you get an incredible view
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