Have you heard of Wplace? If you have, then you know just how many portraits of Genshin Impact characters, Deltarune villains, and Pokémon critters there are everywhere.
If you don't know what it is, Wplace is essentially an interactive map where people can collaborate on pixel-based drawings and cover the entire globe with whatever they please. And it seems that most of the world is a fan of at least one gacha game, Undertale, or the Persona games.
Almost every city I zoomed into while having a little coffee break had some form of Genshin character in it, or Honkai Star Rail's Dr Ratio with Aventurine, or Sunday poking out of a street name. Most places have themed artwork - like Black Sabbath and Ozzy appearing over Birmingham, UK - but there are more often than not, gaming odes.
Don't believe me? Ok, here's what I found in just 15 minutes of searching random cities:
- HSR's Sunday in New York, US, and a work in progress off Australia's east coast
- A giant Genshin Impact Diluc in Newcastle, UK
- HSR's Aventurine in Madrid, Spain
- A circle of Honkai Star Rail characters in south London, UK
- HSR's Phainon and HSR's Mydei in Shanghai, China
- Phainon outside of Moscow, Russia
- ZZZ's Miyabi in Tama, Japan
- Genshin Impact's Ayaka in Cairo, Egypt
- Genshin Impact's Hu Tao in the Vatican City, Italy
- Genshin Impact's Sucrose in Denver, US
- Genshin Impact's Wriothesley half-drawn off the Malta coast
- Genshin Impact's Wanderer in Mexico City, Shanghai, and many more places
All these Genshin, Honkai Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero characters tend to be nestled amongst plenty of Deltarune, Stardew Valley, and Balatro icons - and there's a lot of Persona 5 pairings of Joker and Akechi knocking around, too. Overall, there's a feeling of the site being a general love letter to games, the internet, memes, and fan culture.
If you find yourself with a spare five minutes, I highly recommend having a look around to see what people are drawing over the world. You can challenge yourself to find every Pokémon in the Pokédex - as there are a lot of them around - and see how many of our favorite indie games pop up.