In 1986 the teenage martial artist Ryo Hazuki comes home to the family dojo in Yokosuka and watches his father, Iwao, die at the hands of Lan Di. Swearing revenge, Ryo follows the killer to Hong Kong in 1987 and on to the mountains of Guilin, and the two games turn that trail into one long walk through a living town, a harbor, a crowded Hong Kong district and a walled city.
The route follows Shenmue and Shenmue II in seven stops. Dobuita Street and Kowloon Walled City are real places the game draws on, the dojo and Bailu Village are invented, and every stop says how closely its pin matches the game.
China's first emperor unified the warring states in 221 BC and spent his last decade building: a capital, canals, walls, palaces and a vast tomb. Some of what is told about him is documented history; some is legend.
This route visits seven places tied to him, from Xianyang to the Terracotta Army. Stops marked as legend or speculative (the elixir quest on Zhifu Island, the lost course of the Qin wall) are kept apart from sites that archaeology has confirmed.
The floating Hallelujah Mountains of Pandora do not exist, but the pillars behind them do. This route follows the film from its Los Angeles capture stage to the sandstone towers of Hunan, and on to the rival claim for Huangshan and the Pandora land in Florida.
Expect inspiration rather than filming locations: the film was made largely on stages, so the Chinese pins are stand-ins and credited influences.
Genshin Impact's Liyue is a fantasy nation, but its cliffs, pools and harbour were built from real Chinese places.
The route follows the landscapes its developers named as models, from Yangshuo and Huanglong to Zhangjiajie, Fenghuang and Huangshan. Three of them, Zhangjiajie, Huanglong and Guilin, also hosted official in-park collaborations in 2020. The pins mark the real models, not game locations.
