The Saboteur: Occupied Paris

One of the game's missions sends Sean Devlin to the Arc de Triomphe to snipe Nazi generals beneath the arch. It is a pointed use of a monument where German troops had marched in victory in 1940 and French and Allied troops in 1944. Beneath the arch lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, interred in 1920, with an eternal flame for unidentified dead from both world wars. Visitors can climb 284 steps to the rooftop terrace.

Visitor guidance: The arch is reached by underpasses from the Champs-Élysées and the Grande Armée; the 284-step climb leads to a rooftop terrace.

The official game description promises a brawl on the Champs-Élysées, and the avenue is one of the open-world map's showpieces. In 1940 German troops paraded here after the fall of France; on 25 August 1944 the French 2nd Armored Division marched, followed by the US 28th Infantry Division on 29 August. The avenue runs 1.91 km from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe. A walk today passes the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, which sit in the Jardin des Champs-Élysées.

Visitor guidance: The avenue is a public street; the Grand Palais and Petit Palais stand in the gardens along its lower stretch.

Notre-Dame is the setting for the game's rescue set-piece. Veronique is captured and prepared for execution at the cathedral, and Sean must free her alone; the official description also promises sniping from Notre-Dame. The real cathedral had its own liberation: on 26 August 1944 a special Mass for the Liberation of Paris was held inside, attended by de Gaulle and Leclerc, after stray bullets had damaged some medieval glass. A fire in April 2019 closed the cathedral; it reopened in December 2024.

Visitor guidance: The cathedral reopened in December 2024 after the 2019 fire; it stands on the Île de la Cité.

When the resistance headquarters is raided, the fighters flee into the catacombs, and Sean later races back through the tunnels to defend them from a Nazi assault. The real tunnels were a resistance stronghold: Colonel Rol-Tanguy ran the liberation insurrection from here in 1944, and the Wehrmacht kept a bunker under the Lycée Montaigne. Visitors enter near Place Denfert-Rochereau, where public visits began in 1874. Along the route a sign reads: "Arrête! C'est ici l'empire de la Mort".

Visitor guidance: The entrance is at Place Denfert-Rochereau; the ossuary has been open to public visits since 1874.

The campaign ends at the Eiffel Tower, where the SS commander Kurt Dierker makes his last stand at the top and Sean confronts him; the player can shoot him off the tower or watch him jump. The real tower had been a German symbol: French workers cut the lift cables in 1940, German soldiers hauled a swastika up the ironwork, and Hitler ordered the tower demolished in 1944, an order General Dietrich von Choltitz refused. The tower is the world's most-visited paid monument; about 25,000 people ascend it every day.

Visitor guidance: Lifts serve the tower's three levels; about 25,000 people ascend every day, so queues are long.