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Cities and World Structure
September 8, 2026 at 11:45 PM
Corrected the demo-build caveat on the shopping district, dated the world-structure statement, and fixed the claim that two cities have never been shown
Showa American Story is not one continuous map. It is a semi-open world. City areas open up as the main story advances and each is freely explorable inside, connected by travel in the RV rather than forming one continuous open map. The studio said in 2022 that it is not an open-world game, describing the design instead as discrete box-garden areas, and the build shown in 2026 has since been described as a semi-open world of city sandboxes linked by RV travel.
That description has held steady. The developers described the game as a set of sandbox city areas rather than one open world in 2022, restated it as a half open world in 2024, and it was described as a semi-open world again after the build shown in 2026.
Areas the story has already taken Choko through can be revisited for side content; the studio said so in 2024.
Four cities are named in the publisher's English announcement material. All of them sit in the America described on Showa 66 Setting, after The Cataclysm has emptied it out.
City | Formerly | What has been shown |
|---|---|---|
Los Angeles | The only city the public has played any of. Mount Neo Yokohama above it is the setting of Chapter 3 and of most of the build shown at gamescom 2026 | |
Neo Tokyo #4 | Austin | Appeared in the 2024 trailer. A poster at the game's gamescom 2026 booth carried a caption to the effect that Neo Tokyo #4 is still far off |
San Francisco | Keeps its real name | The Golden Gate Bridge is the setting of the demo build's Chapter 4 boss fight |
Las Vegas | Keeps its real name | Named only. Nothing of it has been shown |
Two of the four have been seen in motion. Neo Yokohama and Neo Tokyo #4 both appeared in the 2024 trailer, and Neo Yokohama is the only city the public has actually played any of. Neither Neo Tokyo #4 nor Las Vegas has been shown beyond that, and a poster at the game's gamescom 2026 booth carried a caption to the effect that Neo Tokyo #4 is still far off.
The journey follows America's Route 50, and the studio called the game a road movie without qualification in 2024. Travel between cities happens in Choko's RV, The Guren Express, either by driving it or by fast travel. The studio said in 2024 that the RV, a motorcycle, a bicycle and other vehicles it has not disclosed are all player-driven, and that motorcycles come in many colour variants and are collectible.
The creative director gave a rough content breakdown in 2024: about 40 percent story, 30 percent combat and 30 percent exploration. Gameplay and Progression cover what fills those shares.
The studio said in a 2025 developer talk that the game holds over 1,500 interactable NPCs, and that their dialogue changes as the main story advances.
In the build shown at gamescom 2026, the shopping district area alone held more than 30 NPCs with unique dialogue, some with their own event attached, and different shops in it sold different goods. That was a demo build, and the developers state that its item availability, drop distribution and game parameters were adjusted for the showing.
The one city area the public has explored, the shopping district at the foot of Mount Neo Yokohama, held shops, side quests, hidden passages and residents in one freely explorable space. The developers state that the demo build is not representative of the finished game, so how far that shape carries into the other cities is not settled.
The game's materials redress American landmarks as Japanese ones. The Golden Gate Bridge is hung with paper lanterns and shimenawa rope. The hillside sign above Neo Yokohama, which in the real world reads Hollywood, reads NEO YOKOHAMA. The creative director explained the lantern-and-rope treatment in 2024 with a simple analogy: the team imagined a Japantown the way a person imagines a Chinatown.
