The 15 Best Video Game Castles (And Their Real-Life Counterparts)

Video games draw heavily from fantasy literature, a genre rooted in medieval traditions. These collaborations of nerd and geek culture (both specific and separate), these noble, fortified settlements inspired by European and Middle Eastern architecture are just begging to house kidnapped princesses, or to be invaded, or to produce winged beasties.

Tracing the lineage of the stone bastions back further, formative fantasy writers found inspiration for their mythical strongholds in the ruins of real castles across the Northern Hemisphere. By degrees of separation, these are fifteen video game castles and the real counterparts that indirectly inspired their creation.

Hasdeu Castle, like Redcliffe Castle, hold the taint of the undead. Built in Campina, Romania in 1893, Hasdeu Castle was erected as an homage to the politician and historian Bogdan Hasdeu and his then deceased daughter, Iulia.

It is, as any castle in Romania should be, reportedly haunted. Redcliffe Castle, an ancient castle of Ferelden, is discovered in a state of undead chaos, overrun by evil spirits and demon children. These may not be the only two castles to ever feel the touch of the ethereal, but bear a ghostly resemblance.

Babylon is not the parkour paradise it once was. In the time of Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, every wall was stamped with footprints, every ledge worn, and every rope hanging conspicuously from the ceiling.

Today, the former Akkadian city-state of southern Iraq is little more than a collection of crumbled pillars and the occasional wall adorned by Sumerian script. Persepolis used to hold one of the largest castles in Babylon until it was attacked by, I’m assuming, an immortal Vizier and his dark army of skeleton warrior trolls. History is bizarre.

In the annals of non-descript castles, Castle 2-3 just barely beats out Castle 1-4. Though rare in its all-brick construction, the interior designs are what made these underling castles famous.

Granted, there were never any princesses inside them. Fitchburg’s Castle, more gift shop than fortress, is also empty of any castle-signifiers. American’s never were concerned by siege fortification or hapless royalty.

Among the older Bavarian castles still standing, Lowenburg Castle, or Lion Castle, has required constant maintenance and reconstruction since its construction. Similarly, Boletarian Palace totally blows.

That is, Demon’s Souls has created its niche following by embracing its polarizing difficulty, and its sequel, Dark Souls, follows suit. The thin, reconstructed halls of Lowenburg, bear a resemblance to the Boletarian Palace visually, and are a chore as much in spirit.

Game-to-movie adaptations disappoint, and they should. How could something improve by taking away interactivity. agency? Game-to-movie-to-real adaptations are even worse. The temple at Ta Prohm, an overgrown Buddhist meditation station in Cambodia, served as the setting for a few scenes in the 2001 adventure flick Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

The film was, not surprisingly, breast-centric, doing little justice to the millennial legacy of the temple. 2008 saw the intellectual property return to the presumption of the Buddhist relic in Tomb Raider: Underworld, recapturing the mystery and puzzle of archaeology, and staying fairly breast-centric.

The real Rub ‘Al Khali is empty, but the deserts of Azraq, Jordan are not. In fact, T. E. Lawrence spent time at Qasr al-Azraq chronicling his travels. Uncharted 3 seems to have an appreciation for that literature, and likely drew some inspiration for the settlement in the Rub ‘Al Khali from this ruined castle.

Both presumably arose from nearby oases and thrived on their tactical location along trade routes, and later fell into vacancy and disuse because the inhabitants realized they were living in a damn desert.

Castles with three-story skulls adorning the portcullis are few. In fact, there may have only ever been one, and it was torn down in 2007. Skull Castle was a failed haunted house in Orlando, Florida that offered thrill-seekers all the terror of being inside a skeleton with five times the property tax.

Dr. Wily must have found a prime piece of real estate to keep his castle around for so many Mega Man iterations, and to afford robotic dragons, tanks, and an unreal collection of ladders. And, like Skull Castle, gamers haven’t seen hide or hair of Dr. Wily or his fortress for some years now, and landlord Capcom refuses to relent.

By the time of the Red Wings, moats were out and air travel was in, which occurs sometime after the fourteenth century when Bodiam Castle was built to keep the surface-bound French out of England.

Both follow traditional keep design, using an exterior wall with turreted towers to protect inner structures, keeping the most valuable individuals at the center of the structure. Similarly, Final Fantasy IV has received critical acclaim for its delicate handling of the main element, Cecil and Rosa’s relationship. A stretch? Definitely.

These castles share Scandinavian inspirations, Bohus Fortress as the product of Norwegian ingenuity and High Hrothgar arising from an American game developer’s fantasy vision of a Nordic hinterland. Hrothgar may sit atop seven thousand steps, near the peak of the tallest mountain in Tamriel, but it merely plays host to a gaggle of aged, religious monks.

Though long bereft of shouting geriatrics, Bohus Fortress stands a mighty forty meters above the surrounding Swedish land to instill fear in the neighboring Norwegians. Tremble with fear, surrounding Swedish countryside; these Danes are fortified.

Bran Castle is often associated with Vlad III, also known as Vlad the Impaler, commonly believed to be the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” which in turn inspired a series of four vampire-themed fantasy romance novels titled Twilight.

Experts assert that the Castlevania video game series, which also draws indirectly from Bran Castle’s former inhabitants, is more closely tied to the historic origin of vampires than Twilight. Statistically, Twihards are indifferent to this fact. Reportedly, gamers are.

PC Gamers in the late ‘90s learned the tactical value of castles through Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. Especially when utilizing the Britons for their yeomen longbow fortifications, these gamers repelled cavalry and infantry armies by leagues. Like the original denizens of Braemar Castle, however, they learned that the invention of the trebuchet brought all manner of stone fortresses to a swift surrender.

Today, trebuchets launch pumpkins close to a mile in distance. Sorry, ‘90s PC gamers, this is one lesson to forget.

In the early 16th century, shortly after the Wedderhede family inherited Thirlestane Castle, the Wedderhede family was murdered. In November 2009, a new owner of the castle was revealed along with a number of structural and landscaping adjustments, including large spiked turrets, a portcullis, a lava moat, and a collection of stone reliefs.

Later that month, approximately ten hours later, the owner and his family were also murdered, reportedly by the castle’s plumber. Scottish castles are notoriously haunted.

Patrice Desilets and the developers at Ubisoft Montreal had a keen eye for creative application of history when originally conceiving the “historical fiction action-adventure open world stealth video game” Assassin’s Creed. The real Masyaf Castle, as featured in the game and its sequels, housed Rashid ad-Din Sinan and his radical Islamic sect known as the Hashshashin.

Sinan and other Hashshashin leaders referred to their followers as Asasiyun, which later became the English word “assassin”. Not surprisingly, the Hashshashin of Masyaf performed the functions associated with the word “assassin” during the time of The Crusades. The rabbit hole goes deeper, but suffice it to say that Ubisoft did its homework, and the curators of the Masyaf Castle ruins can expert gamer pilgrimages to follow.

Neuschwanstein Castle has spawned more 1000 piece picture puzzles than any other castle in history, probably. Its regal spires sprinkled across the 19th century Bavarian Estate set high on a hilltop was the primary template for the design of Disney’s iconic Sleeping Beauty Castle.

Sleeping Beauty’s distressed damsel act has been recreated in myriad media forms, but Zelda has recreated the myth more closely than most. By the transitive property, Neuschwanstein Castle owes its continued upkeep to the Master Sword. Midna be praised.

Gaming archaeologists have yet to find evidence of a stealth agent infiltrating a German castle and stealing truckloads of war plans. They do confirm that, assuming the agent executed his directive properly, there would be no evidence.

Wewelsburg Castle, an archaeological, scientific, and military SS training castle during World War II, was burned down prior to the end of the war, erasing any trace of double-agent dealings or U.S. infiltrations prior.

While the fire is attributed to Heinrich Himmler’s henchmen, the possibility that an exploding robot Hitler ignited the embroidered Prussian curtains still exists and has yet to be refuted with certainty. Castle Wolfenstein may yet exist.