After a long day of journeying through some apocalyptic wasteland, ancient forest, or urban jungle, laying waste to baddies, and ducking off the path to find treasure, you tend to be up to your ankles in spoils. When your knapsack is bursting with coin, you retreat like a good little capitalist to the place that makes it all okay, the marketplace, where the only threats are high prices.
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Video game marketplaces are unsung comforts within video games, places of brief reprieve from whatever virtuous slog your player character has undertaken. There are rarely enemies present, and the place is usually stocked with a witty shopkeeper and upgrades galore. Here, we take a second to appreciate these virtual oases in the harsh desert of video games.
10 Beedle's Backpack from The Legend of Zelda
While this up-and-coming Zelda businessman has been a proprietor of both an Air Shop and a Ship Shop in his past incarnations, his most recent fame in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom has come from a humbler marketplace. Beedle has been working out, clearly, as he hoists his entire inventory around Hyrule on his back.
While some may think it questionable to call this beetle-shaped backpack a marketplace in and of itself, consider how many trinkets and tinctures are poking out of his pack. With the sheer size of this one backpack, which looks like it could hold three Beedles, it's clear that this marketplace is remarkable. Almost as remarkable as the swole Beedle's energetic charm.
9 Kecleon Shop from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
A staple of the often-overlooked Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, the Kecleon Shop is a welcome sight for those keen on finding the odd Berry or Wonder Orb. While some may think that most business owners are somewhat cold-blooded, this reptilian retailer literally is. Kecleon, the Gen-III Color Swap Pokemon, might be a lizard. But he is warm and affable when he knows he can make a sale.
One particular quirk of this marketplace is that it can appear not just in towns but in dungeons, the latter of which can provide the player the opportunity to steal items from Kecleon. Instead of calling the police, however, Kecleon's cold-bloodedness comes out in full as he chases you down at Level 90 to punish you until you are left with nothing but Plain Seeds and a bruised ego.
8 Nook’s Cranny from Animal Crossing
While Tom Nook has long been understood as the most vicious and underhanded capitalist that video games have ever seen, you can't deny that his general store is charming. Though he passes the mantle onto his nephews, Timmy and Tommy, his brand remains etched onto the building, just like everything in the world of Animal Crossing.
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While these pleasant social simulation games reward resource-gathering of your own accord, there are times when you'd like a Colorful Juice or a Knife Block without all the hassle. So, you sigh and show up yet again to Nook's Cranny, where the charming ambiance is almost enough to make you forget about all the bells you're giving to support Tom Nook's gradual monopoly over existence.
7 Pierre’s from Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley, though it certainly takes pages from Animal Crossing's book, chooses to give the player some autonomy over where they spend their money, providing you a choice between the bleak and soulless capitalist dream of JojaMart and Pierre's, rendered in bright pastels with sleek hardwood.
This game captures that feeling of how good it is to support local businesses. You're not going to cave and go to JojaMart because despite Pierre's slightly higher prices, his store is a great commute located in the beating heart of Pelican Town and allows you to enjoy the company of Pierre, Caroline, and of course, the ultimate alt-girl Abigail. The one thing our corporate overlords will never have.
6 Wellgrove Department Store from Octopath Traveler 2
Octopath Traveler 2, much like its prequel, continues the fascinating idea of devoting an entire story to commerce and merchants, this time through the dashing entrepreneur Partitio. As part of his journey to eliminate poverty by democratizing steam technology, he must convince a wealthy benefactor that he's worth investing in.
A welcome break from fighting corrupted clergy, plague doctors, and genocide generals, Partitio must bring the novel idea of a 'department store' to life in order to revitalize the fallen economic center of Wellgrove. The impressive halls and bustling commotion of the finished product only make us even more impressed with the spunky and socially-conscious merchant.
5 Heft from Kenshi
Though this city looks like a grim collection of scrap metal, it is, in fact, the capital city of the United Cities' empire and a welcome refuge from the hostility of the Great Desert. In Kenshi's ruined world of wandering apocalyptic ronin, towns are the only places where disputes are settled over coins instead of katanas. And, there is no town mightier than Heft.
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Run by the impulsive Emperor Tengu, Heft contains several stores where nomadic samurai can purchase the season's hottest new weapons and armor pieces, including exclusive Heft-variants. While it might look devastated and wholly unpleasant, Heft is a lesson in understanding that the best deals might be in the crummiest packaging.
4 Shibuya Central Street from Persona 5
The first and only interpretation of a real-world place gracing our list, Persona 5's Shibuya serves as the central marketplace for the dashing Phantom Thieves. Modeled after the special ward of Tokyo, Central Street is bumping with the commerce you'd expect for the largest mega-city in the world.
The hotspot for purchasing groceries, books, Big Bang Burgers, airsoft guns, or eldritch thought-Pokemon conjured in Joker's mind-prison, Shibuya is alive and bustling for the entire game. A refuge from the depths of Mementos and the complex trials of the Palaces, this distinctly urban marketplace refreshes and delights us, even when it's revealed to be run by a gang that scams high-schoolers.
3 Bazaar from Merchant of the Skies
This dream-like imagination of an archipelago of floating islands with Majestic Carrots and Fish Gods is juxtaposed by the ever-present fear of bankruptcy and market failure. Merchant of the Skies has you play as a budding new airship pilot keen on creating a shipping empire in this mysterious world.
While there are markets present on most islands that you'll encounter, none is as bustling or as boisterous as the Bazaar. With differing levels of patronage based on which day of the week you visit, the Bazaar is often the place to make big sales, especially seeing as it's the only island where you can sell those illustrious Golden Eggs. Impressive in its simple architecture, the Bazaar harkens back to markets of old.
2 Anchor from Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst
Nearing the top of the list, we see modernity, luxury, and scale coalesce into a capitalist dream. The Anchor district in Mirror's Edge: Catalyst's dystopian City of Glass is a marketplace of riches and decadence beyond compare. Filled to the brim with hot nightclubs like Sloth and stores like the Anansi Emporium and the soon-to-be complete Bauble Mall, its affluence is obvious.
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This reinterpretation of the classic Mirror's Edge is not explicitly about money but tends to comment on the concept indirectly, creating a setting that is literally run by corporate overlords who plan to control the masses through brain-chip scans called Reflection. This marketplace, while a haven for the citizens of Glass certainly, is also a sleek reminder of the dangers of corporate rule and the darkness lurking behind commerce.
1 Corpo Plaza from Cyberpunk 2077
Similar to the previous entry is the awe-inspiring Corpo Plaza of Cyberpunk 2077's Night City. With a futuristic 'neo-postmodern' feel, Corpo Plaza is the economic tour de force that most dystopian districts could only dream of possessing. With sleek brands like the fashionable Appel de Paris and The View, a luxury mall, patrons can sit back and take in the boons of those who surrender to the corpos.
Set in the ever-cynical Night City, there are humorous nods to Corpo Plaza's unsuccessful efforts to forget its checkered past, like a nightclub called Empathy. It's clear that even though the Fourth Corporate War did a number on the locale, it remains an impressive and decadent pillar of corporate victory. This global marketplace, though tinged with sorrow, is one of the best that video games have seen.
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