Location from Sonic Unleashed by Sonic Team / Sega
A towering metropolis of steel, glass, and neon — the world's biggest city, where the continental fractures turned skyscrapers into cliffside towers and the nightlife took on a much more literal meaning.
Empire City is the planet's largest metropolis and it knows it. The buildings are tall because they can be. The cars are fast because the streets allow it. The people walk quickly and make eye contact with no one. It is a city built on the assumption that human achievement has no limits. The planet shattering challenged that assumption. Skyscrapers that were engineering marvels are now teetering over chasms. Highways end abruptly where the ground split. The city adapted — it always adapts — but the cracks are visible in more ways than one. At night, the famous nightlife takes on a desperate edge. People party harder because the alternative is thinking about the darkness pressing against the windows. Sonic runs through Empire City the way he was meant to — at full speed, threading through traffic, racing along building facades, turning the urban landscape into a track. The Werehog stalks the same streets at night, and they feel like a completely different city.
Massive modern city with a skyline of gleaming skyscrapers, elevated highways, and suspension bridges. Neon signs pulse in every color. Yellow taxis. Steam rising from grates. The architecture is Art Deco meets modern glass-and-steel, and the scale is deliberately overwhelming — everything is taller, wider, and louder than it needs to be. The continental fracture runs through the city's outskirts, and several buildings now lean over the void at angles that should be impossible. At night, the neon becomes the only defense against a darkness that feels thicker here than anywhere else.
Also known as: The Metropolis, The Big City