A recent study dug into the wide world of role-playing games to determine which settings would make for nice spots to settle down permanently. The study discovered that the eponymous province from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is actually a pretty decent place to live, as is the setting of Monster Hunter World.
The study, carried out by British electronics retailer Currys, found that, based on a number of metrics including safety, cost of living, and employment opportunities. That last metric plays a pretty large part in Skyrim's placement. Because the game had the second most quests of all the titles surveyed, it earned a very respectable rating. The world of Skyrim is, surprisingly, also one of the safest -- while adventurers are sure to take a few blows from dragons, the average citizen is fairly well-protected.
At the very bottom of the list is Borderlands 2. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Handsome Jack's totalitarian rule over Pandora makes for some pretty harsh living conditions. According to Currys, Pandora ranked extremely low on safety, average income, and entertainment. While Vault Hunters struggle to survive, they don't have many opportunities to take advantage of the levity of a live concert.
Surprisingly, the seemingly idyllic world of Pokémon ranks fourth on the list, behind both Monster Hunter World and The Witcher 3. Regular folks in Monster Hunter World are at constant risk of an Agnaktor attack, and The Witcher 3's setting calls for a literal class of monster slayers to keep the average person from being devoured by necrophages, but according to Currys, both worlds are rife with opportunities to take one's mind off the grueling task of collecting bounties on monsters' heads.
Pokémon, meanwhile, suffers from some troublesome cost of living issues. While it's a pretty safe setting (for humans, anyway), that safety comes at a cost. As Currys points out, one bike will cost a resident somewhere in the ballpark of one million PokéCoins -- by Currys' conversion rate, that's around $10,000 USD. Still, there is some benefit to residing in one of the only RPG settings where monsters won't accost the average person, so long as they stay out of the tall grass.
Currys' methodology relies on translating somewhat inconsistent video game economies to real life, but it provides a fairly accurate representation of the quality of life across different role-playing game settings. As with real life, everyone's mileage will vary when it comes to deciding on a digital world to settle down in forever.
Source: Currys