As a Portuguese, it's rly incredible to finally see my culture represented in a videogame, especially since Esperança is based in my hometown Porto. So I just wanted to show you some comparisons and point out some details that will escape most people, since Portuguese representation is non-existent in the media:
When Esperança loads, you can immediately see that the map is heavily inspired by Aliados/Santa Catarina street/Bolhão and what is obviously supposed to be the chapel of souls or the church dos Congregados, the 'elétrico' (yellow tram), and its many metro/tram tracks that cover our cobblestone streets. A nice lil detail is that there is a lot of construction work happening on the map just like all over Porto since we became one of the top cities to invest in with our tourism boom.
You can go to a fado place. Hey ever heard about fado? Probably not - here is my favorite if you'd like to listen. Fado is traditional Portuguese music that according to google 'evokes a despairing belief in a futile destiny filled with pining and hopelessness'. Portuguese culture it's pretty melancholic, yeah.
You will see these ceramic black chickens, they're called rooster of Barcelos. Everyone used to have one in their homes but now it's kind of corny decor and sold as tourist trinkets mostly.
You have of course our river and rabelo boats and what I believe is a picture of our windmills and highways (which I immediately recognized from driving across the country) and our dams (this might be weird but Portuguese dams are so beautiful! they look gigantic and we don't have plain land so to me they always look like something straight out of LOTR).
Porto is a cobblestone street city, with gothic and Manueline-style architecture that you can see all over Esperança. On the map, I found our loooooooooong steep staircases, (fuck) ctt mailboxes, gazebos, our distinct direction signs, our tall tower of clérigos, and our city hall. Also, Lusitano tile repairing is such a nice lil nod to Porto's commitment to rehabilitating our tile-decorated façades. There's also a giant Portuguese flag I forgot to screenshot that is a nod to our giant flag in Cais de Gaia (can't find a picture but it's ridiculously gigantic trust me).
Chestnuts, chouriço assado, our coffee shops filled with our traditional coffee cups, queijadas and natas (if you are from Lisbon and tell me to call it pastel de nata will literally punch you this is Porto map so it's nata), and of course BREAD. In the map one of the spawns is an adega full of wine barrels - you can google it but Porto was a port (hint hint) for wine and our culture is very connected to wine. And yes we still have them and you can visit them for wine tasting.
There's our yellow metro and idk if this was intended, but we have invested a lot of money to have a TGV (high-speed train) and it's supposed to connect Porto to the capital in just 1:15 hours but it's been like a decade and only now it seems they are serious about it - anyway, I found the timetable for the highspeed amusing.
And who is the guy in the portrait? Well, he looks like 95% of all Portuguese men. If you know a Portuguese guy chances are he is short, has dark brown hair with unkept beard, and glasses too. I bet his name is Luís Miguel João Pedro.
By the way, if you don't know, Esperança means Hope.
