GeoGuessr turns Google Street View into a game of investigative orienteering

It's Friday afternoon, which - if you're reading this in the right timezones - means it's time to kick back, let your work-rate slow to a crawl and enter Weekend Chill-Out Mode. At least, that's what's happened to the PC Gamer office, where the existence of GeoGuessr has sent us into a competitive flurry of locational sluething.

Here's how it works: the game plops you into a Google Street View of a random location. From there, you can click around, travelling down roads and looking at landmarks and signs, trying to piece together where in the world you're exploring. Once sure of your location, you pick a spot on the world map in the top corner. The more accurate your geographical guesswork, the higher the score, with your five-round total providing the easy-to-share competitive marker for others to beat.

Admittedly, some locations are easier to place then others:

Head to GeoGuessr.com to start playing. Currently, your score to beat is 10542. Just don't cheat by Google searching the name of whatever village street you're deposited in.

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.