When Video Games Jump the Screen

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Every March 10, the internet fills with red caps and pixelated plumbers.

When written as MAR10, the date happens to resemble the name “Mario,” which is reason enough for fans—and Nintendo itself—to celebrate the world’s most famous video game plumber. This year the festivities are a little bigger: Super Mario Bros., the platformer that helped define modern gaming, is marking forty years since its international debut.

In the Swedish town of Kungsbacka, Mario already has a permanent post. A life-size version of the character stands outside an office building—red cap, blue overalls, unmistakable mustache.

But this Mario isn’t smashing bricks or leaping over Goombas. He’s greeting visitors outside the headquarters of Bergsala, the company that helped bring Nintendo games to Scandinavia in the early days of the NES.

Elsewhere in the Atlas, video game icons appear in surprising places. In New Hampshire, the towering Donkey Kong Mural celebrates the arcade classic. Paris hides colorful alien mosaics in the form of Paris Space Invaders. In Seattle, Pac-Man Park recreates the maze from the famous arcade game. And beneath the New Mexico desert sits the Alamogordo Landfill, where thousands of unsold Atari cartridges were once secretly dumped.

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Nintendo began in Kyoto in 1889 as a maker of playing cards. More than a century later, it’s responsible for some of the most recognizable game characters on Earth. Along the way, the company has left behind a surprising trail of places tied to its history—from old buildings to landmarks connected to gaming culture. SEE THE FULL LIST

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This is the final resting place of Italo Calivino, one of Italy’s most influential and imaginative writers.

An explosion at what is now the Barutana Memorial Area marked a turning point in the Croatian War of Independence.

Along the bright and whimsical Paul Carr Jogging Trail you can jog (or stroll) down an esplanade of fluctuating sculpture works.

Did You Know?

The video game “Black Myth: Wukong” may feel like modern fantasy, but its roots are centuries old. The game draws from “Journey to the West,” a 16th-century Chinese novel about the mischievous Monkey King, Sun Wukong. The magical trickster can shape-shift, ride clouds, and wield a staff that changes size at will.

The Video Game ‘Black Myth: Wukong’ Has Ancient Roots