Looking for the Foursides, Goldenrods, whatever village or town or city you remembered from video games and that can be thoroughly explored and that are considered "big"
Kinda funny but I remember how vast Minniopolis seemed in The Urbz Sims in the City for GBA and DS and I saw a map this year that looked so tiny, amazing how big it felt at the time
I was going to say fourside, but you beat me to it, and the emptiness of it definitely played on the feeling of largeness.
There's also Castellia city in pokemon b&w, the people wandering and the 3d buildings made it look like a real city, alive and busy.
Idk if it counts, but in Professor Layton, when i didn't know what to do, i would desperately walk across the locations of the city and then realise it's quite big for there to be buses and streets.