The City

The City is an otherwise unnamed city in which Heavy Rain takes place. In addition to being the setting, it is the home of almost all the characters who appear in the game.

Location?[]

The game takes place over the course of several days in October 2011. The city that the game takes place in is never named within the game itself, but signs on the highway in the chapter "Crime Scene" indicate that it is somewhere near New York. David Cage of Quantic Dream mentioned that the City is modeled after Philadelphia, and "Tracking the Origami Killer" explicitly names the City as Philadelphia. Furthermore, several clues throughout the game indicate that it takes place in that area:

One of the signs on the highway depicted in concept art for "Fugitive" indicates Philadelphia. The other indicates Plymouth Meeting, which is part of Plymouth, a township in Pennsylvania not far from Philadelphia.
Concept art by Morgan Yon shows Norman Jayden using ARI on a map of Philadelphia.
A piece of concept art of Ethan Mars shows the power plant visible in the background, with "Philadelphia" written above it.
The letter sent to Ethan in "Father and Son" has a stamp on its envelope that reads Philadelphia and is addressed to Camden (presumably Camden, New Jersey, which is directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia).
One of the footprints that Jayden can analyze with ARI in "Crime Scene" belongs to a police officer who lives in Sharswood, a North Philadelphia neighborhood.
If Jayden listens in on Leighton Perry's press conference in "Welcome, Norman," Perry says that Jeremy Bowles' body was discovered in the East End, which refers to a collection of neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
If Ethan turns on the TV in his room before opening the shoebox in "The Motel," Glenn Sanders reports that a child disappeared from the Stanton district, which is in North Philadelphia.
The letter that was sent to Lauren Winter's husband Allan the day their son disappeared is addressed to Springfield, Pennsylvania, as seen in "A Visitor."
Jackson "Mad Jack" Neville is shown to have a Pennsylvania identification card in "Jayden Blues," and both it and an ARI analysis in "Mad Jack" indicate that he lives in Southwest Philadelphia.
There is a map of Philadelphia in Scott Shelby's office.
Lexington Station bears a resemblance to Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, and when Scott drops Lauren off there in "Goodbye Lauren," every listing on the arrival and departure boards includes Philadelphia.
The City is referred to as being on "the east coast."

Despite these clues, a cutscene at the beginning of "The Old Warehouse" (if Ethan arrives) shows a flashback to the scene from "The Mall" in which Scott witnessed Jason's death; the phone number for a store in the background of this scene has a 218 area code, which is assigned to northern Minnesota. (Philadelphia's area code is 215.) However, "A Drop of Water" revealed that the Mars residence is not in the City and that Ethan moved to the City after Jason's death, so it is likely that the mall is not located there either.

Strange Weather Patterns[]

Also unexplained is that the City appears to suffer from abnormal weather, having pouring rain day and night throughout the entire game. It has been stated that the rain only happens during the autumn months, but the reason for this (if there is one) is never revealed.

In certain parts of the game it is shown that the rain does occasionally stop. However, these lapses never seem to last long, and it always starts back up quickly with no sign of it ever lessening.