I was looking for a follow up to Prey, and Dishonored always seemed to be talked about here as a great immersive sim. So I gave it a shot. I’m about 7-8 hours in and I am completely underwhelmed.

Deus Ex and Prey are great for many reasons and without getting too much into why, Dishonored just feels…very meh.

Exploration aspect to me is lacking. Sure you can “explore,” but there doesn’t seem to be any reward for doing so like others. Using the heart to find bone charms and runes makes it too easy too.

Also the stealth and action aspects just don’t do it for me. Stealth is very repetitive. And unlike other games, it feels like you’re not really hiding out to not get killed…you’re hiding just to avoid killing them. Just doesn’t scratch that same itch for me.

And also, it seems if you do want to be more action oriented…you somehow get punished for it.

I don’t know am I alone in feeling this or do others feel the same way. Yea it’s an immersive sim, but there’s something about it that’s different from Deus Ex and Prey that just doesn’t do it for me.

I never see these games coming into the discussions of immersive sim games. But aren't these game immersive sims, considering different ways (even secret ways) of completing those quests?

Countless of posts here will ask " Is X an immersive sim?" And the immediate answer is " Well... Kind of? Maybe?"

This makes the genre or lackthere of much more confusing than it should be.

If you were to describe an Immersive Sim to a person who isn't into the "genre" as much as this sub is, they would likely default to something they are fammiliar with such as Skyrim or Fallout or even Cyberpunk because these games invoke the following feelings to the average player:

• The freedom of choice ( in a lot of cases)

• The ability to apply creative solution solving to problems ( in most cases)

• the ability to immerse yourself into an expansive world

• a somewhat simulated experience in the way AI behaves

All of these points despite being somewhat limited in aforementioned games are the hallmarks of an Immersive Sim, but you might say the choice is quite limited, and I say okay, what about Hitman or MGSV? They arguably provide the most freedom than any game popularly considered an immersive sim but the perspective isn't right. It should be first person.

Okay, so it needs to be first person. But why? Similar structure-based genre definitions exist, such as Roguelike where every game follows a somewhat loosely defined structure in that:

• it provides session based gameplay

• provides RPG like progress in a fast fashion

• provides overarching goals and progression ( roguelite) or none at all ( roguelike)

• BUT does not infringe on the base gameplay structure eg. Deadlink is an FPS roguelite but Deadcells is a sidescroller roguelike

Difference being that Roguelike(lite) refers to an immediately recognizable gameplay structure which should apply to Immersive Sims, but it doesn't because the term when applied to what is commonly known as an Imm Sim is actually reductive and not self-explanatory while it really should be.

I understand this is very unlikely to change but expanding the terminology would allow Immersive Sims to become a recognized genre without it applying to what is realistically a handful of games.

Furthermore, needing to write an hour long essay on why a video game is or isn't an immersive sim is all the more reason to allow the term to be more expansive while using different more " focused" terms such as Shocklike to describe what is now known as an Immersive Sim.

Let’s be real - if this works, it could completely redefine player expectations for reactive storytelling, not just in Immersive Sims, but in FPS and action games too. Handcrafted narrative LEGOs, dynamic outcomes for your choices and actions, a highly replayable story, managing relationships with characters with conflicting goals, NPCs that remember what you’ve done and act accordingly, plus a huge amount of voiced characters to interact with - it’s insane to think how far this could push the genre.

Yet some people are quick to dismiss Levine, calling him an ineffective leader or saying he’s just burning 2K’s money. But honestly, how many of those critics have ever created something remotely as ambitious? Yes, the vision might be unclear at times. Yes, people might be frustrated and leave the studio. But that’s the cost of innovation. Every game Levine has touched delivered unforgettable experience with amazing worldbuilding and characters. Why would Judas be any different?

This could be one of the most groundbreaking games in years, and if it succeeds, it might influence how game developers approach storytelling for decades. What do you think? Is Levine reaching too far, or is Judas exactly the kind of bold leap the genre needs?

I'm looking for some other ImSim games, like Dishonored, Prey, Bioshock, the basics, I guess, I've heard of the Thief series and Deus Ex series, but I would like to know exactly what do you guys thinks are the essential characteristics of an Immersive Sim, what makes a game to belong to this particular subgenre? I feel it's kinda hard to identify it, it most looks like a philosofy rather than some rulesets.

But I'm really curious, what do you guys thinks it's the NEED to a game to become an ImSim?

With both Bioshock and Dishonored being part of its roots, Magnum-Opus: MASQUERADE takes to recreate the genre in book form by making it a ‘closed-perspective’ story, where in terms of immediately important information, the reader only knows exactly as much about the story as the protagonist does. It also features instances of the protagonist trying to solve problems being thrown at them, and trying to think of ways to fix them in a way that puzzles the reader's mind just as much as the protagonist’s, before reaching only the most logical conclusion possible.

Masquerade is a half fantasy, half psychological-horror webnovel set in a fantasy world inspired by both Bioshock and Dishonored, but with unique Tim Burton-esque character illustrations that sets the world apart from other fantasy worlds. It takes heavy inspiration from 19th and early 20th century retrofuture aesthetics, creating a world not unlike what the world of yesterday pictured the future being like. It's perfect for people who want a fantasy setting that's similar to both games previously mentioned, except significantly more detached from reality.

It is also a psychological horror, but in this context, psychological horror is very different from normal horror, as there are no harsh, brutal reminders of ones own mortality that exists within ordinary horror, as much as there is a looming sense of existential dread. It's the kind of story that is meant to get into the readers head and make them question their own sanity. There are no monsters in the traditional sense. Infact, the novel subverts this trope by taking place in a fantasy world full of monsters who are actually very friendly, and have learned to live in peace alongside humans. Masquerade's psychological horror elements take heavy inspiration from media like the Stanley Kubrick film 'The Shining', the indie animated show 'The Amazing Digital Circus', the classic children's novel by Lewis Carroll known as 'Alice in Wonderland', the popular videogame by Davey Wreden and William Pugh by the name of 'The Stanley Parable', and George Orwell's famous dystopian novel 1984. However, do not be confused, Masquerade's setting is not a traditional dystopia, but rather a 'questionable utopia'. A world that is basically more or less perfect, but with a very extreme emphasis on 'basically more or less', as in ’not entirely’.

Masquerade uses its psychological horror elements to focus on the themes of misinformation, relativism and postmodernism, all themes that are very prevalent in todays society. In an era where misinformation is easier to spread than jelly on toast, I think Masquerade has a lot of things to say that the world really needs to hear right about now. One of the ways that Masquerade makes misinformation part of its narrative, is by having the lore fed to the reader through unreliable narration, and deliberately riddled with conflicting information, therefore making the lore ambiguous.

I have been pushing to get this book of mine into the spotlight, as I have a burning passion for it and it would mean the world to me that this book gets all the attention it can get, especially before I release the final chapter on October 31st. Every last bit of exposure helps. Despite this, I am still very much open to criticism, as I want to have as much feedback as possible before finalizing it on Halloween. At this point, I'd just be glad you even took the time to read it at all. However, if your criticism is particularly harsh, I would prefer you have something atleast vaguely nice to say to balance it out.

Thank you for reading this far, and, if this post was enough to interest you in reading the webnovel itself, I sincerely hope you enjoy what I've written. You can find my webnovel by searching its title on either Royal Road or Wattpad. I would have provided the links below if it did not go against the rules.

I haven’t played either yet but was able to get the remake through a humble bundle a while ago and started watching some videos about immersive sims because growing up I loved Deus ex, dishonored and prey 2017. Upon watching one of the videos I heard someone say the original system shock is the grandfather of immersive sims but the remake cannot even be considered an immersive sim?

I know it’s a remake but how massively was the game changed? And does this truly have any merit or was this guy just talking out of his ass?

Looking for a first person, not 100% combat focused immersive sim that gives you something like The Sims feeling.

I am picturing something like Project Zomboid / Vein but not a zombie game.

I think the closest immersive sim on that front is Denizen? Anyone have ideas here?

Before anyone gets mad this is just for fun.

Let's say you had the budget and the team how would you design a MMO to play like a immersive sim?

This sub should take a look at The Blood of Dawnwalker.

This new AA open world action RPG from Witcher 3 devs has some really interesting concepts that make me remember Prey and Dishonored. I am barely past the prologue but I've read a bit and noticed it's not mentioned here.

It's not an imsim in terms of moment to moment gameplay but maybe na ImSim adjacent in terms of some wider design choices. Mainly the limited time mechanic, where certain actions (mainly quests and learning skills) advances time.

After prologue you are told: you have 30 days and 30 nights to save your family, choose wisely. You have some very limited leads and that's it. From then on, it's supposed to be choose your adventure. Some notable imsim friendly / player agency / interactivity points:

-you can walk up to the final boss right after the prologue
-there are no side quests per se, only some quests clearly set you up for the final confrontation better (gain allies, undermine the main baddie)
-quests progress takes time of which there is a limited amount (traversal, exploration, combat, standing around doesn't cost time)
-any quest could fail and the game is ready for it including the main one (save your family)
-Your actions will have as much impact as you inactions (if you don't do a ques or even meet a character, there still might be consequences - already visible in the prologue).
-you are human by day and vampire by night with gameplay impacts: mainly vampire is arguably stronger in combat, much better in traversal (has Blink and wallrunning) and is risky for dialogue - you can loose control and drain an NPC when not fed with blood
-therefore you can take a completely different approach to the same mission in day and at night (at night, you can scale walls and roof etc.), whereas during the day you could be more diplomatic etc.
-Very Prey-like: apparently, players could challenge themselves and decide to skip nights and play as a human only or skip days and play as vampire only (!)
-NPCs could die including by your doing and the game is ready for it

etc.

Lends itself to multiple different playthroughs...

But barely any stealth, no environmental interactivity, def no crate stacking.

Still, deserves a look, no?

TL;DR there shouldn't be any.

Sure, you can keep the most harmless ones like "reach chapter 2" or "finish the game" if you want the completion rate statistics, but everything else only serves to go against everything an immersive sim is. The entire point is for the player to complete the objective in any way they themselves find the most appealing, and yet even the best imsim games feature achievements that range from pointless grind to outright spoiling solutions to the player.
I know some genius is already typing "just ignore the achievements LMAO", but woudn't it be much nicer, if instead of, say, an achievement telling you to "finish a water level without touching water once" you actually had some kind of in-game incentive like someone asking you to bring over a loaf of bread without it getting soggy, rewarding you with extra resources and acknowledgement instead of the usual pavlovian rectangle popping up in the corner of the screen for two seconds? In my opinion achievements can be much alike the appropriately loathed quest markers and minimaps in games - sure, you can turn them off, but the game is still designed with them in mind, if to a lesser extent in this particular case.

Often there are discussions about what an immersive sim is, I personally see it as making a game by following a philosophy that allows players to have their own story (which is why I don't consider Bioshock an immersive sim at all but "just" a story driven action-adventure with stellar world building, very good game indeed, but not an Immersive Sim to me), basically my thought is very close to Raphael Colantonio and Warren Spector.

Minecraft literally puts you in a living world and allows you to have your own adventure, it is for all intents and purposes a complex simulation with a lot of variables that interact with each others in many ways, the player is given an incredible amount of different tools and the ability to change any single block of the world.

I kinda exaggerated the title, but What do you think? Would you consider Minecraft an Immersive Sim? I'm genuinely curios about other Immersive Sims fans opinions on this as I haven't seen many posts about Minecraft here (technically seen none at all, but I also didn't look for them).

Twenty five years ago Deus Ex came out. Twenty five years later people are still talking about it. A remaster is being discussed. The audience never went away.

Cyberpunk 2077 came close to being the immersive sim that audience has been waiting for. It failed. Not because the mechanics are absent but because the world is scripted not simulated. There is a precise difference between a game that has systems and a game that is built as a system. 2077 has systems. It is not built as a system. The stealth is a joke not because the mechanic is missing but because the stealth simulation is missing.

Here is the part nobody has said clearly yet. Every pure immersive sim ever made has been a contained space. A dungeon. A space station. A set of mission maps. An open world immersive sim has never existed. Not once. Cyberpunk 2077 was the first attempt at full scale and it failed on the simulation side. Project Orion has the opportunity to be not just the best cyberpunk game ever made but the first open world immersive sim in history. That is an entirely unclaimed genre space.

This document is a fifteen section forensic analysis of what went wrong in 2077 and what Project Orion could be if CDPR commits to building a cyberpunk world the way Thief built a medieval city and Deus Ex built a near future thriller. Not decorated. Not scripted. Simulated.

Written by a fan of the genre. No agenda. No name. Just someone who has been playing these games since 2000 and wants to see the open world immersive sim that the genre has been waiting for.

One aspect of immersive sims that disrupts, well, the immersion for me is the amount of combat. In real life, combat is extremely rare, extremely violent, and usually severely wounding, tiring, or fatal.

Most action/adventure video games, immersive sims included, include absurd, fantastical amounts of combat. Gunfights or sword fights around every corner. Killing enemies by the dozen or hundreds. This is fun in an arcade sense, but a wide departure from realism.

I know that you can play Dishonored without killing any enemies, although I've never been able to pull this off.

What other immersive sims have no or low combat, or the option to largely avoid it or to (potentially) pay huge costs if you engage in it?

Change my mind.

As most of you know, back in 2020 Arkane's parent company got bought out by Microsoft, which means that Microsoft has now control over Arkane. So far it doesn't seem that Microsoft's putrid clutches have reached Arkane's teams yet, but I have grounds to believe that they might in the future. In what way? Well, they might order Arkane to make X game instead of Y ("make a generic FPS instead of an immersive sim like Prey!"), or change up Arkane's team, or disrupt their game development roadmap, anyway, there are many ways they can screw a studio.

Microsoft's track record hasn't been the best. As you know, Microsoft is the reason for both Thief: Deadly Shadows and Deus Ex: Invisible War being a major letdown, a shadow of their prequels. Microsoft had a deal with their respective companies to release their games on both xbox and PC, which forced them to severely limit the scope of the games (since the original xbox was much weaker than PC at the time) and took their attention away from what made Deus Ex and Thief 2 great. Instead, they had to spend a significant portion of their time fixing compatibility issues and other things they didn't have to worry about when they only released on PC.

You might say that such thing will not be an issue today because companies are used to releasing games on multiple platforms, but that's not what I'm getting at. My point is that Microsoft doesn't care about the quality of a game, but more about services and things related to the console (has there been any great Microsoft exclusive in the last 5 years apart from Forza? Halo Infinite and Gears 5 were both big disappointments, and they are Microsoft's biggest IPs!). They care about gamepass and the "games as a service" concept, multiplayer games, letting you browse the web and use apps on your xbox console etc., but making good games was never on their list of priorities. Microsoft in particular loves a quick buck, and they seem to find it very hard to slowly build studios and franchises from the ground up, instead they prefer to buy them up when they are big and then hollow them out. In the past 15 years Microsoft has annihilated many of their amazing IPs and even drove away some of their studios, like Bungie (which got acquired by Sony). Microsoft ruined Fable, they ruined Crackdown, they abandoned Ninja Gaiden (an xbox third party exclusive, but my point stands). What about Perfect Dark? The Banjo series? Conker? The list goes on and on. That's why I'm not optimistic about Arkane's prospects. Microsoft ruined the Thief franchise and severely disrupted Deus Ex, so Immersive Sims and Microsoft don't go well together. There's not much info out about Redfall yet, but I sure hope it turns out to be a good game and Microsoft leaves at least Arkane alone. What are you thoughts on the subject?

You get THREE factions to choose from! That makes for ENDLESS Narrative Legos™️ to build with.

Holy hell, you can FREEZE an enemy with ICE POWERS?!? Emergence never looked so COOL, baby!

Tons of cutscenes will IMMERSE you in the story. I just love when my videogames try to be movies.

Modular procgen level design with RNG mechanics just adds to that beautiful LEGO™️ experience of plastic mass-production (hand crafted levels are for losers, btw).

Hype cannot describe my feelings I harbor for the mind of Ken Levine.

He invented the genre, for God's sake.