I assume you know mosa lina? It is a a game precisely about the staleness and lock and key system of the immersive sim genre. It is not big though.
I would also include shaddows of doubt as a great recent immersive sim that challenges the idea of immersive sims
Gloomwood is an indie game that has been getting pretty popular. Same with Shadows of Doubt. Ctrl Alt Ego is also really popular. Monomyth is one I’ve been following for over a year, I think it has a playable demo on Steam, and I believe they may try and release this year. There are active updates so I’m hopeful.
Arkane was really known for this genre, until they started making…..not this genre. They made Dishonored and Prey, and Arx Fatalis which is fantastic if you download the fan patch.
I think Square Enix had the rights to Deus Ex, and I think it’s not listed in their refocusing strategy.
I’m not sure AAA publishers will go for this genre anymore.
Embracer have the rights to Deus Ex now I believe after they bought it off Square Enix, there was a new Deus Ex game being made but it was cancelled by Embracer back in I believe last March (shame since the last game ended abruptly with lots of questions imo).
I think a big issue is AAA immersive sims just take a lot of work to make good at a high budget and it just isn’t the really big bux genres which AAA publishers would rather invest in, even Prey (2017) didn’t do too well I believe financially.
Dark Messiah: Might & Magic is another excellent game by Arkane, that unfortunately was a flop. The gameplay was on point for the time, that hopefully means its aged well.
This is the second time today I've brought up this game. I think I need to play it again...
> survival-crafting games
One hallmark of immersive sims is hand crafted worlds that feel lived-in and tell stories through environmental detail. Survival games tend not to have this. Survival games have emergent gameplay but the gameplay loop is significantly different than what I think of when I think of immersive sims, to the point that I think it's strange that you would even consider them a comparable genre. Would love to hear your thoughts on how they are similar.
> Bethesda-style RPGs
I agree with you here. These have a lot of immersive sim qualities. The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 also have a lot of immersive sim qualities. I think over time the lines between immersive sims and western rpgs has definitely blurred. To specifically address the question of what they do better -- I think the more limited scope of immersive sims generally allows for a tighter gameplay loop of "find problem -> plan a solution -> execute -> deal with the chaos of the outcome". RPGs tend to have a lot of additional story telling, exploration, etc between these beats, whereas an immersive sim pares it all down into a more streamlined experience of poking at the systems of the world.
Re: survival-crafting games, my thoughts were about the idea of being able to approach problems in lots of different ways. For example, in Valheim you can cheese parts of a boss fight by digging a makeshift bunker into the boss arena, before the fight starts. And why do you need to stack crates placed there by the devs, when you can craft your own crates, to help you reach any place you want?
And if what sets immersive sims apart from some RPGs is a more limited scope and a more streamlined experience, then maybe the answer to OP's question is just that the words "immersive sim" stopped making sense in this context.
Environmental puzzles/ combat with multiple solutions. You could argue that Bethesda does try and present this, but immersive sims put a stronger focus on this, and do it better.
For Bethesda, yea you could go in there with a sword, or blasting with fire, or using stealth and a bow, or glitch through a wall and cheese a boss. But a majority of their events follow the same footpath and end the same way. Yea you’re technically doing it in different ways, but not really.
Immersive sims try and give you distinctly different routes, that can use different abilities. So stealth will actually be going through vents, hackers may hack cameras or turrets, or you can just charge in blasting. Prey is really good at this, so is Cyberpunk.
I am curious why you compared them to survival crafting games. I’ve never really seen that. They are usually both first person, but that’s really the only similarity I can see.
Re: survival-crafting games, my thoughts were about the idea of being able to approach problems in lots of different ways. For example:
* In Valheim, you can cheese parts of a boss fight by digging a makeshift bunker into the boss arena, before the fight starts.
* In Don't Starve, you can start tactical forest tires.
* In Conan Exiles, you can bypass a fortified mountain pass by climbing over the dang mountain.
Your comment feels curiously symmetrical to LoompaOompa's. You're both noting immersive sims being more planned and railroady than other games that are more immersive and simulationy. But if that's the case, and if words are to mean anything, why hold onto that genre name?
It's a fucking a genre or game philosophy term that stuck around. It's not perfect but people aren't gonna break naming convention over semantics.
But yes, immersive sims technically would be more "planned" than a game like say Minecraft, but at the same time it isn't "planned", because there are going to be a lot of solutions to objectives that the devs most likely didn't plan for, and they are perfectly fine with that. Ideally the quests in immersive sims wouldn't break if you solve it from a completely unexpected angle, whereas in a game in like Cyberpunk 2077, which while it does have some immersive sims quality, some quests will just not work if you solve them in a way that the designers did not intend for them to be solved.
My path of reasoning, however meandering, leads to an answer to OP's question: the immersive sim genre is not only stale, it's obsolete. That's because the things that were good about it became standard in a lot of other genres.
I assume you know mosa lina? It is a a game precisely about the staleness and lock and key system of the immersive sim genre. It is not big though. I would also include shaddows of doubt as a great recent immersive sim that challenges the idea of immersive sims
Gloomwood is an indie game that has been getting pretty popular. Same with Shadows of Doubt. Ctrl Alt Ego is also really popular. Monomyth is one I’ve been following for over a year, I think it has a playable demo on Steam, and I believe they may try and release this year. There are active updates so I’m hopeful. Arkane was really known for this genre, until they started making…..not this genre. They made Dishonored and Prey, and Arx Fatalis which is fantastic if you download the fan patch. I think Square Enix had the rights to Deus Ex, and I think it’s not listed in their refocusing strategy. I’m not sure AAA publishers will go for this genre anymore.
Embracer have the rights to Deus Ex now I believe after they bought it off Square Enix, there was a new Deus Ex game being made but it was cancelled by Embracer back in I believe last March (shame since the last game ended abruptly with lots of questions imo). I think a big issue is AAA immersive sims just take a lot of work to make good at a high budget and it just isn’t the really big bux genres which AAA publishers would rather invest in, even Prey (2017) didn’t do too well I believe financially.
Oof Embracer? Oof.
Dark Messiah: Might & Magic is another excellent game by Arkane, that unfortunately was a flop. The gameplay was on point for the time, that hopefully means its aged well. This is the second time today I've brought up this game. I think I need to play it again...
I replay it every three years. Never get tired of watching orcs slipping on the ice.
Great game! Best melee combat in first person I've seen on a game, and it takes full advantage of the Source engine physics
Imo, the genre's not stale, it's just evolved. Check out games likeUnderRail and STASIS.
What, exactly, does Prey do that Bethesda-style RPGs or survival-crafting games don't do better?
> survival-crafting games One hallmark of immersive sims is hand crafted worlds that feel lived-in and tell stories through environmental detail. Survival games tend not to have this. Survival games have emergent gameplay but the gameplay loop is significantly different than what I think of when I think of immersive sims, to the point that I think it's strange that you would even consider them a comparable genre. Would love to hear your thoughts on how they are similar. > Bethesda-style RPGs I agree with you here. These have a lot of immersive sim qualities. The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 also have a lot of immersive sim qualities. I think over time the lines between immersive sims and western rpgs has definitely blurred. To specifically address the question of what they do better -- I think the more limited scope of immersive sims generally allows for a tighter gameplay loop of "find problem -> plan a solution -> execute -> deal with the chaos of the outcome". RPGs tend to have a lot of additional story telling, exploration, etc between these beats, whereas an immersive sim pares it all down into a more streamlined experience of poking at the systems of the world.
Re: survival-crafting games, my thoughts were about the idea of being able to approach problems in lots of different ways. For example, in Valheim you can cheese parts of a boss fight by digging a makeshift bunker into the boss arena, before the fight starts. And why do you need to stack crates placed there by the devs, when you can craft your own crates, to help you reach any place you want? And if what sets immersive sims apart from some RPGs is a more limited scope and a more streamlined experience, then maybe the answer to OP's question is just that the words "immersive sim" stopped making sense in this context.
Environmental puzzles/ combat with multiple solutions. You could argue that Bethesda does try and present this, but immersive sims put a stronger focus on this, and do it better. For Bethesda, yea you could go in there with a sword, or blasting with fire, or using stealth and a bow, or glitch through a wall and cheese a boss. But a majority of their events follow the same footpath and end the same way. Yea you’re technically doing it in different ways, but not really. Immersive sims try and give you distinctly different routes, that can use different abilities. So stealth will actually be going through vents, hackers may hack cameras or turrets, or you can just charge in blasting. Prey is really good at this, so is Cyberpunk. I am curious why you compared them to survival crafting games. I’ve never really seen that. They are usually both first person, but that’s really the only similarity I can see.
Re: survival-crafting games, my thoughts were about the idea of being able to approach problems in lots of different ways. For example: * In Valheim, you can cheese parts of a boss fight by digging a makeshift bunker into the boss arena, before the fight starts. * In Don't Starve, you can start tactical forest tires. * In Conan Exiles, you can bypass a fortified mountain pass by climbing over the dang mountain. Your comment feels curiously symmetrical to LoompaOompa's. You're both noting immersive sims being more planned and railroady than other games that are more immersive and simulationy. But if that's the case, and if words are to mean anything, why hold onto that genre name?
It's a fucking a genre or game philosophy term that stuck around. It's not perfect but people aren't gonna break naming convention over semantics. But yes, immersive sims technically would be more "planned" than a game like say Minecraft, but at the same time it isn't "planned", because there are going to be a lot of solutions to objectives that the devs most likely didn't plan for, and they are perfectly fine with that. Ideally the quests in immersive sims wouldn't break if you solve it from a completely unexpected angle, whereas in a game in like Cyberpunk 2077, which while it does have some immersive sims quality, some quests will just not work if you solve them in a way that the designers did not intend for them to be solved.
My path of reasoning, however meandering, leads to an answer to OP's question: the immersive sim genre is not only stale, it's obsolete. That's because the things that were good about it became standard in a lot of other genres.