Thread 714785940

Why are these games called immersive?
Cheesing encounters via in game systems isn't immersive- it's just exploiting predictable AI and gamey logic using the tools given by the developer.
You know what is immersive?
Riding in RDR2.
Fighting in the trenches in BF1.
Using a wheel in a racing game.

Glad these pieces of shits aren't profitable and made sparingly.They are antithesis of soul.

>>714785940 (OP)
Immersive sim is an ethos. It's about living inside a simulated world that responds to your actions and can be interacted with in multiple ways. All those games were more interactive and immersive than similar games at the time they came out.

>>714785940 (OP)
Sounds like a you problem

>>714786323
Ergo Super mario bros is an immersive sim

>>714786323
>Immersive sim is an ethos. It's about living inside a simulated world that responds to your actions and can be interacted with in multiple ways.
Duke Nukem 3D is an immersive sim following that definition what you actually are trying to say is you're a fucking retard tell me how is Thief even remotely similar to SS or DX

If you can stack boxes it’s an immersive sim.

idk, to me they're often the opposite of immersive since they promise so much interactivity but then inevitably can't live up to it
it'll let you pick up a glass cup for example, but you can't smash it on someone's head for whatever reason
this sort of disconnect / disappointment never happens in other games because they don't make promises they can't keep

>>714786536
>>714786575
Immersive sims have interacting systems leading to emergent gameplay, or, to paraphrase Warren Spector, it's about giving the players tools to do what they think is cool, rather than what the developer thinks is cool.

>>714785940 (OP)
kys faggot

>>714786935
Skyrim fits the description

>>714785940 (OP)
Ok zoomer.

audio log collecting simulators
not every game in the genre has audio log collecting but all of them have the spirit of collecting audio logs
for example super Mario Bros does not have you collect audio logs

>>714785940 (OP)
>Riding in RDR2.
Cinema mode

>>714785940 (OP)
>RDR2

>>714785940 (OP)
>exploiting gamey logic and using the tools given by the developer
That is what separates vidya from other mediums, retard, where else can you do it
You can watch films about WW1 or the wild west to feel just as "immersed" as in your examples, without having any choice in the matter

>>714786738
>I can't go murderhobo waaah waaaah
filtered

>>714785940 (OP)
>3rd person
>u never been to war its not like bf1
>nigga immersed on mario cart bruh i cant

>>714787547
>you can do ANYTHING
>except everything we didn't actually implement but might assume we would have

>>714786935
>it's about giving the players tools to do what they think is cool, rather than what the developer thinks is cool
what does that even mean? Do other games not do that? Why buy an fps if you dont think guns are cool? Same with racing games

>>714786536
SMB is a series of linear challenge courses.

>>714787410
why doesnt the NPC just say
>hey Ooorthr, thats a wrong horse! Put it down and come settle this one!

>>714786575
Duke Nukem 3D has some cool interactive gimmicks but they aren't complex reactive systems.

>>714787181
Kinda but not really. It's got a physics engine but not too many interesting applications for it. It's got different progression paths for characters but they are all determined entirely by the developer. There's pretty much only one solution to any given problem; dungeons are linear.
It has elements of the immersive sim, but does not commit.
>>714787745
You know how in something like Uncharted, you jump on a train and fist-fight a bunch of dudes and then the train crashes and wow! So much action!?
That's all scripted.
In an immersive sim, hypothetically, you could decide to jump on that train and start a fight and do something that causes it to derail. But you could also find another way to your destination, or take the train but ride it safely to the end, if you can prevent it from derailing.

>>714787745
It's about giving the player some tools and a goal, and let the player do his thing and come with solutions the devs hadn't anticipted.

>Do other games not do that?
Of course not. Most of the time you must complete the goal in the way the devs intended and that's it. It's a not a good or bad thing per se, it's a game design philosophy.

>>714787279
are you deaf, by any chance? what is your problem with audio logs?

>>714787181
>Skyrim fits the description
The Elder Scrolls series always had some immersive sim elements, and the series was initially inspired by Ultimate Underworld. But they never fully committed to it, as seen in the overtly linear dungeons.

I also think that the failure of modern immersive sims to compete with Bethesda games and even Nintendo is what led to their downfall.

>>714788136
>you must complete the goal in the way the devs intended and that's it
immersive sims are the same thing, except the devs give you 3 or 5 ways, but you can't do anything the devs didn't account for
BAD DESIGN

>>714787847
>why doesnt the NPC just say
>>hey Ooorthr, thats a wrong horse! Put it down and come settle this one!
Because it's a movie-game rather than an immersive sim. Rockstar are only interested in giving players the designated cinematic experience rather than creating a proper cowboy simulation.

>>714788280
Deus Ex was notorious for people coming up with solutions that the developers didn't intended. If a system is complex enough then there will be always unpredictable outcomes.

>>714788280
>you can't do anything the devs didn't account for
You actually can.
Of course, you can't specifically design for things you don't account for. That would be a contradiction. But the point is that the Immersive Sim design philosophy is different from trying to strictly curate the player's experience. Rather, they try to simulate a complex world and then give you the opportunity to interact with it.

>>714788280
Nah, there's countless examples of players coming up with weird shit.
These are old games anon, you'd be amazed what people have come up with in games like Deus Ex.

Think of stacking boxes, reaching a window, throwing some shit inside that makes the NPC panic, exit the room and open the door while leaving, and thus skipping a whole level where you find the key.

If you like you linear scripted games fine, go play them, but you don't know shit about these games and it's showing.

Imsims are slow paced and put a lot work into the feeling of the enviroment. Dishonored is a good example of that. If you just run through the levels like a CoD retard then yeah it's not immersive

>>714785940 (OP)
Real answer: Spector had a stroke while saying "first person RPG in a true tabletop® sense" and it did stick and now people live with some "emergent gameplay" in their heads because stacking crates to seize a fence is 160 IQ move, you midwits wouldn't understand also I've never heard of sandbox

>>714785940 (OP)
Games i found most immersive were system shock and KCD
Just something about them makes it feel like you are in a real space with real threats
And not everything is made for you to crush instantly with better weapon
I think slower pace definitely helps

>>714790089
I think something about kcd's mission structure is very immersive where given freedom allows you do the tasks in realistic manner and doing stuff like eating and sleeping inbetween
Taking baths or eating isn't all the essential to gameplay but it's adds to the immersion

Another good example would be metro exodus

>>714785940 (OP)
>Riding in RDR2.
>Fighting in the trenches in BF1.
>Using a wheel in a racing game.
OP's IQ is in the negative.

>>714787410
OP absolutely btfo'd holy shit

>>714793585
most smart immersive sim poster

>>714788147
Audio log writing. There's examples that feel like that Monty Python bit where the guy carved
>AUUUGGGHHHH
As he was killed but just played completely straight.

>>714786536
If you could move to the left it might be
ergo New Super Mario Bros is an immersive sim

>>714785940 (OP)
>Why are these games called immersive?
It's a pun. These are Bioshock-likes. And Bioshock takes place underwater.

>>714793873
>writing out "AUUUGGGHHHH" is the same thing as someone dying caught on tape because the didn't take the time to turn the recorder off while being murdered
Holy brainlet

>>714788443
Even then, how would the experience be substantially diminished by a gentle diegetic correction? The game refusing to move on till you get the inconsequential detail right would still be a far cry from an immersive sim but outright giving you a fail and making you do the sequence again is just sadistic rather than cinematic.

>>714793806
The thread like any other on the subject wants to have a discussion that hasn't had a real reason to exist for over 20 years. I'm not stimulating these childish attempts to argue with ghosts. You don't like a game, then you stop playing it and try something else. The ten year olds on /v/ only know how to dwell on the past that they weren't there for.
It's a beyond pointless discussion to have. If you care about what was or wasn't an immersive sim in 2025 you need to log off the internet entirely for at least 3 consecutive days.

any hidden immersive sim gems?

>>714794250
Let's be honest, though, the proliferation of audio logs is, at best, an accepted convention for which we suspend our disbelief so as not to disrupt the gameplay too much. A truly immersive (that is, believable) way of conveying information would include a variety of different information carriers.

>>714795121
>ghosts
>writing on walls
>written notes
>emails

These have been consistenly used in insims from SS2, Thief and Deus Ex, to Bioshock, Dishonored and nuDeus Ex.

Audio logs are just the most iconic.

>>714794257
If I had to guess I'd say
Writing/quest team wasn't working closely with the game design team
Because you also see a lot of mechanic only being utilised in the main missions

Almost like they wrote the story and gave to game design team instead of working back and forth to achieve more interesting missions

>>714794653
Kcd has some Imsim stuff
Ig shadow of doubt is also in the same vein
And if you can stomach the setting and the woke, weird west let's you do a lot of things

>>714785940 (OP)
Prey is more deserving of being on this grid than Bioshock

>>714788240
>I also think that the failure of modern immersive sims to compete with Bethesda games and even Nintendo is what led to their downfall.
Their downfall was caused by the fact that companies wanted to target consoles and immersive sims just aren't nearly as capable there.
Not only is the hardware weaker, but the controller is simply unsuited to the concept, since you are limited by the availability of buttons and also have a large amount of ambiguity in regards to what the player wants to interact with, which means that the fallback of using aim assist to help dual analog feel usable doesn't even work.

>>714796332
I think it's a pretty old picture. Like >>714794312 said, there's nothing new on /v/

>>714796357
Well there are many reasons actually
>More expensive
>More talented people required
>Hard to market "you can go inside the went and drop this go that attracts XYZ so you can use them to kill droids or you can use this special gun throw the slow projectile back at the enemy"
>Streamers are turned off by it
>Audiance wants simple shit with no repeat playthrough required

>>714785940 (OP)
>Riding in RDR2
holding W
>Fighting in the trenches in BF1
pointing and clicking
>Using a wheel in a racing game
turning left

imsims actually engage your brain

>>714788806
>throwing some shit inside that makes the NPC panic, exit the room and open the door while leaving
mah nigga
speed runners are fun to watch because of how ruthlessly they do stuff like this

>>714797035
>Otherside Entertainment
It's really horrible to be reminded of a time you still had hope.

>>714796332
muh puddles of flammable liquid

>>714796332
Prey is like a formalized imsim. Like they took the first layer of emergent activities and designed them (stacking becomes Glue Gun climbing, physics becomes pusyhing buttons with the dart rifle)

>>714785940 (OP)
Allowing players to approach things how they want without the dev holding their hand IS soul. It can sometimes lead to jank, and it doesn’t always look cinematic, but it has its own unique charm.

Also, I feel like nu-Hitman should qualify as an immersive sim. It has all the important qualities of one.

>>714797681
Better than having to use your ability to pick up shit and throwing it at npcs
(I wish more games had telekinesis )

>>714785940 (OP)
what a gay thread. this is the shit i see when i open /v/ nowadays?

>>714798220
Mgs 5 is also there.
If only you could attach remote bombs to knocked out npcs

>>714798292
Yeah dude let's go back to making gatcha and anti woke threads

>>714787438
Emergent gameplay is the distinction.

>>714787745
The easiest way to see this is if you REDUCE the tools available, Imagine a mario with no jump button. The game auto jumps. Or autorunning platformers. On that end of the spectrum it reduces to QTEs and then to VNs.

Emergent on the other hand gives more options where the designers have not explicitly made a solution, or a gameplay path. That leads to flexible tools that allow for lots of gameplay and solutions that the creator did not envision. Sandbox games as an example.

>>714798220
>It can sometimes lead to jank
this, people made fun of bethesda for being able to put buckets on NPCs heads and they wouldn't see you stealing
but the alternative is
>not having movable buckets
>bucket physics shapes aren't appropriately concave
>NPCs can see through buckets
the vast majority of games cant manage point 1, let alone all 3
todd knows what makes a simulated world, hes just stuck selling to normies that dont appreciate it

>>714798557
>Imagine a mario with no jump button. The game auto jumps. Or autorunning platformers
counter point: vampire survivors was fun

>>714798220
I think it should be split, or reworded. One thing about the immersion is that you want a first person view, and you see that in OP's examples. Also, the abstract sandbox games are neighboring, but the isims always have a focus on getting a particular setting to be immersed in.

>>714798890
Halfway there with that thought anon. Something like Vampire saviors has some emergent gameplay, ala binding of issac, but is it more or less interactive?

>>714798386
I think MGSV doesn’t count because while you have a ton of options, you still have limits in terms of how you can interact with the environment. It’s more in line with Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed.

Meanwhile, in Hitman, you can genuinely play the game like a tourist simulator before you go in to kill your targets. That and there’s much more heavy scripting of routines.

I’d actually argue that Bethesda games fit the bill of immersive sims better, even though they’re maybe a bit TOO stat/RPG oriented to be true immersive sims.

>>714798751
Yeah but starfield was terrible and todd is terrible who can't even design a game that utilizes that great physics

>>714798751
It's pseudo-immersive because whilst it is emergent gameplay from interacting systems, the NPC reacts in a completely nonsensical manner

Got a question, recently played and beat Bioshock 1 and 2 and they were good, then decided to play SS1 and Deus Ex, and god damn why do people even put bioshock in the same category/genre as them, looking back Bioshock feels like an action game, the "puzzles" and alterative solutions to problems are extremely simple, no real reward for finding codes when you can hack, and even finding codes is super easy, the only time you have to "work" to get a code is at the end of Bioshock 1 when you have to count colors in an audio recording, SS1 on the other hands feels like a puzzle, and DE like there's always something new to find each time you play it

>>714799119
I mean mgs 5 definitely has the elements
Even tho the scope is limited
And in hitman all you do is kill or knock out when it isn't a story set piece
Similar to kcd where can even dress up as cuman and fool the enemy and poison their pot

>>714799446
NPCs would tell you to "watch it" or "stop that" if you bully them with physics objects
that was pretty advanced back even, and even today
saying it breaks your immersion because they don't take the bucket off their head is unreasonable

>>714799509
The Immersive sim genre was beyond dead when Bioshock came out and the market was beginning to be oversaturated with military shooters, so even a slight deviation from that felt revolutionary. Then Deus Ex HR and Dishonored both came out a few years later and overshadowed it by reviving the immersive sim.

>>714799509
Well in system shock and bio shock 1 you can feel the internet being there
In system shock you feel a part of the ship, someone who has to use everything he got and not the action hero, head on confrontations are never ideal, and most of it is done without hand holding so it gives you this feeling of immersion

In case of bio shock there's hacking alternative routes and using different powers (mainly telekinesis) to solve different enemy combat scenarios
I think more immersive part was fighting big daddies early on because you didn't really stand a chance so you had use hacking and set up traps etc like you are actually trying to kill something much more powerful than yourself

>>714799509
>and god damn why do people even put bioshock in the same category/genre as them
Babby's first + haven't actually played it in forever. Actually replaying it within the last couple years, the best thing about it's the presentation and art direction, but that's really it. Too much of a shooter to be engaging like SS2 et al and not shooter enough to be good at it.

>>714799923
I think Bethesda gets flak for how its NPCs behave because they land in a sort of uncanny valley where they behave realistically enough that they feel more life-like and believe than most vidya NPCs, but they’re also limited and janky enough that their realistic behaviours make their unrealistic behaviours stand out more. It also doesn’t help that most characters in Bethesda games who aren’t major characters usually have wooden and flat voice acting.

These are problems caused by tech and budget limitations, but it still creates an uncanny valley that you have to look past.

>>714800734
Even when the game came out, it was the presentation and storytelling people praised most. The gameplay was always considered mediocre.

I still think it’s a good game, don’t get me wrong, but I also feel parts of it really haven’t aged well.

>>714801064
I think if you went in with the expectation of another shooter you'll be surprised by the depth and shit you can do
That good old feeling of
>Why don't other games do that

>>714801281
I feel that was more a sign of the times more than anything. The bar for a good shooter was below the floor back then. People forget just how bad many mainstream games from the 7th gen really were. You were lucky to get ANYTHING that wasn’t either a CoD clone, or a heavily scripted movie game, so the fact that Bioshock even had something as simple as exploration was novel. Bioshock, Deus Ex HR and Dishonored where small miracles— It was amazing that those games somehow managed to exist during the peak “we want the CoD audience” era.

>>714785940 (OP)
I really need to play Dishonored and Bioshock again, it’s been over a decade.

>>714800215
>Deus Ex HR
>imsim
eh

>>714790089
Are those shitting windows? You can shit on the street, directly from the safety of your house?

>>714802107
I recently played 2 good ole shooter (titan fall 2 and bullet storm ) and i understood why they fell of the wayside
They are fun in the start with all the cool set pieces and explorations
But after a point you realise it's just "click on heads as fast as you can" which is mind numbing
No wonder people really liked doom eternal and boomer shooters

>>714800853
>Bethesda uncanny valley
true, theres a webm of a Fallout 4 settler trying to hammer something in your settlement. And they just animate weirdly and never quite hammer the thing. But at the same time, what other AA game, let alone any AAA FPS, lets you place walls/objects in your own settlement, and NPCs will come interact with them?
its like that saying about shooting for the moon, even if you miss you land among the stars

>>714802613
It is an immersive sim by all definitions. Really the only thing unusual about it in that regards is them having mid mission pre-rendered cutscenes.

Dishonored is the superior game of the two though, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it had OG Deus Ex devs working on it.

>>714790089
That's a really weird brick wall texture. The more I look at it, the less it seems to fit.

>>714802628
I think they definitely had shitting holes but those aren't that
They were there for holding scaffolding during construction

>>714802984
name one thing you can do mechanically that the developers didn't intend

>>714803153
That's drawn on for decoration

>>714803330
I don't think
>Dev didn't intend
Is a good defination
Because I am more than sure dishonored Dev's intended most of it that's why it's so well implemented
And by that definition speedrunners turn every game into imsim

>>714785940 (OP)
You're trying way to hard to bait a niche crowd.

>>714803747
truth=bait

>>714803659
>I don't think
>>Dev didn't intend
>Is a good defination
of an imsim?

>>714803747
And he baited them successfully to some extent
Most imsim threads die before reaching 20 posts

>>714785940 (OP)
I love dishonored but I won't pretend I didn't savescum CONSTANTLY for the entire game.

>>714786738
>it'll let you pick up a glass cup for example, but you can't smash it on someone's head for whatever reason
This is what I don't get about Bethesda games. They go through the trouble of making hundreds, if not thousands of 100% worthless items that you can pick up and do absolutely nothing at all with and 99% of the time they aren't even worth selling, you just pick them up and they weigh you down. Why did they even bother making all of this shit?

>>714803659
Tbf, Dishonored has a lot of out of bounds skips and ways to orchestrate situations the devs didn’t account for. I think even the fact that all melee takedowns don’t lock you into a time freezing cutscene alone gives you more versatility.

>>714804350
Because it’s soulful and makes the world feel more lived in. The whole point of “simulated world” type game design is that even small, trivial details get a lot of attention put into them because that’s more immersive.

>>714804350
All that interactivity is just a by product of the engine desginers don't give a shit about it otherwise you'll have quests based on physics interactions

>>714804735
Aren’t there a a rare few instances of that throughout Bethesda’s games? I know in Skyrim, in the Dark Brotherhood quest where you have to kill the cool, you have to drag his body and hide it in a specific spot.

>>714787181
does it have in-depth systems that let you solve quests in other ways? don't think so. i don't think tes focuses much on giving players choices in quests

>>714805286
I think dragging body different from stockpiling apples or barrels

>>714805348
All Beth games have skill checks and make it so any build can tackle any question. Like how In Fallout 3, you can hack turrets and make them do the fighting for you, or you can talk, sneak and fight too. It feels almost Deus Ex like, and that was probably an inspiration.

>>714805754
fallout 3 focuses way more on quest options than any tes game i've played did. the options are super obviously telegraphed most of the time, but they are there. they pretty much gave up after that game though, even fallout 4 felt more like a tes game