>>719166929
Even when the game lacks NPC schedules or dynamic AI, usually it is the case that there's some scripted actions like guards patrolling the streets or a crowd is gathering around a town crier that has scripted dialogue, and insofar as NPCs are really just standing around, they've been placed deliberately. It's not particularly immersion-breaking (really at all) if guards are standing at the gate, merchants behind their market stalls, farmers locked-in to doing a tilling animation in a field, or if the mayor is sitting at his desk in the town hall. There's also a matter of design language that informs the player the area isn't to scale and is scaled down for gameplay convenience and as such it feels natural the area isn't fully populated and dynamic, while the screenshot above is of a game that seemingly purports to be to scale.
Like, there's craftsmanship to it and random people standing around facing random directions in a street, not even looking at their phone or gathered around in groups of 3 as though they were chatting, isn't it.
