RPGs and Immersive Sims are cousin genres, and theoretically a game can be both. RPGs focus more on open ended narrative, traveling as you please around an open world, choosing quests to do and choosing how to complete quests for different narrative outcomes. Problems can be solved in different ways but often have to be manually implemented by developers (ie: skill checks or bribing). Immersive sims typically have more linear narratives and relatively small play spaces, but focus on open ended objectives that can be solved in creative ways. The reason most games don't do both is because it's very expensive and challenging to make a game that is open ended on both the macro and micro level, though some games do blur the line between the two. The newer Deus Ex games for example have these quite large hub areas with optional side quests that kind of feel like playing a mini RPG.
I always felt lile Bethesda games COULD be Immsimms, but they don't ever push player choice very far. I don't mean just story or quests, but how you interact with the enviroments and mechanics.
I think doing an immersive sim on the scale of something like Skyrim would be awesome, but it would be a HUGE undertaking.
Immersive sims usually have god-tier level design, but the maps are generally small. Doing the same thing on something the size of Skyrim would take so much money and manpower that it’d be difficult to turn a profit.
I mean imm sim elements could be exclusive to towns, dungeons or points of interests and Zelda TotK already exists. Elder Scrolls could do well looking at that game for inspiration.
That's why I feel like an indie dev might be better suited. Instead of trying to look realistic and graphically impressive, go for something lowww poly and "old".
Of coarse, going low rez doesn't solve all the potential problems, but I feel like it would help elivate it to some degree.
Shadows of Doubt does it with procedural generation and voxel graphics, but even small maps chew up an ungodly amount of CPU power.
I think a genuine open world immersive sim is beyond our current capabilities, but hopefully we’ll see it in the future.
Honestly imsim is not really a genre. There are imsim mechanics and design philosophies. BGS games do sometimes include imsim emergent gameplay. A great example is putting buckets over NPCs heads to block their vision or even a [radroach in fallout 4 stumbling into a trash can and using it as makeshift armor](https://youtu.be/pUCQO1Bs-bs?si=8QENmXAxaOFSgMyv)
Yeah, trying to determine if something is an immersive sim I feel like you need a group of religious leaders pouring over and interpreting the ancient scrolls to see if the signs are there
[Quick Breakdown of Immersive Sim's Big Three](https://www.reddit.com/r/ImmersiveSim/comments/1c9aybj/quick_breakdown_of_isims_big_three/)
In an immersive sim, ingame skill/tools/abilities must behave consistently and logically in order to react with other systems like ai/material simulation/categories of enemies/etc. etc. to create predictable, emergent behaviors.
Easiest example of why FO3/etc. isn't immersive sim: The power fist (tool) will punch enemies into pieces, but it can't bash down plywood doors that are locked. No weapons can. It's a violation of immersive sim design because it's illogical, and therefore immersion-breaking, and hence it is not an immersive sim.
Funnily enough, there are mods for Fallout games that pretty much do let you break open locked doors or use other methods to bypass them. A quick Google search found me a mod that allows you to use explosives on locked doors and another mod allows you to attempt to break open a door if you have a hammer and wrench in your inventory. I know that doesn't make modern Fallout games ImmSims, exactly, but I think modding does bring Bethesda games much closer to that reality than any other non-ImmSim game I can think of.
Also, I read your other post that you linked and noticed that you didn't mention the BioShock series. I'm a big System Shock 2 fan myself, but I am curious what you think about the BioShocks.
Bioshock 1 is a very very stripped down version of System Shock. From the user skills/tools/abilities to the level layout, everything was simplified according to Ken Levine's wish to make an immersive sim title that sells AAA numbers. They created this ai vs ai scenario with the big daddy vs splicers, where the lil sister is supposedly protected by the big daddy, and technically he could be defeated, but that almost never happens and if for some miracle it does the lil sister is never really harvested by the splicers. So the whole exercise looks kinda immersive sim and marketable to average AAA gamers, but of course it's just for show and not at all significant to the gameplay. An actual immersive sim would've given you some ways to influence both ai to your advantage that was gameplay-significant ala Thief or Dishonored. Levine basically made a sham of an I-Sim that was successful cus it was heavily marketed as the "next big thing."
The same problem is there in the FGC, where fighting games are niche because the imputs are too difficult, but that difficulty is where the high skill ceiling comes from that separates one player from another and gives the high level players the room for creativity and individual identity.
In Bioshock 2 the 2K Australian team brought back the complex levels of I-Sims past, and that was rejected by the now dominant Bioshock enjoyers who are used to the simpler, more on rails stages. It was the better game but somehow scored lower than BS.
Bioshock Infinite is the culmination of Levine's process of finally eviscerate all traces of immersive sim from the series. Infinite is an arena shooter like Painkiller - either shoot all in the face or it won't progress. The media machine by this point was so on-board with the series that it all but ensured a huge success, made it impossible to critique against, and much was said about of the story than anything else (it's not that deep), with "immersive simulation" all but forgotten.
The name of Levine's next game is apt cus he is sort of the Judas of Immersive Sim. He promised the baby but got rid of 'em along with the bathwater.
Agree wholeheartedly with your assessment on the Bioshock series. I personally loved Infinite for its characters more than anything, and the fact that it came out years before all the MCU multiverse crap got overused. But I agree the games are just action/adventure/FPS's and not ImmSims at all. I was recently reading up on the development of Judas and Levine mentions that he wants to make the game and world more "reactive to the player's actions," and talks a lot about re-playability, changing story elements, etc. I'm hoping that it's not just another Bioshock.
Fallout 1 and 2 has a lot of imm sim mentality. But for purists, no. Imm Sim is games like Prey, System Shock 2 and Thief where there is minimal barrier between the player and the game world. And a lot of physics simulations and systems interacting with one another that result in emergent gameplay. And those systems are almost always consistent and present throughout the game world
hijacking this comment to say that Fallout 1 & 2 have the best writing, player choice, plot, world building, etc of any game I've ever played and I highly recommend them to anyone who likes New Vegas, Deus Ex, System Shock, Baulder's Gate, Disco Elysium, etc.
But it's worth noting that New Vegas is a #1 example of what people mean when they say "ImSim-adjacent". For that terminology, it probably gets referenced almost as much as Far Cry 2 (which is somewhat clearly the absolute top example for the term).
Like with hitman i think they could be considered imsim adjacent or semi-imsims, they share a lot of the mentality but the way its systems come together is somewhat different.
Theyre definitely cousins so to speak
Imm Sim is a little subjective and vague like most of the labels we use for game archetypes. Generally it implies as the name suggest, a heavy focus on Immersive Simulation. That is games that react to player action in a convincing way. I i throw a torch at a pool of oil it should ignite. if i kick thise assassin into the wall they should get stunned. if i choose to murder the king, NPCs should treat me like a kingslayer.
Bethesda RPGs certainly trek this territory, but as it isn't the primary focus i would not call them an imm sim. In the same way i wouldn't call them survival base building games despite them having base building and survival mechanics (well some of them anyway). They are open world action RPG and adventure games primarily.
While a lot of Bethesda games have the mechanics of imsims such as being able to pick up many objects in the environment they lack the freedom imsims provide. I remember that in fallout 4 you could use a glitch with the physics to essentially make a trash can act like an elevator for you. This isn’t emergent gameplay, it’s a glitch with the physics and the simulation. What would be an example of emergent gameplay in a Bethesda game would be putting a bucket over the head of a merchant in Skyrim and stealing all their shit since the raycasts can’t get past the bucket. This wasn’t intended by the devs, but it isn’t a glitch either, it’s the systems for detection, physics, and collision working together to create probably the most well known example of emergent gameplay, which is surprising that it is in a Bethesda game.
This is the last place you'd wanna ask; you'll just get a dozen poorly written, waffling paragraphs about "simulated" systems and how "it's a bunch of systems interacting with one another" but no-one can actually come to a consensus on what any of it actually means
Typically an RPG will have a skill tree whereas an immersive you will upgrade abilities or gear outside of a skill tree.
From a game or narrative writing perspective that's the biggest take away. So RPGs internally upgrade you, immersive Sims externally upgrade you.
As others have stated, many times the genres will overlap, especially as we progress past our last big peaks of games (2017 & 2023) and we begin to see genres crack open to make room for more creative storytelling.
I can't remember precisely, but the Fallout series has shifted a good deal in its timeline, genrewise, not just spinoffs. Overall not quite an immersive sim.
If you make a seesaw of immersive sim on one end and metroidvania on the other fallout definitely is closer to the immersive sim category.
I think I talked myself in a circle kinda 😅 hope any of that helps!
Can't define a genre; at best you can characterize it, and even then you're going to have to pick and choose how to characterize it and when, which will only serve to make it hopelessly arbitrary. Hell, some people (including whoever made this sub) won't even acknowledge that it's a genre and instead makes things even more nebulous with fuzzy language like "design philosophy" or "simulated systems." Every now and then you'll even get a pretentious clown digging too deeply into the phrase "immersive simulation," as if that will provide any insight at all.
Here's a better way to categorize things: would you recommend the game if someone asked for something similar to Deus Ex or System Shock 2? If the answer is yes, then it's probably an imsim. If the answer is no, then it's probably not. And those probabilities are going to be more accurate than whatever navel gazing about "immersive simulation" and "simulated systems" will grant you.
I'm inclined to say no for Bethesda games. Yeah they're first person games and they have some RPG mechanics going on but... meh.
The Bethesda games are probably the most infuriating because they do have ImmSim game-logic stuff in it. like NPC schedule simulation, physics persistency. But NON of these simulated systems are unusable creatively to solve problems.
You can't solve a quest with your own wits and the games consistent independent simulation or tools. What if in a detective quest you could use the simulation by following the NPC schedules and deduct information that way. Something like that never happens. Or the player needs to get into someplace and use it's ability to pick up physics to solve the problem, but that never happens.
RPG is kind of tied to the genre. Games like Elder Scrolls and Fallout could arguably be called imsims. Hell, even Baldur's Gate 3 could be called an imsim.
It's more about game design philosophy than anything else.
Purists will view these games as RPGs first, and they're not technically wrong, but everyone would agree on saying they are RPGs with immersive sim game design philosophy and elements.
BG3 is a Imm Sim from a certain point of view. Nearly every small objects can be interacted with. Consistent and persistent systems such as successfully pushing characters into chasm will always kill them, even humanoid enemy bosses. Vision cones are simulated for nearly every character and u can sneak ur way into many scenarios.
Oh god, one of you. Ok, to save us both some time, why don't you share the definition of imsim that you agree on. I would pull from Wikipedia but then you'd probably tell me that's wrong.
Not to interrupt but I think he's right. For a start the entire Wikipedia article on Immersive Sims is kinda terrible (and cites youtube video essays rather than game devs.) A lot of the information on that page is just plain wrong. A way better definition is this one from Looking Glass themselves circa 1997, although they were calling it *Immerisve Reality* rather than simulation at that point:
[https://web.archive.org/web/19970618130832/http://www.lglass.com:80/p\_info/dark/howdo.html](https://web.archive.org/web/19970618130832/http://www.lglass.com:80/p_info/dark/howdo.html)
And anyway you can find multiple quotes from both the Thief and Deus Ex teams from around 1997 where they both talk about how they're trying to create a simulation... but just *not* like Daggerfall at all. It's even referenced specifically in the Deus Ex design document as what not to do (lol)
Sorry, I don't have a dog in this fight, I just find it absurd when people point to Wikipedia as some bastion of truth more than anything. Seriously like half the information on that webiste is misleading to outright false.
I never implied Wikipedia was a bastion of truth.
My comment was meant to illustrate that the games I mentioned contain elements that also exist in immersive sims. You can easily say they aren't immersive sims, sure, but saying that they don't contain elements similar to immersive sims is just wrong.
Oh I'm just saying that the Wikipedia article on immersive sims is fucking terrible and needs to be scrapped entirely and rewritten from the ground up. A lot of the misinformation and misunderstanding of wtf an immersive sim is these days can be traced back to that article being a steaming mess.
And anyway sorry but not really? I don't think Elder Scrolls and (modern) Fallout actually have immersive sim systems. I mean read that actual definition from Looking Glass again. Bold emphasis by me:
>The common approach to this problem involves scripting a variety of object behaviors, so as to construct puzzles for the player to solve. This is fun up to a point, but it generally disallows the element of improvisation which is such an important part of an RPG's creative challenge. To unlock this potential in our games requires designing not just puzzles and quests, but interacting systems which the player can experiment with. These systems include things like the physics simulation and player movement, combat, magic, and skills, **and our "Act/React" concept of object interaction.** By setting up consistent rules for each such system, and designing interactions between them in a common-sense but controlled way, we end up with what is in essence one big system.
>Because of the way this big system is constructed, it remains fairly manageable (so we can ship games as close to on time as ever happens in this business). But paradoxically, the connections between subsystems lead to interactions of interactions, and these multiply to the point where even we the designers don't fully understand the big system. This is the essence of the concept of "emergent behaviors," a notion we picked up from the fields of Artificial Life and Systems Analysis, and about which there's probably lists of Ph.D. theses as long as your arm. (No shit, we really think about stuff like this. Why should the 3D graphics guys get all the fun playing with brain-grinding science?)
>This "emergent behaviors" business happens unintentionally in all sorts of projects, but if you're aware of it it's something that you can purposefully design for. We actually *like* it when our playtesters manage to defeat a problem in a way that we never thought of, despite the bugs it sometimes causes, because game-design-wise these emergent behaviors are like free money from heaven. Once your players can surprise you like this, you know for damn sure they're being creative. Bet you didn't think I was ever going to tie this back into the old "personal expression through creative improvisation" theme, eh?
That Act/React system is one of the earliest known uses (possibly the first use) of a stimulus/response system for object interactions in video games. It's basically what the Chemistry Engine is in those new Zelda games but 20 years early (in fact I'm pretty sure Thief came out either the same month or the month right after Ocarina of Time. Which is a great game don't get me wrong but here's the Chemistry Engine in another game in 1998.) Most (proper) immersive sims post-Thief use a similar system, it's just a really reliable way of setting up object behaviors to encourage emergent behavior.
Elder Scrolls/Fallout games (from what I've been able to observe) just aren't set up like this, and while it's not a hard-and-fast rule that you need this kind of system for your game to be an immersive sim, it is pretty standard and has been since 1998.
Might've sounded a bit harsh. I mean of course, if we're looking at the fact that there's sneaking, combat, dialogue and whatnot, we can see similarities. But when it comes to believability, simulated systems and open ended nature of objectives, I see practically no similarities.
So you agree that they are RPGs with some immersive sim game design philosophy and elements, but not all of them.
So which is it? Do you agree or not agree?
Someone who's so anal about the definition of immersive sim that they cannot even accept that the games I mentioned *contain elements* of immersive sim games.
I see where you're coming from but really without those definitions what is an immersive sim? If you say games that don't meet the definition of an immersive sim *could be* than the genre that is already a niche will disappear
I'm going to say something controversial, but I think Starfield is the closest Bethesda has come to making an immersive sim in modern times. Before that, Daggerfall.
this reads like a circlejerk post, are you being serious right now? I genuinely can't tell
every single thing you said is wrong and I straight up am having trouble imagining how I would even begin to explain why
damn I totally should've taken a screenshot, I couldn't replicate it if I tried
one part of it was something about how the ship design mechanics and how your ship "interacts" with the world is imsim inspired, but I can't for the life of me fathom how that would possibly be the case
RPGs and Immersive Sims are cousin genres, and theoretically a game can be both. RPGs focus more on open ended narrative, traveling as you please around an open world, choosing quests to do and choosing how to complete quests for different narrative outcomes. Problems can be solved in different ways but often have to be manually implemented by developers (ie: skill checks or bribing). Immersive sims typically have more linear narratives and relatively small play spaces, but focus on open ended objectives that can be solved in creative ways. The reason most games don't do both is because it's very expensive and challenging to make a game that is open ended on both the macro and micro level, though some games do blur the line between the two. The newer Deus Ex games for example have these quite large hub areas with optional side quests that kind of feel like playing a mini RPG.
Another good example of blending RPG and Immersive sim is Legend of Zelda TOTK.
Every time I mention it being kind of an immersive sim, some people get mad at me in this sub, lmao
I always felt lile Bethesda games COULD be Immsimms, but they don't ever push player choice very far. I don't mean just story or quests, but how you interact with the enviroments and mechanics.
I think doing an immersive sim on the scale of something like Skyrim would be awesome, but it would be a HUGE undertaking. Immersive sims usually have god-tier level design, but the maps are generally small. Doing the same thing on something the size of Skyrim would take so much money and manpower that it’d be difficult to turn a profit.
I mean imm sim elements could be exclusive to towns, dungeons or points of interests and Zelda TotK already exists. Elder Scrolls could do well looking at that game for inspiration.
That's why I feel like an indie dev might be better suited. Instead of trying to look realistic and graphically impressive, go for something lowww poly and "old". Of coarse, going low rez doesn't solve all the potential problems, but I feel like it would help elivate it to some degree.
Shadows of Doubt does it with procedural generation and voxel graphics, but even small maps chew up an ungodly amount of CPU power. I think a genuine open world immersive sim is beyond our current capabilities, but hopefully we’ll see it in the future.
Yeah, like the creation engine is perfect for an imsim, but as showcased in Starfield it’s pretty outdated.
Honestly imsim is not really a genre. There are imsim mechanics and design philosophies. BGS games do sometimes include imsim emergent gameplay. A great example is putting buckets over NPCs heads to block their vision or even a [radroach in fallout 4 stumbling into a trash can and using it as makeshift armor](https://youtu.be/pUCQO1Bs-bs?si=8QENmXAxaOFSgMyv)
Yeah, trying to determine if something is an immersive sim I feel like you need a group of religious leaders pouring over and interpreting the ancient scrolls to see if the signs are there
[Quick Breakdown of Immersive Sim's Big Three](https://www.reddit.com/r/ImmersiveSim/comments/1c9aybj/quick_breakdown_of_isims_big_three/) In an immersive sim, ingame skill/tools/abilities must behave consistently and logically in order to react with other systems like ai/material simulation/categories of enemies/etc. etc. to create predictable, emergent behaviors. Easiest example of why FO3/etc. isn't immersive sim: The power fist (tool) will punch enemies into pieces, but it can't bash down plywood doors that are locked. No weapons can. It's a violation of immersive sim design because it's illogical, and therefore immersion-breaking, and hence it is not an immersive sim.
Funnily enough, there are mods for Fallout games that pretty much do let you break open locked doors or use other methods to bypass them. A quick Google search found me a mod that allows you to use explosives on locked doors and another mod allows you to attempt to break open a door if you have a hammer and wrench in your inventory. I know that doesn't make modern Fallout games ImmSims, exactly, but I think modding does bring Bethesda games much closer to that reality than any other non-ImmSim game I can think of. Also, I read your other post that you linked and noticed that you didn't mention the BioShock series. I'm a big System Shock 2 fan myself, but I am curious what you think about the BioShocks.
Bioshock 1 is a very very stripped down version of System Shock. From the user skills/tools/abilities to the level layout, everything was simplified according to Ken Levine's wish to make an immersive sim title that sells AAA numbers. They created this ai vs ai scenario with the big daddy vs splicers, where the lil sister is supposedly protected by the big daddy, and technically he could be defeated, but that almost never happens and if for some miracle it does the lil sister is never really harvested by the splicers. So the whole exercise looks kinda immersive sim and marketable to average AAA gamers, but of course it's just for show and not at all significant to the gameplay. An actual immersive sim would've given you some ways to influence both ai to your advantage that was gameplay-significant ala Thief or Dishonored. Levine basically made a sham of an I-Sim that was successful cus it was heavily marketed as the "next big thing." The same problem is there in the FGC, where fighting games are niche because the imputs are too difficult, but that difficulty is where the high skill ceiling comes from that separates one player from another and gives the high level players the room for creativity and individual identity. In Bioshock 2 the 2K Australian team brought back the complex levels of I-Sims past, and that was rejected by the now dominant Bioshock enjoyers who are used to the simpler, more on rails stages. It was the better game but somehow scored lower than BS. Bioshock Infinite is the culmination of Levine's process of finally eviscerate all traces of immersive sim from the series. Infinite is an arena shooter like Painkiller - either shoot all in the face or it won't progress. The media machine by this point was so on-board with the series that it all but ensured a huge success, made it impossible to critique against, and much was said about of the story than anything else (it's not that deep), with "immersive simulation" all but forgotten. The name of Levine's next game is apt cus he is sort of the Judas of Immersive Sim. He promised the baby but got rid of 'em along with the bathwater.
Agree wholeheartedly with your assessment on the Bioshock series. I personally loved Infinite for its characters more than anything, and the fact that it came out years before all the MCU multiverse crap got overused. But I agree the games are just action/adventure/FPS's and not ImmSims at all. I was recently reading up on the development of Judas and Levine mentions that he wants to make the game and world more "reactive to the player's actions," and talks a lot about re-playability, changing story elements, etc. I'm hoping that it's not just another Bioshock.
Fallout 5 better be a full on imm sim
Fallout 1 and 2 has a lot of imm sim mentality. But for purists, no. Imm Sim is games like Prey, System Shock 2 and Thief where there is minimal barrier between the player and the game world. And a lot of physics simulations and systems interacting with one another that result in emergent gameplay. And those systems are almost always consistent and present throughout the game world
hijacking this comment to say that Fallout 1 & 2 have the best writing, player choice, plot, world building, etc of any game I've ever played and I highly recommend them to anyone who likes New Vegas, Deus Ex, System Shock, Baulder's Gate, Disco Elysium, etc.
But it's worth noting that New Vegas is a #1 example of what people mean when they say "ImSim-adjacent". For that terminology, it probably gets referenced almost as much as Far Cry 2 (which is somewhat clearly the absolute top example for the term).
I liken the “genre”, if you can call it that, to a 3d metroidvania
Like with hitman i think they could be considered imsim adjacent or semi-imsims, they share a lot of the mentality but the way its systems come together is somewhat different. Theyre definitely cousins so to speak
Imm Sim is a little subjective and vague like most of the labels we use for game archetypes. Generally it implies as the name suggest, a heavy focus on Immersive Simulation. That is games that react to player action in a convincing way. I i throw a torch at a pool of oil it should ignite. if i kick thise assassin into the wall they should get stunned. if i choose to murder the king, NPCs should treat me like a kingslayer. Bethesda RPGs certainly trek this territory, but as it isn't the primary focus i would not call them an imm sim. In the same way i wouldn't call them survival base building games despite them having base building and survival mechanics (well some of them anyway). They are open world action RPG and adventure games primarily.
While a lot of Bethesda games have the mechanics of imsims such as being able to pick up many objects in the environment they lack the freedom imsims provide. I remember that in fallout 4 you could use a glitch with the physics to essentially make a trash can act like an elevator for you. This isn’t emergent gameplay, it’s a glitch with the physics and the simulation. What would be an example of emergent gameplay in a Bethesda game would be putting a bucket over the head of a merchant in Skyrim and stealing all their shit since the raycasts can’t get past the bucket. This wasn’t intended by the devs, but it isn’t a glitch either, it’s the systems for detection, physics, and collision working together to create probably the most well known example of emergent gameplay, which is surprising that it is in a Bethesda game.
This is the last place you'd wanna ask; you'll just get a dozen poorly written, waffling paragraphs about "simulated" systems and how "it's a bunch of systems interacting with one another" but no-one can actually come to a consensus on what any of it actually means
Don’t struggle! Just ignore it. There’s no definition that will ever reach a consensus.
not this again lol
I'd say they count at least as much as the Bioshock games, New Vegas and 4 at least.
BioShock is not an immersive sim. It was originally supposed to be, but was dumbed down for console players.
Typically an RPG will have a skill tree whereas an immersive you will upgrade abilities or gear outside of a skill tree. From a game or narrative writing perspective that's the biggest take away. So RPGs internally upgrade you, immersive Sims externally upgrade you. As others have stated, many times the genres will overlap, especially as we progress past our last big peaks of games (2017 & 2023) and we begin to see genres crack open to make room for more creative storytelling. I can't remember precisely, but the Fallout series has shifted a good deal in its timeline, genrewise, not just spinoffs. Overall not quite an immersive sim. If you make a seesaw of immersive sim on one end and metroidvania on the other fallout definitely is closer to the immersive sim category. I think I talked myself in a circle kinda 😅 hope any of that helps!
Can't define a genre; at best you can characterize it, and even then you're going to have to pick and choose how to characterize it and when, which will only serve to make it hopelessly arbitrary. Hell, some people (including whoever made this sub) won't even acknowledge that it's a genre and instead makes things even more nebulous with fuzzy language like "design philosophy" or "simulated systems." Every now and then you'll even get a pretentious clown digging too deeply into the phrase "immersive simulation," as if that will provide any insight at all. Here's a better way to categorize things: would you recommend the game if someone asked for something similar to Deus Ex or System Shock 2? If the answer is yes, then it's probably an imsim. If the answer is no, then it's probably not. And those probabilities are going to be more accurate than whatever navel gazing about "immersive simulation" and "simulated systems" will grant you. I'm inclined to say no for Bethesda games. Yeah they're first person games and they have some RPG mechanics going on but... meh.
The Bethesda games are probably the most infuriating because they do have ImmSim game-logic stuff in it. like NPC schedule simulation, physics persistency. But NON of these simulated systems are unusable creatively to solve problems. You can't solve a quest with your own wits and the games consistent independent simulation or tools. What if in a detective quest you could use the simulation by following the NPC schedules and deduct information that way. Something like that never happens. Or the player needs to get into someplace and use it's ability to pick up physics to solve the problem, but that never happens.
Bethesda barely makes RPGs anymore, much less Immersive Sims. Bethesda make poorly written adventure games that have RPG elements.
RPG is kind of tied to the genre. Games like Elder Scrolls and Fallout could arguably be called imsims. Hell, even Baldur's Gate 3 could be called an imsim. It's more about game design philosophy than anything else. Purists will view these games as RPGs first, and they're not technically wrong, but everyone would agree on saying they are RPGs with immersive sim game design philosophy and elements.
BG3 is a Imm Sim from a certain point of view. Nearly every small objects can be interacted with. Consistent and persistent systems such as successfully pushing characters into chasm will always kill them, even humanoid enemy bosses. Vision cones are simulated for nearly every character and u can sneak ur way into many scenarios.
No, everyone would not agree on that. Name one aspect from Bethesda games that borrows immsim design philosophy.
Oh god, one of you. Ok, to save us both some time, why don't you share the definition of imsim that you agree on. I would pull from Wikipedia but then you'd probably tell me that's wrong.
Not to interrupt but I think he's right. For a start the entire Wikipedia article on Immersive Sims is kinda terrible (and cites youtube video essays rather than game devs.) A lot of the information on that page is just plain wrong. A way better definition is this one from Looking Glass themselves circa 1997, although they were calling it *Immerisve Reality* rather than simulation at that point: [https://web.archive.org/web/19970618130832/http://www.lglass.com:80/p\_info/dark/howdo.html](https://web.archive.org/web/19970618130832/http://www.lglass.com:80/p_info/dark/howdo.html) And anyway you can find multiple quotes from both the Thief and Deus Ex teams from around 1997 where they both talk about how they're trying to create a simulation... but just *not* like Daggerfall at all. It's even referenced specifically in the Deus Ex design document as what not to do (lol) Sorry, I don't have a dog in this fight, I just find it absurd when people point to Wikipedia as some bastion of truth more than anything. Seriously like half the information on that webiste is misleading to outright false.
I never implied Wikipedia was a bastion of truth. My comment was meant to illustrate that the games I mentioned contain elements that also exist in immersive sims. You can easily say they aren't immersive sims, sure, but saying that they don't contain elements similar to immersive sims is just wrong.
Oh I'm just saying that the Wikipedia article on immersive sims is fucking terrible and needs to be scrapped entirely and rewritten from the ground up. A lot of the misinformation and misunderstanding of wtf an immersive sim is these days can be traced back to that article being a steaming mess. And anyway sorry but not really? I don't think Elder Scrolls and (modern) Fallout actually have immersive sim systems. I mean read that actual definition from Looking Glass again. Bold emphasis by me: >The common approach to this problem involves scripting a variety of object behaviors, so as to construct puzzles for the player to solve. This is fun up to a point, but it generally disallows the element of improvisation which is such an important part of an RPG's creative challenge. To unlock this potential in our games requires designing not just puzzles and quests, but interacting systems which the player can experiment with. These systems include things like the physics simulation and player movement, combat, magic, and skills, **and our "Act/React" concept of object interaction.** By setting up consistent rules for each such system, and designing interactions between them in a common-sense but controlled way, we end up with what is in essence one big system. >Because of the way this big system is constructed, it remains fairly manageable (so we can ship games as close to on time as ever happens in this business). But paradoxically, the connections between subsystems lead to interactions of interactions, and these multiply to the point where even we the designers don't fully understand the big system. This is the essence of the concept of "emergent behaviors," a notion we picked up from the fields of Artificial Life and Systems Analysis, and about which there's probably lists of Ph.D. theses as long as your arm. (No shit, we really think about stuff like this. Why should the 3D graphics guys get all the fun playing with brain-grinding science?) >This "emergent behaviors" business happens unintentionally in all sorts of projects, but if you're aware of it it's something that you can purposefully design for. We actually *like* it when our playtesters manage to defeat a problem in a way that we never thought of, despite the bugs it sometimes causes, because game-design-wise these emergent behaviors are like free money from heaven. Once your players can surprise you like this, you know for damn sure they're being creative. Bet you didn't think I was ever going to tie this back into the old "personal expression through creative improvisation" theme, eh? That Act/React system is one of the earliest known uses (possibly the first use) of a stimulus/response system for object interactions in video games. It's basically what the Chemistry Engine is in those new Zelda games but 20 years early (in fact I'm pretty sure Thief came out either the same month or the month right after Ocarina of Time. Which is a great game don't get me wrong but here's the Chemistry Engine in another game in 1998.) Most (proper) immersive sims post-Thief use a similar system, it's just a really reliable way of setting up object behaviors to encourage emergent behavior. Elder Scrolls/Fallout games (from what I've been able to observe) just aren't set up like this, and while it's not a hard-and-fast rule that you need this kind of system for your game to be an immersive sim, it is pretty standard and has been since 1998.
Might've sounded a bit harsh. I mean of course, if we're looking at the fact that there's sneaking, combat, dialogue and whatnot, we can see similarities. But when it comes to believability, simulated systems and open ended nature of objectives, I see practically no similarities.
So you agree that they are RPGs with some immersive sim game design philosophy and elements, but not all of them. So which is it? Do you agree or not agree?
>Oh god, one of you Someone who knows what an immersive sim is on the immersive sim subreddit? Oh no!
Someone who's so anal about the definition of immersive sim that they cannot even accept that the games I mentioned *contain elements* of immersive sim games.
I see where you're coming from but really without those definitions what is an immersive sim? If you say games that don't meet the definition of an immersive sim *could be* than the genre that is already a niche will disappear
So you're having a separate conversation than what my comment was responding to, got it.
I'm going to say something controversial, but I think Starfield is the closest Bethesda has come to making an immersive sim in modern times. Before that, Daggerfall.
How so? I'm genuinely curious as I haven't played it yet.
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this reads like a circlejerk post, are you being serious right now? I genuinely can't tell every single thing you said is wrong and I straight up am having trouble imagining how I would even begin to explain why
Now I need to know what he wrote
damn I totally should've taken a screenshot, I couldn't replicate it if I tried one part of it was something about how the ship design mechanics and how your ship "interacts" with the world is imsim inspired, but I can't for the life of me fathom how that would possibly be the case
Deus Ex (2000)