What Are DF's Favourite Immersive Sim Games Of All-Time?

► Watch the FULL Video: • DF Direct Weekly #162:...
► Support us on Patreon! bit.ly/3jEGjvx
► Digital Foundry KZbin: / digitalfoundry
► Digital Foundry Merch: store.digitalf...
► Digital Foundry at Eurogamer: eurogamer.net/...
► Follow on X/Twitter: / digitalfoundry

[@2drealms196]

Life of Black Tiger has to be up near the top. Its so immersive I start forgetting I'm not a tiger during long gaming sessions.

[@blast_processing6577]

It's a damn shame that Arkane Studios' Prey never got a sequel, or a remake as a 2D metroidvania.

[@onetruebrick]

Extra sad now that they've been closed. We probably never will see one now.

[@SaxonFaust]

U should’ve bought the game. Don’t complain like a women after the fact.

[@blast_processing6577]

@@SaxonFaust : lol Your trolling is pathetic, try harder.

[@Gabrilos505]

This genre should come back, and urgently

[@karolis.burzinskas]

Alien Isolation, Dishonored: Death Of The Outsider, Prey, System Shock 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Flashback on Genesis is immersive af :D The immersive sim genre is probably the best in gaming, because of its complexity from year to year, and from game to game. Strategy, 4X, and simulation games are great too, but immersive sims are the best, at least for me.

[@vuxpee]

Thief: The Dark Project is my favorite

[@willianjohnam]

Prey 2017 is awesome. I would also mention Thief: The Dark Project and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I really enjoyed these games on pc back in the day.

[@spandel100]

John said what I have always been saying.Deus Ex and System Shock 2...two of my favourite games of all time.Deus Ex is the only game to keep me up till after 2am on a work night.

[@MultiAmmar2000]

Every time I hear "Immersive Sim" I can't stop thinking of how stupid that term is.

[@JJSideshowBob]

I've never quite understood why these games are called "immersive sims", which doesn't seem like a good term to summarize them, but they're all great.

[@zenyousapprentice3732]

because you're ignorant

[@fcukugimmeausername]

@@zenyousapprentice3732 A sim is immersive simply by being a sim. Saying 'immersive sim' is like saying 'first person first person shooters'.

[@zenyousapprentice3732]

@@fcukugimmeausername you think because you play dirt with a racing wheel you're above and know better when it comes to "immersion", we get it

[@zenyousapprentice3732]

@@fcukugimmeausername also not everything is literal, relax

[@fcukugimmeausername]

@@zenyousapprentice3732 Learn to read. lmao.

[@blabo6427]

Hot Take: I consider that Metal Gear Solid V transcended the stealth genre and became a good Immersive sim.

[@regularflurfy8174]

I absolutely agree, been saying this for years!!

[@stevenewsom3269]

I don't understand why cyberpunk 2077 isn't mentioned as a great immersive sim either.

[@Arnold_94]

@@stevenewsom3269because it’s not really an im-sim, you cannot kill some NPCs for example, and interactions between elements and physics are a bit limited. Starfield is more of an im-sim than CB77 for example.

[@bkgrila]

@@stevenewsom3269 It's a great game with a wealth of content, but it doesn't have the systems to support lot of emergent gameplay. You can't even solve a problem meant to be solved with a gun by picking up boxes and climbing over it (only half joking, and stealing Hbomberguy's joke from his Deus Ex episode). With the switch to the Unreal engine for the sequel, though, I am hoping they might go further in the immersive sim direction next time.

[@TarnishedRyry]

Loved every mainline mgs up until v and just couldn't get on with it😢

[@Makr0ss]

I really like old Deus Ex and the newer ones. But if I may, I consider Alien Isolation to be an immersive sim as well so that would br my favorite.

[@SylvesterAshcroft88]

Prey....Mooncrash! ;)

[@hrafnafadhir]

I would lovingly call mid-2000’s Euro games “stiff”.

[@eugkra33]

I had no idea these were "Sims". I thought we were talking like Flight Sim or MechWarrior.

[@Mene0]

If you can stack boxes on top of one another it's an immersive Sim 😂

[@jcdenton2288]

Prey and Deus ex 👍

[@eirianrobotto]

Real life is probably the ultimate immersive sim. It's so immersive you can play immersive sims in it. /hj

[@treeokk]

I swear, there’s always a sea of nerds that have a hissy fit when you say a game is an immersive sim. it’s so annoying lmao. Don’t get mad at us for using a genre tag that’s on hundreds of games on steam and has OBVIOUSLY stuck within that community. Plenty of notable games have come out in the indie scene for example and many more are in development, and people love them. It’s just so pretentious to keep complaining about it at this point. Immersive sims don’t play like FPS games and it’s ridiculous to say that. Prey or System Shock 2 does NOT play like Wolfenstein or DOOM or COD or a billion other games. The stealth in farcry isn’t the same as stealth in dishonored or thief it’s not even close. The level design philosophies are also fundamentally different from your standard linear fps design. So many people in the comments are making it seem like having emergent systems and dozens of pathways in a game is dumb easy to do and every game does it which is soooo far removed from reality. The stealth in dishonored ISNT the same as assassins creed. I feel like 50% of the people who say all this played deus ex and system shock 2, didn’t see the big deal cos they never experimented and are now acting like every game does what those games do/did when majority of games don’t even give you an option for 90% of the things you do in the game lol

[@dallacosta2868]

Arx Fatalis is my fave.

[@vogonp4287]

Crulity Squad is my favorite personality.

[@Arnold_94]

Didn’t play those who were released before 2010 so Dishonored 1 for me, close to Deus Ex HR. Prey was good but I wasn’t a fan of the enemies (I prefer humans who you can throw of a cliff), felt less fun, Weird West is good, so is Deathloop but less « im sim » imo. Now looking towards playing System Shock Remake!

[@ouchmoma]

Kingdom come deliverance

[@ecvent0r]

The "Immersive Sim" term that was settled on for this gerne really is not doing it any favours. The gerne is immersive sure, but implying these are simulations is neither true cause they just have isolated systems that happen to interact coherently with each other if the devs build them that way (and most of the time they do this deliberately, e.g. think multiple pathways), nor does this characterization seem to attract people to these games, cause in peoples minds a sim is not a game but usually just an experience like Flight Simulator or racing sims, while Immersive Sims are the full game package and then some. I think these games need an evolution of perception and the right kind of communication to attract people like what RPGs went through in the 2000s. There is nothing fundamentally niche with this games that prevents them from achieving success, if a turn based RPG like BG3 can do it anything can.

[@Bdestiny933]

Metro Exodus is the best immersive sim imo

[@will891410]

Beach Life, Resort Simulator.

[@ericdekker5768]

Being a D.I.K is an awesome SIM game.

[@tomsimmons7673]

Aren't all good games immersive? 😂 If it gets you to sit there and play for hours it's immersive.

[@BusesAreFatCars]

Why did the industry feel the need to add the word "immersive" to simulator games? It seems pretentious and doesn't appear to add anything.

[@damianabregba7476]

Because it is about making semi beliveable world that works. Immersiveness comes from systems and how world reacts. Simulator genre are sadly heavily wattered down by shitty uninspired garbage bin titles that are anything but immersive. There is enough difference to justify its seperate category

[@BusesAreFatCars]

@@damianabregba7476 I appreciate the explanation, though Skyrim for example is a first person RPG. Yet many developers and games journalists would now try to call it an "immersive sim" What RPG isn't an "immersive sim" by these definitions. Maybe the term was well meaning at it's inception though it's become over used by pretentious fart huffers trying to "redefine genres" to make out that they're better/more refined than other people/developers. It's nonsense and has added nothing of value.

[@Arnold_94]

@@BusesAreFatCars the thing is that nowadays lots games are called im-sim but are not. If the term stuck to actual im-sims (Deus Ex, Dishonored etc.) it would be more relevant and impactful. Games can have im-sim gameplay elements, but that does not make them im-sims (Zelda BOTW, Bioshock etc.) RPG genre suffers the same issue, now an Assassin’s Creed will be called a RPG by some people just because you have a skill tree… I don’t think it really is a matter of name, but rather a matter of popular designation by players/journalists which isn’t always correct

[@electrikoptik]

Xbox Series S is holding back your favourite immersive sim game.

[@LeonSKennedy7777]

I like Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild.

[@XGiveMeLibertyX]

Immersive sim is a made up marketing term for fps games

[@Arnold_94]

No, it’s a genre of FPS, and can even be a TPS (see Weird West) Deus Ex and COD are both FPS, but you can’t say they are similar, they need to be called different genres/sub-genres

[@XGiveMeLibertyX]

@@Arnold_94 those are both immersive simulation games. One is simulating modern warfare and I don’t know anything about the other game but it’s simulating something.

[@Arnold_94]

@@XGiveMeLibertyX im-sim is not about simulation properly speaking, the name is misleading, it’s a genre of game which combines freedom of play, physics and elements, and allows to have multiple ways of completing a quest. As I said in another comment the greatness of im-sim is to be able to design your own solution to a problem and basically play the game 5 different ways if you do 5 playthrough. A door is locked in a « normal » game, find the key and open it. A door is locked in an im-sim: find the key, steal the key, break the door if you have strength skills, hack the door if you have hack skills, go through the window, go through a tunnel from side building, get invited to the event behind the door by doing a side quest, pick up some tables or whatever and make your own ladder to jump above, put gasoline on it and ignite it with a fire source etc. This is what im-sim are about, a big puzzle with many solutions but in an « action-adventure/RPG » way

[@ZenzDeluxe]

It's a term coined by Warren Spector from a time when games barely had marketing budgets... In fact, judging by the sheer ignorance on display in this comment section, i'm quite sure most people here complaining about the term weren't alive when it was coined.

[@KingScotto.]

Xbox is the King of Sims lol

[@reyjimenz]

Immersive Sims don't exist

[@mikeuk666]

Half-life 2

[@djtomoy]

This is such an overrated and contrived genre in my opinion, all the boredom of adventure games just broken up with and bit is shooting every now and then

[@Arnold_94]

Then you must not have played a lot of them. The greatness of im-sim is to be able to design your own solution to a problem and basically play the game 5 different ways if you do 5 playthrough. A door is locked in a « normal » game, find the key and open it. A door is locked in an im-sim: find the key, steal the key, break the door if you have strength skills, hack the door if you have hack skills, go through the window, go through a tunnel from side building, get invited to the event behind the door by doing a side quest, pick up some tables or whatever and make your own ladder to jump above, put gasoline on it and ignite it with a fire source etc. This is what im-sim are about! 😊

[@ZenzDeluxe]

You have no clue about the genre and what you're describing is not an accurate representation of said genre. Play more, read more, before making such ignorant statements and definitions.

[@djtomoy]

@@ZenzDeluxe no, I'm correct. the end.

[@Arnold_94]

@@djtomoy absolutely not.

[@Starfishtroopers]

GTA