Something I'll never forget is the story about Dishonored being play-tested. The testers played a level in a house where the objective was upstairs, but when trying to go to the stairs, a guard tells them they're not allowed up. So the play-testers complained they were stuck and didn't know what to do. It didn't occur to them that they could look for another way up, like going outside and climbing up the house through a window. This led to Dishonored's hint system and objective markers. And you can't blame them for being confused when most games they've played up to that point were all super limiting and rigid structured.
Interesting story and I hardly think the testers are a fault. When games have a certain set of expectations and the rules are set for this experience it’s no wonder why “thinking outside the box” or disobeying the npc’s orders doesn’t instantly come to mind because no other game does that so why would you think to do it?
@@viktorianas while options sound nice i think having "togglable" changes that effect the whole of the experience effect artistic integrity. an experience is what it is and adding options to devalue or destroy certain aspects of it in my opinion is not a good idea
I let a friend play Deus Ex and he literarly got lost in a corridor because there was no quest marker and since he didnt listen to any of the dialogue. Its tragic how most modern games train players to not think or try what they can get away with.
oofness, I been playing Deus Ex human revolution recently I haven't played it in like 10 years and omg its a breath of fresh air when the game makes me think a little more then going to the quest mark and doing the things
Brother in Christ, it's not that games have "trained" people to be that way, it's just that your friend and people like him are - no offense - complete smooth brains.
There is no denying that some may have problems that cannot be overcome but people are to some degree shaped by past experiences. Just like you woulnt pick up a book if you coulnt read, if games have all your life told you to look at the minimap/compass to instantly find your objective, would you then even pay attention to clues in the environment? I do think streamlining and accessibility has a place in gaming to a certain degree, (i think the modern hitman games struck a perfect balance between skill and guidance) but its sad when a game completely removes mastery or player agency in their pursuit of letting any layman score 100% on their first try.
You also should not discount the fact that immersive sims are very hard games to make. Designing a game in such a way that makes emergent gameplay possible yet does not break the game completely is a challenging task and modern AAA game studios are hardly competent enough/willing to take that risk. But as other commenters have pointed out, the tide is slowly turning, so maybe we should remain optimistic
aand everything keeps getting so much easier, I can model, rig, animate quickly, use AI for voicing, generate templates for levels, textures, game mechanics, of course they must all be subsequently tweaked and kept in line with the art direction but all niches will get so much new content, including this one.
Did you know, in Farcry 4 if you sit on the chair for more than 5 minutes in the opening section, you actually inherit the entire land/map and win the game?
This was unironically more enjoyable then playing the game itself watching your character commit war crimes for no rational reason. Jason and Rook seem like reasonable people in comparison to the psycho Ajay js.
Which is why "imsims" can never be 100% fully immersive storywise and mapwise: meaning, you can't just kill all the npcs and/or sit out whole missions and discard the whole story and/or noclip thru the whole map. Might as well play Minecraft, where one can break every block possible just because and/or fly/noclip everywhere in creative mode. One can make moves towards that in varying degrees, but eventually push comes to shove for devs/suits who won't wanna waste their precious time/money. (Then again, AI devs wouldn't care now, would they...). Minecraft works because it is in easily coded destructible voxels, and even then there is some progression (some upgrades/loot/areas come before others). Regardless, a game can be engaging, some with more handholding than others, but always with some degree of player agency - we are not in the times of exclusively onrail shooters and qte's galore anymore.
Facts, I was sad that they went away from the yellow stylistic look for Mankind divided. Human Revolution deserves at least a port for 4k 60fps, but embracer cancelled the new Deus Ex game that was in development.
I think a lot of people have been too hard on Deus ex since the sequel invisible war because it came to console and was a little simplified. Human revolution is one of my favorite games, mankind divided is good too and while better looking there’s still something about human revolution and I agree the yellow layer on the environment added something to the game,
I had no idea Human Revolution didn't sell well. On release it was so hyped. Everyone was talking about it. The trailer got insane amounts of views. That's just, wow. I'm surprised.
It did sell well. Human revolution and mankind divided have sold 12 million units combined. He was also wrong about dishonored which was the 24th best selling game in 2012 and also made it to number 1 on steam.
I think there is something you may have overlooked. Immersive sims, like Deus Ex and System Shock 2, are first person role-playing games of a sort. The ethos of the games that descend from these two titles share the same psychology of the table top RPGs that inspired those original games - to give space and the means to explore a self-directed fantasy of play limited mostly by your imagination, or the limits thereof that butt up against the constraints of the immersive sim's broad design. Deus Ex and System Shock 2, being ostensibly products of the 1990s and the renaissance of D&D and PC RPGs, are also products of a culture that was more readily exposed to these complicated kind of games, both on machines and in pen and paper form. The problem with modern Immersive Sims then, is that they really do have trouble explaining and marketing their appeal to prospective players, because the best part about them is figuring cool shit out for yourself. How do you explain the appeal of these systems elegantly, without giving the best parts away? How do you create a tutoring environment in the game to make it nurturing to this style of thinking? I don't think any of these games, save for maybe Prey, with the breaking of the glass, ever figured this out/ It was often said in a PC magazine I read when I was younger, by its then longest running editor, if they were only allowed one game for the rest of their lives, it would have been Deus Ex. If it's the only thing you're allowed to play, it's nearly everything you'd want it to be. The problems with these games is not that these games are hard or even obtuse, it's that "you had to have been there man" kind of attitude they invoke in the players who were lucky enough to have experienced them at the right time, so thank you AndyPants. Please continue to evangelise the fuck out of these games.
I would argue the point that immersive sims have to be FPP is too rigid, as stealth action game like MGSV can be considered full Immersive sims despite mostly TPP.
Yeah, the main issue seem to be that a lot of imsims don't actually bother explaining that there are multiple ways of accomplishing something, nor do they tutorialize the methods enough. I think they need to be treated more like puzzle games, teaching the player everything they can do and then presenting them with multiple options, while also making it clear that multiple options exist.
@@boxfigs1710 Deus Ex and System Shock 2 both have tutorial areas where you can learn about game mechanics, tho most modern games seem to not have this. Tho oddly enough, the VR training / tutorial in Cyberpunk 2077 reminded me of those old tutorial areas.
@@azaph_yt It's not really about the mechanical tutorial, it's more about figuring out a way to get the player to shift how they're thinking about the game. Getting people to ask "could I do this?" or "what would happen if I did this?" and making them not immediately dismiss it as unlikely to work or not worth the effort.
People have always thought one way. As Robert Heinlein once said "throughout history, being too different from your neighbors has always been a crime."
@@stevenscott2136 Romans 12:1-2 1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 *And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.* 1 Peter 4:1-4 1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. 3 For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles-when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. 4 *In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.* Matthew 5:11-13 11 Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. 13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. John 3:19-21 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, *and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.* 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
I would argue that Red Dead 2 actually CAN work as an immersive sim, but only in free play with player made objectives and never in its actually designed missions. Like, in a story mission there's only one way to rob a train, the way that the writers and developers planned out as a set piece. But if you're just doing free-play, and you decide you want to pull off a train robbery, you have many options to work with. Do you want to ride alongside the train and jump on from horse back and go guns blazing? Do you want to wait at the train station and board like a normal person, then when the train is half way through hold everyone up by gun point and rob them individually? Do you want to derail the train entirely by setting up explosives on the track or leaving a explosive oil carriage in the path of the train, then run in and loot the train in the midst of all that confusion? Do you want to actually HIJACK the train and drive it well past its destination into a secluded, lawless area, rob everyone, then set the train rolling again at full speed with no one at the helm? You can absolutely do every single one of those and more, there's tons of interworking systems in the game world for you to play with and manipulate and its one of the best parts of the game. It's just a shame that in the story missions, the part of the game with the most emotional stake with the player, they abandon all that for the sake of memorable and flashy spectacle and set pieces.
Red Dead 2s inability to fully commit to being a cowboy ImSim is frankly what ruined that game for me. The building blocks are there but Rockstar was afraid to alienate players and the illusion of depth is far more important to their bottom line than actual mechanical depth which is understandable given how much money they threw at it but don't spend seven years animating horse testicles if you can't get the basics right.
Do you remember Elder Scrolls Morrowind? One of the best ever because: no objectives markers on map or in your face, you get to know what you need to do by reading(!) the journal. Locations needed to be discovered and found out where they are on the map and a lot of other things! We need that back!!
Best Elder Scrolls ever! Elder Scrolls VI will probably be so dumbed down it'll make Skyrim seem complicated, "Press E to walk to the location, kill the target, retrieve the package, and return here for your reward". *presses E*
90% of "small" (by "modern standards") Vvardenfell would not be naturally explored by the players if quest markers were in. So it felt huge - unlike Skyrim and Oblivion which feel small despite having a bigger map. Morrowind was a real fantasy journey full of unique locations and secrets finding which gave you legit boasting rights among your friends. You wouldn't have that today - and not only because of YT spoiling it.
11:00 kinda nailed it, as a medical student Prey was too much. It requires the use of several mechanics and by each time I came back I'd already forgotten what x, y, or z did. Doesn't mean it's a bad game, just didn't have 2/3 hours to devote to it per week.
When something gets big enough, the allure of mass market appeal becomes the main motivation. This is also because of the budget needed to make a great production. But people forget, great things don't require billions of dollars, it requires good ideas, motivated developers who don't nickel and dime the gamers and a few hundred thousand gamers (out of hundreds of millions in the world) to pay attention. My name is Ahmet, and welcome to my TedTalk :)
Nope, this is good news. IMO, no triple A studio in this modern gaming landscape can actually pull off an immersive sim properly. There's an immersive sim drought right now, but this means that indie devs who actually care about the genre will be pumping out much more memorable and mechanically rich games than a triple A studio ever could. If a triple A studio made an immersive sim right now, they'd just be compromising on everything, and that isn't something I want.
@@protosopic6398deus ex (first one is my favorite), arx fatalis, prey 2017, system shock 2, system shock remake, thief 3, vampire bloodlines. I definitelly forgot about some but these come to my mind right now. Yours?
I feel like the new hitman games should be mentioned. Super successful (I think) and most missions end up being "this is your target somewhere in this map. Have fun"
This reminds me of Richard Garriot explaining that he and Origin Systems spent 3 years building a virtual ecosystem for Ultima Online whereby herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat herbivores, monsters eat or just kill carnivores, and humans hunt monsters, and they tweaked it to perfection to create a balanced system. Then they launched the game and in the first month the player base had managed to murder every single thing with legs to the point that vegetation was now blooming out of control.
I just want to emphasize your point that the majority of the gaming market isn’t ‘gamers’ it’s your coworker who plays maybe one triple-A game ever 2 months.
2:28 just commenting on where I am in the video. I think this question is part of the problem. “Why didn’t they sell well?” The goal post for success is all over the place. Immersive sims aren’t for everyone and that’s what makes them special but because everything needs to appeal to everyone and break sales records, great games are listed as failing to meet expectations.
I think immersive sims suffer the same fate as action rpgs. They suffer from their own success. The feeling of immersion/progression is so good that everybody and their mother implemented elements of immersion/progression to every game that exists. Thus giving a part of the feeling and reducing the market need for the original genre. Another example is mobas scratching the same itch as rts while having way way way lower point of entry.
@@Yarooooooooooooo12indeed, and that is why they are beloved games the world over instead of being stuck as nerdy cult classics. That said, as douchey as the niche cult classic nerdy crowd can be (case in point, this video), the marketplace can and should have them both mainstream and niche games, as variety is the spice of videogames and media/art in general
@@Yarooooooooooooo12 another example would be Minecraft, specially the pre-alpha/alpha/beta versions. In fact, it could be said Minecraft has cured the itch for nonlinear immersive games for many, so they don't attempt other nonlinear immersive games as much. True, the game has added more content and become more objective/task/feature based since official release (after all, Notch sold out to M$), while the pre-release versions were way more immersive in their deceptive simplicity and lack of tasks/objectives/features/etc. [In fact, the ultrasimplicity of early Minecraft coupled with its accesibility and childish presentation arguably made it the most beloved immersive nonlinear game.] But, while I love the pre-release versions since forever and don't touch the official release, I do play many other games that aren't nearly as self-directed/non-linear/immersive. So like you say, the normie games implementing some immersive features has kept the ultraimmersive nerdy games in a beloved culty but niche category (and heck, Dishonored and Deus Ex do have a sizable fanbase, just don't expect Zelda/Skyrim numbers).
Far Cry 2 and Crysis 1 are still my favorite versions of their respective series (both derived from Far Cry 1) because of their experimental approach to immersion through gameplay. Every action from pulling out a map, driving land and sea vehicles, finding weapons caches for very limited ammo reserves etc. had an effect that reinforced immersion by putting the tools the player used in their in-game hands. Simply putting the player in a large environment with objectives that could be solved any number of ways, with deceptively observant and tenacious AI, can make the player feel like they are a man behind enemy lines in a hostile environment where combat is spontaneous and unpredictable. This reactive and unfair approach to combat is paradoxically liberating because it is a reversal of linear gameplay formula. Rather than players reacting to movement and gameplay but acting on initiating combat, the player has full agency to plan and approach gameplay at their own pace, but the combat can quickly get out of their control, forcing them to improvise in ways that are purely unscripted. I have seen groups of enemies use signal flares to call reinforcements, hide from sniper fire, flank your position, spread out in perfect silence at night to erupt in gunfire and charge into the area where they think you are. Even counter your sniper position in the open by hopping in vehicles and quickly close in. The only thing greater than their intelligence was their sheer tenacity, and every gunfight overrunning your position felt visceral no matter how hardcore or casual the scenario or the player's abilities. All of those aspects combined made for unique experiences that the latter games in the series improved on, but also made a bit too casual that some of the immersive sim elements were lost for convenience. They were tedious games, but I always go back to them because they made the simplest of objectives a challenge that could be solved differently again and again.
I recently played Far Cry 1 for the first time. Very interesting relic from that time. Agree FC2 and Crysis are better ... but interestin games nonetheless. Way more interesting than COD
@@andypantsgaming Far Cry 2 without a doubt has more immersive sim elements in terms of AI (i.e. behavior during different times of day/night, when to utilize vehicles, tracking the player to safehouses, less observant to the player when they drive without headlights etc.), and in terms of character interactions (buddy system, with their own reputation and side missions, alternate objectives to the main missions, permadeath, and unique voice lines for whether or not the player aids their alternate objective, or gets to their rescue in time [resulting in permadeath]. Not to mention the structure of faction leaders which is affected by whom the player allies with and kills, and who is next in line to take their place). All of these aspects are also rooted in the setting and the story's message, which is a level of immersion I have hardly seen in fps games that aren't derived from RPGs like Fallout is to Oblivion.
Very interesting vid. I love to hear immersive sims mentioned. Growing up games always had the sense of magic for me, and immersive sims recapture that for me better then most things.
I have played all of the modern immersive sims that you listed, and i wasn't until I played Prey that i realized I had been playing all those games wrong. I loved all the games because they were great, but I had been trying to get from point a to point b as fast as i can. The same exact lightblub moment happened to me in prey. Finding out you can use the glue gun to make platforms made me immediately love the game. After playing prey, i went back to dishonored and deus ex with a whole new perspective. I started to try to find all the different routes you can take to achieve your goal. This really expanded the replay value of the game
At 9:40 "Are you going to be looking for alternate ways...?" No, I wouldn't. It's worse. If I stumbled on an alternate way, I'd be worried that if I do that I will break the game and will have failed to trigger something I was otherwise supposed to. In most games, if you do the unexpected, you risk breaking your save. This to me is actually understandable for most games. It is hard for the developer to make every branch of every consequence work for every possible thing that the end user will try.
Agreed. Not to mention, many times when the storyline is engaging, the gamer will obviously want to follow it along to its natural conclusion. Messing up and adding twist upon twist will be engaging to some to varying degrees, but eventually many will want the story to progress to the ending they feel most natural (to them at least) and be done with it, no matter the conditioning or marketing or whatever. True, videogames can allow you to focus on the gameplay and not the storyline to varying degrees, but not every game can be as story-less or goal-less, as, say, Minecraft Beta.
I remember in games before objective markers, you found out where to go and what to do by exploring the world and talking to NPCs. This wasn't so bad back when limitations confined the whole world to a small enough size that you could traverse it in less than half an hour. Games can be made with such large worlds now that it would take an extraordinary amount of creativity to guide the player through the game without gating off areas in ways that are annoying or remove the player from the immersive experience. In other words, I suspect the AAA companies don't see any profit in it. Instead, we're stuck with interactive movies that have sidequests and collectibles.
Sometimes I play games like RDR (both games are awesome) and sometimes I paly immersive sims like Thief, Deus Ex and Prey. Depends on what I feel like playing. I'm a huge fan of CRPGs and when they have multiple ways of solving one problem I like to think of them as text-based immersive sims.
Another 2 reasons of unpopularity of immersive sims is that those games can be quite a nightmare to develop as they are very demanding when it comes to making a good level design and properly polish features which for modern gaming popularity is key. And immersive sims usually don't have the best mechanics which makes singular features like shooting, platforming or stealth feel quite janky comparing to specialized games and make them less desirable while they have more mechanics. My own issue with immersive sims is that balancing can be quite an issue. For example with Dishonored once with artifact powers game became like a cake walk to complete even on highest difficulty which's boring and not well balanced. And what make first Deus Ex so great is how limiting it comes on upgrates (one installed you can only upgrate and they can't be reversed, same with skills) and how even with upgrates you can die or unable to find/complete some objectives if you're not careful. Plus deus ex is quite punishing if you try to complete own path by not using required upgrates/skills and not properly thinking on situation. And these moments are important for immersive sims as you not only require to think even even if you're high level and it makes it feel less boring and mechanics not an easily exploitable when playing. Edit: spelling and some thoughts.
I'm good with Deus Ex HR, but Prey completely broke me. I felt so insecure, not being able to reliably defeat even the weakest enemies. And if I wanna feel more insecure and miserable, I can just go to my office and start doing my job!
I disagree that the reason for these games not selling as much as others has anything to do with nuances of the gameplay. That's not a point of sale thing, maybe it can be a cause for a refund at most but I doubt they got an insane amount of refunds because of it. Things get sold by the marketing they get and how well that was handled, also by the impression you can get from the game in video format and by a short description. System Shock, Deus Ex and Thief all suffered from bad graphics and lack of marketing and user awareness. Same for Pray as I remember it was not given the attention from the publisher it needed, and the naming caused a controversy. I'm fairly convinced part of the problem when marketing these games is calling them "immersive sims" in the first place. Its a pretty dumb term that doesn't actually mean a whole lot unless you understand the legacy of the genre, and if you do then you're not the average consumer. They shouldn't be marketed as just normal shooter games either, because that might set the wring expectation, but whatever the right way to do it is, I don't think we've found it yet.
I think you are ignoring the marketing power of word of mouth and popularity. Think about games like the recent release of Helldivers, Elden Ring, and Breath of the Wild. Those three games have each been marketed everywhere not just through corporate marketing, but memery, youtube discussion, and friends talking about them. This increases the chances of people buying them because their friends are saying "you've got to try this game". Word of mouth is a very powerful marketing which Immersive sims can't really tap into because they design isn't as conducive to the average player.
I think you nailed it. When I first heard the term "immersive sim" my brain was confused. I had to do some pretty extensive research to truly "get it." It led me to try Prey as my first "ImSim" and to be honest I didn't get too far. I got stuck in a room with two Typhon bastards who keep lighting me on fire. I thought I had my moment when I realized "oh dang I can use the turrets!" but after killing one, the remaining enemy destroyed my turrets. So I'm back to square one. I put it down for the time being. One day I'll get back to it
I wouldn't say Immersive Sim games don't require an objective marker. I think the idea should be that, here's the destination, have at it. I think the marketing needs to be better. Call them a stealth game (Deus Ex games are pretty much played as such) or an RPG, etc. Maybe devs need to implement some smart gameplay design that tells players to think outside the box.
The objective marker thing is interesting to me, since I think it’s why I’ve noticed two camps when it comes to New Vegas. People who think it’s really short because they blitz through the main quest, and people who explore the map and talk to all the NPCs.
Average player here. And at my age of 40, getting stuck on a level or trying to figure out where to go and how to get there is the last thing I want in a game. It’s not worth it to me. If I get an hour to play a game and that entire hour is spent scratching my head, I’m out. Great video though, it’s 100% spot on.
An excellently vocalized view. I think there are a lot more immersive sim elements in games then people realize but we are conditioned not to look for or even recognize these elements. It's more often the gamers desire to intuit how the developer wanted the game to be beaten and when they find an alternative route or method they almost feel like they are cheating. I really enjoyed this video which accurately describes how most people desire to hide within the herd rather than standing out. For whatever it's worth you may now consider me a subscriber. Good vid
The reason they aren't popular is the tutorial. If the tutorial made it clear, multiple paths are possible. Gamer might understand what is being asked of them. But you were part right about working class gamers. We have jobs and responsibilities. We don't have the hours to burn on games. So yeah, I might click the easy function to enjoy the game but to also complete it. I played Deus Ex. And found it enjoyable and unpredictable. I killed an agent in the game because I always fool around and aim my gun at NPCs. Usually, the gun won't fire, or it does, but the NPC is invulnerable. This time, I killed the NPC. I was shocked I moved on. Later, the boss asked if I knew anything about the dead agent. I responded no from the choice tree. He grunted, said if you hear anything. I played Deus Ex in college and finished it. Then later I played Dishonored I was having a blast but now I was working. Two months later I was no closer to finishing it. I took a break to play Tomb Raider and beat it in 3 weeks. Finishing a game is very satisfying. Recently I bought a digital bundle of Prey,Dishonored and Dishonored 2 plus all the decades for 30 dollars. I will try these games again hopefully finishing them.
The Original Deus Ex was such a good game. It was fun exploring all the options and sneaking in overhearing conversations and discovering stuff. You really felt that YOU "discovered' the stuff and investigated it etc.
Deus Ex Mankind Divided captured me entirely. I was hooked. I haven’t been that in love with a game in so long, it was a wonderful experience to play it all the way through.
I had this exact experience with Prey. I played it as a kid and hated how both the gunplay and enemies felt floaty and unresponsive, and once I ran out of pistol ammo I gave up. Came back to it years later once I got into ImSims and it's now one of my favourite games. It was all about knowing what kind of experience I'm in for
Like someone who likes both immersive sims and linier games - linier games often give you better experience. They are scripted after all so they can give you the right amount of challenge, and cinematics and "random" events. And its probably would cost a lot more to make additional 5 different ways to make a train robbery as good. For me - the most immersive thing about Prey were the side quests - I did them all. But they all were great and had additional animations or voice lines or whatever. Yes, finding that person with the laser gun outside of the station while I just explore was fun, but if I got the gun with that side mission I did later - - it would have been better - coz there would have been a story attached to it.
Lets be real lot of us play Gta games for the first time not even attemping missions, i play gta sa first time just like open game, drive bikes,cars, shoot ballas and die and do it all over again, those games were also created to be enjoyed outside main story where in immersive sims your entire purpose is to play the game and finnish it
Arkham City's Freeze boss fight is memorable because you can only progress with different methods of attacking Gadgets had setups from earlier so it feels like you are the one who come up with the solutions It is a very good immersive level in the game
I didn't know the name of the game type, but now i do. Immersive sims and immersive sim elements are MY FAVORITE THING in gaming. I love it when crouching actually lets you access strange places that the devs didn't intend consciously, breaking windows and interacting with in game physics that have an effect on the world. Lately I've been playing postal 2. Hitting people by kicking objects their way or distracting cops with donuts is very very fun. I'm hooked on The Darkness. Action game, sure, but you can see walk into trash cans and tables and the game physics will move them and whatever. Small elements that i like. Would the original "Thief" games fall into this? I never played them but I'd give them a try if so.
The best example of this is the Fable series. Part 1 felt open world. While on a quest you could essentially wander the map. Fable 3, you follow a glow trail and miss tons of content. There's even areas on the map you'll never explore!!!
Immersive Sims are made by imaginative, creative, high IQ developers,, for imaginative, creative, high IQ gamers - a small minority. In this world, it's almost a miracle that there's a market for them at all.
It's not an example of realism, it's an example of system simulations and how they can allow you do come up with creative solutions that weren't explicitly programmed by the game.
@@hackbod yeah I know, it's the way he phrased it as games pursuing realism that was funny, by showing THAT example lol. You described it better than he did IMO. I would also argue that Skyrim isn't a great example of what he's talking about in this video, as I don't think putting a bucket on the AI's head and them being so stupid that they don't notice or react to it really counts as Immersive Sim style emergent solutions to problems. In most immersive sims, the idea is that not only can the player be creative with how they can interact with the world, but the AI can react to it.
Very well articulated. Dues Ex was like a revelation for me, it brought so many things to a video game I had always wanted but didn’t know were possible. Creativity, imagination and problem solving (on the players part) are absolutely needed to make a truly great game. Oh, and I believe a lot of what you said is true of cinema as well. We all have a brain and it feels good to use it and not have every detail of a plot spelled out for us.
I agreed with the video starting out, but you hit the nail on the head. I know RAZORFIST hates the term immersive sim. but the genre really has you tell your own story and most devs now are competent in story telling enough to trust the player to interpret it on their own I do agree though you have to like problem-solving and figuring things out to play it
You can sum up the reason why as being that most people don't actually want to have to think that much about what to do in an average game experience. When ever there are two paths there is the choice of which to follow. That's basically the most simple mental challenge in any game. The more challenges the more some people will get stressed. They like having choices at flashy moments that stick out but the true freedom to make choices constantly stresses people out and they don't like it. Especially if making choices has actual consequences and can stall your progress
another factor is just effort. to create a solid and stable sandbox for all these possibilities to play out is just plain more effort. the emergent gameplay is also harder to test and to integrate a story with. i dont see a publisher greenlighting an immersive sim nowadays when he can have three cookie cutter formula type of games instead. just look at how MGS5 the phantom pain broke the camels back on Koshima vs Konami. while not an immersive Sim it had very much player freedom in mind.
I honestly think that era is gone, until a new developer somehow catches lightening in a bottle and makes somethin somehow everybody likes while remaining "true to the genre". BG3 did this well, for the time. But I don't think BG3 is bringing back Imsim.
This video is incredible. It perfectly highlights the problem with modern games and modern gamers. Modern gamers are too stupid to understand the complex masterpieces of the past that I enjoyed growing up. Fortnite babies simply lack the brain power and training to play the extensive list of masterpiece immersive sims (deus ex, and system shock) that turned me into me expert gamer I am today. Imagine if a game like BALDERS GATE was released in the year 2023. That would NEVER ever win multiple game of the year awards, it would NEVER be a best selling game, and it most certainly would not sell over 10 million copies. Oh wait, it did. Watching this video was an experience. I knew this video would be of exceptional quality when you spoke about dishonored, you talked about how it's hard to know if developers intended for use to use the stop time and possession abilitys in the way you described. EXCEPT THIS AN ACHIEVEMENT IN THE GAME. HOW COULD YOU EVER THINK THEY DID NOT KNOW?? You talk about modern games all being linear with a main story, and all providing players with the same experience, unlike the games of the past. This is the wildest thing I have ever heard. Do you even live on earth? You say this, unironically, while playing GTA4 an open world sandbox game that gives the player multiple choices throughout the game which affect the story. Modern games are too easy? Almost every modern game has difficulty sliders that allow you to make the game harder, the only game I can think of that does not is.....THE SOULS GAMES AND ELDEN RING. These are best selling games and are wildly popular, and won multiple awards. If the issue is that modern games have an easy mode then...I have no clue what point your trying to make. Deus ex, the orginal deus ex, the game you say is an amazing immersive sim has....(you need to sit down for this) it has.....an easy mode. I'm sorry to tell you this. I have no idea why you complain about objective markers, whilst playing GTA4. Do you really think it would be fun to play GTA4 without objective markers? Imagine the game telling you to go to romans house, and then you pull up your map, and then you remember that you have not played the game for a week because you have a job and then you realize you have forgotten where romans house is, so you can immerse yourself in the experience of being lost and driving around aimlessly. Here's a fun experiment. Play a game with objective markers, and turn them off. 0/10 video.
Thank you for saving me the time of watching the video. I also lived through the good old days. And don't get me wrong, It was the good days. But we always knew we were filling in the blanks, gaming was a lot more like reading a book, than watching television. Simply because the technology was too primitive back then. You had to imagine the textures and models weren't terrible, sometimes literally squinting because monitors back then had so few pixels. I think the immersive sim is about to make a huge comeback. Mostly because of advances and artificial intelligence. Specifically agentic, knowledge graphing, chain of foo, prompt optimizing, local, oss, multi shot inferring LLMs Good luck searching for that. All of that stuff exists, I know because I had to learn all those terms in the last few weeks. Sometimes I think my head is going to explode, progress is going so fast. Basically smart NPCs and living worlds for very small compute costs. For certain values of small, You might need to buy a second 3060 just to run the AI. But that's a price I'm willing to pay. Here's the coolest part, once you have an intelligent game master to run the game, the amount of things you have to actually program go down by orders of magnitude. Some of it's going to require training in the virtual environment to find stable states. But that's something else the AI can do. You just need to rent enough video cards. No more having the program weather systems, Day and night cycles, npc cycles, etc, etc, etc. It's a very long list. I might a little bit high right now. For certain values of little bit. Allegedly.
ehmm difficulty sliders meansa nothing if its not well made, some games difficulty settings are so bad that forces you to not use some weapons with is not how a difficluty setting should be, it should be a harder version of the game not impossible not needing to use glitchs or bugs etc.
I think the video's author is just sad that Prey doesn't sell as well as Fortnite, it's simple, it won't - but 6 million copies is respectable for anyone. Plus he doesn't mention Baldur's Gate because it's not "muh pure imsim experience". At any rate, one would hope AI will make these "imsims" and other games profitable so they don't have to sell dozens of millions, which they won't - and it's nothing to cry about, 5-10 million is huge already, it only doesn't feel like it because of the industry's bloated budgets.
Less than 3 minutes into video. I’m so glad you brought up the Customer eXperience (and by extension building a relation with customer). Sadly this change… Now people are treated as consumers: “just buy products, and get excited for the next product”. EDIT: I would not blame CX for issues in game rather lack of it. Now everything seems to be about profit often short term gain (for example a worse quality product which will seek due to the brand) rather than customer experience. In order to gain customers trust and hope they come back, one need to show it is worth doing business with you. Not something we see in modern gaming with buggy, broken releases or games trying so hard to appeal to everyone they end up being for no one. Not to mention games made from the template with lack of innovation. (I’m referring to big budget titles).
9:05 You probably know this but some of the alternative approaches to get past Drahomír Koníčky's checkpoint are: you can go to the forgers headquarters and give them money for a fake ID. Or meet the forger (by sneaking or fighting in), talk to them and then tell the honest cops about the scam. (You also get the choice to help the forger distribute more fake IDs.) There are probably other ways ways? I was recently playing Hellblade and it doesn't use waypointed objectives. I just was not used to it!
I love immersive sims. I always use the most straightforward solution. It doesn’t at all diminish my enjoyment. I played Prey almost like a cod campaign. Loved that! Your listed reasons don’t make sense imo. Immersive sims is one of my favorite genres. But I almost never interact heavily with the sandbox.
People are stupid, that is why his points make sense. lol... They get accustomed to a way of thinking and can't get think outside of it, classic sheep/follower mentality. Dishonored for example, having the objective on a floor where the guards will deny you entry is already too much for people. They literally had to add in a whole hint/tip system to cover such obvious stuff... If they say you can't go up the stairs, maybe try sneaking in or finding alternative routes, but they hit the roadblock and just sit dumbfounded... Was an actual problem for the dishonored devs. You seem to have at least the basics so it seems obvious, but it is shockingly surprising how inept the vast majority of the general audience of gamers are...
Hmmm, idk dude. One of my favourite games is TLOU, and i remember playing Prey after that (i got late into TLOU) and absolutely LOVING it. I don't think it's a matter of "Triple A games are easy and mindless so that they can be successful" cause when you look at Elden Ring (no markers at all, and not that easy either) then it isn't about markers and difficulty anymore. What's dragging the genre back is, imo, the players very creativity, and willingness to interact with the world in ways few other games let you. I guess immersive sims can be as good as the player "allows" them to be, and that's the problem.
After playing so many games that 'say NO', deny the player access or opportunity which is obvious, then the rails begin to show. After fighting with the rails enough, we just don't bother for the most part. So much is cut-scene driven with scripted events that sometimes I'd rather just watch the movie instead of pushing the narrative through the mud slowly.
These are my exact thoughts on this video; he describes the average gamer as some Neanderthal with zero critical thinking skills: “All this is simply too complicated for the average person”, as he describes the most basic ways to complete a mission objective. I think all of this is situated upon a strange superiority complex, which stems for their need to validate their choice in video game by lording it above everyone else; “No! You’re just not smart enough to understand the game!”, when it’s really just a choice of opinion and nothing more.
Also some imsims are extremely easy. The default options that Dishonored gives you make 90% of the game extremely easy unless you're aiming for a no-kill or no-alarm run, let alone if you start using the extra tools it gives you.
@@bigdojacoom8999 that’s really a disingenuous way to interpret what he meant, the average gamer are not only usually busy but also have an insane access to games aswell, which results in the average gamer being frustrated whenever they are stuck and ultimately dropping the game nothing has to do with superiority complex or average player being dumb like you are saying, look at the design choices of games like FF16 in many interviews focused on the fact that it was accessible to everyone to enjoy which resulted in an extremely dumbed down game with only focus on storytelling and combat with shiny spectacles, there was even an interview where the director said that they removed optional dungeons to allow players to focus more on the story and not over complicate things. There is really a good reason why linear games are taking over and some fanbase like Zelda are begging the developers to go back to linear game design because it’s very hard to appreciate open ended games without giving too much time for them especially if they don’t have a compelling cinematic story.
I don't think this is about things being too complicated necessarily. I think you were right to say people don't really know that these games have numerous options and ways to interact with them. When I played Mankind Divided years ago I wouldn't have tried the things you mention because there is risk to your time in video games. If you try something that doesn't work games will very often punish you for this.
Interesting take. I sued to love these kinds of games and I've noticed I can't get into them at all any more - I think my brain is too tired being an adult and yes i CRAVE a linear story with as littel devation allowed as possible to funnel me through to the end. battle-cutscene-battle repeat credits :)
In Deus Ex HR I used one of the hackable turrets by picking it up and bringing it in the elevator with me, when the boss fight starts as you open up the elevator I ran behind my homie turret and it took care of it for me I absolutely loved it. In fallout New Vegas at the very very end of Sierra Nevada dlc I used turbo and was able to steal all literally all the gold and I didn’t have to worry about money the rest of the game. Thanks for the memories. Also this is a reason I don’t like Assassin Creed games as much because it doesn’t give you freedom
if i was still in school, i would agree with this video 100% but im a grown man and time is no longer on my side, having objective markers it's more like a commodity now honestly And another thing, these games are not popular because, You simply cannot market them anymore properly, and some of them are simply not appealing anymore because nobody has patience to play them, look at RTS games handing Starcraft to a kid that grew up with fortnite will not mix well i find it a miracle that baldurs gate 3 is so popular, when the game it self is pretty complicated for your average person but it has a lot of eye candy. i played all of these games featured in this video and i liked all of them a lot, but i can't recommend them, because There is almost nothing visually appealing in them for today's audience to be blunt No anime girls, No tits, No fan service, No big daily rewards, and sadly no gachas or cool skins. ofc a kid will be attracted to the multi colored fortnite skin rather the bleak and grim looking dishonored. T.L. D.R. I love them a lot, but my nephew will most likely hate them and call them boring to look at compared to animes or fortnite.
yeah, i feel you. I don't know where to place my grievances with the issue at. these are some of the most cool gaming experiences i have had (deus ex was for SURE) and they'd still bore folks to sleep. Even guys around my age in their mid twenties would have no interest in a deus ex game nowadays.
Funny enough this is why people don't like Sims, also marketing teams are awful at promoting most games. As a former CoD player in the 360 era, I remember getting Human Revolution for $10 to try it out around 2011. I hated the game and dropped it within the first 30min. At the time I thought it had awful gameplay, you died too fast and was boring. I picked it up again, around 2012 and actually gave it a chance. I fell in love with it, I played the game non stop till I finished it. Sims are like soul's games, you have to forget everything the mainstream has thought about games. Just go in and learn to explore, think outside the box, not just go in running around expecting the game to play itself. Talking about it just makes me excited for the system shock remake/port later this month.
I noticed this going from Oblivion and Skyrim to Morrowind. I had to use the actual in-game map to navigate as well as road markers. I also had to pay close attention to my character’s journal entries.
you are spot on, 15 years ago I was kind of into puzzle games, but after a long day of work trying to solve other peoples problems for years. I just didnt want to solve complicated puzzles in games anymore. I just wanted to turn off my brain and enjoy a going through the motions kind of game. I remember Prey, Deus Ex, and Dishonored way back and never finished them mostly cause of what you said. I also waited till they were heavily discounted before buying.
I'mma be honest: Deus Ex Mankind Divided has been one of the buggiest games I've played, with very clunky systems and ugly graphics backing it up. The game was a crashfest, and when it had the pleasure of not crashing, it loved having graphical glitches. When the glitches weren't happening, I was dealing with the controls, painfully slow weapon swap, awkward attachment system with "just know it lol" mechanics like which attachment goes in which gun, among other things. I don't feel like the game encouraged me to experiment because my rewards were almost always money or something I could sell for money, and the game's fucking horrid platforming where Jensen reaches terminal velocity after falling half a meter made me not want to jump unless I absolutely had to. Don't even get me started on the pointlessly high amount of lootable containers or energy still limiting takedowns, because of course you're too tired to punch someone but can fire a grenade launcher forever. Some things were genuinely interesting, like hiding behind a box and moving it around, or blocking doorways with heavy objects, but those things didn't make up for the amount of time I wasted to shoddy design, bugs and the mediocre story beat of "robot racism bad". The first game wasn't the most stellar thing in the world and was as clunky as MD, but at the very least I cared to see what would happen next because it asked interesting questions... and I don't think "what if teh robot racism happen?" is a thought-provoking question. The only upside to the story is that Adam is still a genuinely interesting character with learned views and drops some really dope gems of wisdom on other characters.
Thanks for a great video pointing out this. While it's kinda sad that this happens, at the very least I can now keep this in mind whenever I would try ImSim
Thank you for explaining to me why I never finished RDR2. I played it for countless hours just hunting and getting into fights and doing the random encounter stuff, but I could never bring myself to finish the story missions. This crystalized for me why that was true. Also, in RDR2, the developers provided a day/night cycle, but the enemies all had perfect night vision, which actually made ambushing bandits at night - the obviously best stratagem - a handicap for the player. I knew that game was great, but I never knew why I didn't love it. Your example from RDR2 just brought it entirely into focus. Great video.
"keeping the mines in would force them to redesign every level in the game" -- alternatively, they could have removed player collision from the mines and scissor clapped imaginary dust off their hands, content in the knowledge that they were completely done solving the problem.
Dude you’re my new favorite gaming channel. Keep rocking! Couple years ago I picked up the dishonored series and fell in love with its play style. It was revolutionary for me really I saw you’re video about underrated games so I decided to buy Deus Ex, looking forward to playing
Honestly, with Baldur's Gate 3's success (not specifically an Immersive Sim but shares a lot of elements) it looks like these types of games have a potential for the mainstream audience. Also, with Elden Ring, we've seen that difficulty can work in mainstream as well.
I remember how cool I felt playing Deus Ex HR on highest difficulty with no markers, I was familiar with the game having beaten it thrice before. but simply removing markers made it an almost new experience. also I love how in Mankind divided you can basically turn the game into call of duty by maxing out combat augs.
One game that i would say is a 'soft' immserive sim that's gotten really popular recently is Helldivers 2. While a lot of missions are, blow this up, blow that up, there's also a few missions that can be done by stealth. And this wasn't initiallt intended but rather a consequence of the systems in the game. Everything you do has different levels of sound like in a stealth game. Certain weapons have different sound values etc. And while being able to complete a whole mission by stealth is incredibly hard, is still mostly possible. And this is on top of the numerous approaches you can have to the the game. It's not a meta, but I love the eagle smoke strike. I use it either so the enemies can't see me approach the objective, allowing me to do it and dip, or if there's a ton of them shooting me in an open area, use it, and go in a different direction to lose their track. And the fact there's so specific class mechanic means people can be very flexible in what they can do, and how they can create team combos. This also helps with solo, as you are able to hone in on a specific playstyle. Long distant? Close and personal? Fast build? Explosive build? All of this is further encouraged with the fact there are different factions with different propreties and behaviours that require you to adapt your build to them. HD2 isn't as in-depth as games like Deus Ex, however, is very much leaning towards that over an easy and low brain power game (not that you can't shut your head off while playing this).
The real reason those games didn't sell well is that they were simply poorly marketed. Looking at the names and box art of games such as GTA, Skyrim, and Red Dead, it's immediately obvious what they are about: The common fantasies of being a criminal, a cowboy, or a viking. But nobody has any clue what a game called "Dishonored" or "Deus Ex" would be about, and the box art doesn't really make us much wiser.
Yea, if your game deviates from the general 'normal' games of the time than it is pretty important that the marketing or a tutorial in the game is well designed to integrate players into the right mindset for that type of game so that they get the most out of it and can actually enjoy it for what it is. People are seeming to lose that creative thinking skill. For those already used to it, it is second nature to at least try and be disappointed by the lack of options of most games, but the opposite is true with them not even considering things at all thanks to the lack of it normally...
Broski totally ignoring every human else beside AAA generalized grey mass consumers and the existence of countless indie Imm-sim success stories and B-tier good Imm-sim games selling pretty well... Quality/Enjoyment =/= Popularity/Sales
Yeah his rambling is just pointless. Souls, Resident Evil and Stalker games sold millions of copies and they were never handholding it's players, they never had quest markers you need to figure out everything yourself but that goes against his biased view. And what about countless f2p games like War Thunder or Dota 2? They are way more complex than his immersive sims (what a stupid term). And Prey was garbage with it's trash level design, and i loved original Deus Ex, Dishonored 1 and DXMD. What a worthless video.
Isn't Baldur's Gate 3 a counter-example? Sure it's not technically an immersive sim, but most of the characteristics you describe that mean they aren't going to be popular are also present in BG3... and that was fairly popular. (Though I guess you could say "extremely popular for that type of game," but regardless of the type of game its sales were pretty good.)
Something I'll never forget is the story about Dishonored being play-tested. The testers played a level in a house where the objective was upstairs, but when trying to go to the stairs, a guard tells them they're not allowed up. So the play-testers complained they were stuck and didn't know what to do. It didn't occur to them that they could look for another way up, like going outside and climbing up the house through a window. This led to Dishonored's hint system and objective markers. And you can't blame them for being confused when most games they've played up to that point were all super limiting and rigid structured.
Yeah, to be fair, most people in that situation would be conditioned to think that the guard not letting them advance is a bug
@@VilasNil Except that that was exactly how all popular adventure games ever played.
Interesting story and I hardly think the testers are a fault. When games have a certain set of expectations and the rules are set for this experience it’s no wonder why “thinking outside the box” or disobeying the npc’s orders doesn’t instantly come to mind because no other game does that so why would you think to do it?
So the best thing is to have OPTIONS, if somebody wants hints, let them turn on.
@@viktorianas while options sound nice i think having "togglable" changes that effect the whole of the experience effect artistic integrity.
an experience is what it is and adding options to devalue or destroy certain aspects of it in my opinion is not a good idea
I let a friend play Deus Ex and he literarly got lost in a corridor because there was no quest marker and since he didnt listen to any of the dialogue.
Its tragic how most modern games train players to not think or try what they can get away with.
oofness, I been playing Deus Ex human revolution recently I haven't played it in like 10 years and omg its a breath of fresh air when the game makes me think a little more then going to the quest mark and doing the things
Brother in Christ, it's not that games have "trained" people to be that way, it's just that your friend and people like him are - no offense - complete smooth brains.
There is no denying that some may have problems that cannot be overcome but people are to some degree shaped by past experiences.
Just like you woulnt pick up a book if you coulnt read, if games have all your life told you to look at the minimap/compass to instantly find your objective, would you then even pay attention to clues in the environment?
I do think streamlining and accessibility has a place in gaming to a certain degree, (i think the modern hitman games struck a perfect balance between skill and guidance) but its sad when a game completely removes mastery or player agency in their pursuit of letting any layman score 100% on their first try.
You also should not discount the fact that immersive sims are very hard games to make. Designing a game in such a way that makes emergent gameplay possible yet does not break the game completely is a challenging task and modern AAA game studios are hardly competent enough/willing to take that risk. But as other commenters have pointed out, the tide is slowly turning, so maybe we should remain optimistic
I hope so, because the tide I see is the clousure of both Arkane and Eidos montreal
aand everything keeps getting so much easier, I can model, rig, animate quickly, use AI for voicing, generate templates for levels, textures, game mechanics, of course they must all be subsequently tweaked and kept in line with the art direction but all niches will get so much new content, including this one.
Agree
@@Brukner841 doenst work like that. Art is not magic. It`s proccess. You use these tools to enhance working pipelines but no more than that
@@UsielX yeah I agree, but boy do they enhance
Did you know, in Farcry 4 if you sit on the chair for more than 5 minutes in the opening section, you actually inherit the entire land/map and win the game?
This was unironically more enjoyable then playing the game itself watching your character commit war crimes for no rational reason. Jason and Rook seem like reasonable people in comparison to the psycho Ajay js.
Which is why "imsims" can never be 100% fully immersive storywise and mapwise: meaning, you can't just kill all the npcs and/or sit out whole missions and discard the whole story and/or noclip thru the whole map. Might as well play Minecraft, where one can break every block possible just because and/or fly/noclip everywhere in creative mode. One can make moves towards that in varying degrees, but eventually push comes to shove for devs/suits who won't wanna waste their precious time/money. (Then again, AI devs wouldn't care now, would they...). Minecraft works because it is in easily coded destructible voxels, and even then there is some progression (some upgrades/loot/areas come before others). Regardless, a game can be engaging, some with more handholding than others, but always with some degree of player agency - we are not in the times of exclusively onrail shooters and qte's galore anymore.
And in Far Cry 5 and 6.
10 minutes to be exact
Human revolution is a masterpiece. Still play that game, the story and atmosphere is out of this world
Facts, I was sad that they went away from the yellow stylistic look for Mankind divided. Human Revolution deserves at least a port for 4k 60fps, but embracer cancelled the new Deus Ex game that was in development.
@@NuclearAbyss I absolutely loved the gold and black aesthetic of HR not to mention its cyber renaissance design
I think a lot of people have been too hard on Deus ex since the sequel invisible war because it came to console and was a little simplified. Human revolution is one of my favorite games, mankind divided is good too and while better looking there’s still something about human revolution and I agree the yellow layer on the environment added something to the game,
@@Jason-bd5iq I think that and just the overall tone, atmosphere and soundtrack. Just a phenomenal game
That game was basically the spiritual predecessor of "Cyberpunk 2077."
I had no idea Human Revolution didn't sell well. On release it was so hyped. Everyone was talking about it. The trailer got insane amounts of views. That's just, wow. I'm surprised.
I think same. It was like best game in my life and i don't understand why it sold so poor
Because it sucks
It did sell well. Human revolution and mankind divided have sold 12 million units combined.
He was also wrong about dishonored which was the 24th best selling game in 2012 and also made it to number 1 on steam.
@@zoeherriotyeah ig for some reason he expected those games to be loved more than Zelda and Skyrim lol
The fact he even said 5.8 million isnt selling well made him look dumb lmao
I think there is something you may have overlooked.
Immersive sims, like Deus Ex and System Shock 2, are first person role-playing games of a sort.
The ethos of the games that descend from these two titles share the same psychology of the table top RPGs that inspired those original games - to give space and the means to explore a self-directed fantasy of play limited mostly by your imagination, or the limits thereof that butt up against the constraints of the immersive sim's broad design.
Deus Ex and System Shock 2, being ostensibly products of the 1990s and the renaissance of D&D and PC RPGs, are also products of a culture that was more readily exposed to these complicated kind of games, both on machines and in pen and paper form.
The problem with modern Immersive Sims then, is that they really do have trouble explaining and marketing their appeal to prospective players, because the best part about them is figuring cool shit out for yourself. How do you explain the appeal of these systems elegantly, without giving the best parts away? How do you create a tutoring environment in the game to make it nurturing to this style of thinking? I don't think any of these games, save for maybe Prey, with the breaking of the glass, ever figured this out/
It was often said in a PC magazine I read when I was younger, by its then longest running editor, if they were only allowed one game for the rest of their lives, it would have been Deus Ex.
If it's the only thing you're allowed to play, it's nearly everything you'd want it to be. The problems with these games is not that these games are hard or even obtuse, it's that "you had to have been there man" kind of attitude they invoke in the players who were lucky enough to have experienced them at the right time, so thank you AndyPants.
Please continue to evangelise the fuck out of these games.
Well said
I would argue the point that immersive sims have to be FPP is too rigid, as stealth action game like MGSV can be considered full Immersive sims despite mostly TPP.
Yeah, the main issue seem to be that a lot of imsims don't actually bother explaining that there are multiple ways of accomplishing something, nor do they tutorialize the methods enough. I think they need to be treated more like puzzle games, teaching the player everything they can do and then presenting them with multiple options, while also making it clear that multiple options exist.
@@boxfigs1710 Deus Ex and System Shock 2 both have tutorial areas where you can learn about game mechanics, tho most modern games seem to not have this. Tho oddly enough, the VR training / tutorial in Cyberpunk 2077 reminded me of those old tutorial areas.
@@azaph_yt It's not really about the mechanical tutorial, it's more about figuring out a way to get the player to shift how they're thinking about the game. Getting people to ask "could I do this?" or "what would happen if I did this?" and making them not immediately dismiss it as unlikely to work or not worth the effort.
People have been slowly getting conditioned into thinking one way it’s true and it scares me in and outside of video games.
Stealth games use to encourage that, try multiple ways to solve the puzzle of reaching an objective.
People have always thought one way. As Robert Heinlein once said "throughout history, being too different from your neighbors has always been a crime."
@@stevenscott2136
Romans 12:1-2
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 *And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.*
1 Peter 4:1-4
1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. 3 For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles-when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. 4 *In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.*
Matthew 5:11-13
11 Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
John 3:19-21
19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, *and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.* 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
Bravo
well said
I would argue that Red Dead 2 actually CAN work as an immersive sim, but only in free play with player made objectives and never in its actually designed missions. Like, in a story mission there's only one way to rob a train, the way that the writers and developers planned out as a set piece. But if you're just doing free-play, and you decide you want to pull off a train robbery, you have many options to work with. Do you want to ride alongside the train and jump on from horse back and go guns blazing? Do you want to wait at the train station and board like a normal person, then when the train is half way through hold everyone up by gun point and rob them individually? Do you want to derail the train entirely by setting up explosives on the track or leaving a explosive oil carriage in the path of the train, then run in and loot the train in the midst of all that confusion? Do you want to actually HIJACK the train and drive it well past its destination into a secluded, lawless area, rob everyone, then set the train rolling again at full speed with no one at the helm? You can absolutely do every single one of those and more, there's tons of interworking systems in the game world for you to play with and manipulate and its one of the best parts of the game. It's just a shame that in the story missions, the part of the game with the most emotional stake with the player, they abandon all that for the sake of memorable and flashy spectacle and set pieces.
I don’t think Red Dead 2 has enough verbs to really be an immersive sim
Funny thing is GTA3 was more immersive sim than the rest of the series, at least for one of the missions.
by red dead 2 do you mean red dead redemption?
@@chunkymilk Yes. Nobody cares about Revolver lol
Red Dead 2s inability to fully commit to being a cowboy ImSim is frankly what ruined that game for me. The building blocks are there but Rockstar was afraid to alienate players and the illusion of depth is far more important to their bottom line than actual mechanical depth which is understandable given how much money they threw at it but don't spend seven years animating horse testicles if you can't get the basics right.
Do you remember Elder Scrolls Morrowind? One of the best ever because: no objectives markers on map or in your face, you get to know what you need to do by reading(!) the journal. Locations needed to be discovered and found out where they are on the map and a lot of other things! We need that back!!
Best Elder Scrolls ever! Elder Scrolls VI will probably be so dumbed down it'll make Skyrim seem complicated, "Press E to walk to the location, kill the target, retrieve the package, and return here for your reward".
*presses E*
@@krashd sadly this could be a reality...
90% of "small" (by "modern standards") Vvardenfell would not be naturally explored by the players if quest markers were in. So it felt huge - unlike Skyrim and Oblivion which feel small despite having a bigger map. Morrowind was a real fantasy journey full of unique locations and secrets finding which gave you legit boasting rights among your friends. You wouldn't have that today - and not only because of YT spoiling it.
Kingdom Come Deliverance at your service
@@IrrationalDelusion Not exactly the same bro, AND YOU KNOW IT ;)
Morrowind has fantasy, races, spells, gods...
and the lovely silt striders
The early levels of an immersive sim could train players to use their initiative, maybe, with a few simple and decreasingly obvious options.
The opening map of the original Deus Ex actually does this very well. You can solve it using many different builds and tactics.
11:00 kinda nailed it, as a medical student Prey was too much. It requires the use of several mechanics and by each time I came back I'd already forgotten what x, y, or z did. Doesn't mean it's a bad game, just didn't have 2/3 hours to devote to it per week.
When something gets big enough, the allure of mass market appeal becomes the main motivation. This is also because of the budget needed to make a great production. But people forget, great things don't require billions of dollars, it requires good ideas, motivated developers who don't nickel and dime the gamers and a few hundred thousand gamers (out of hundreds of millions in the world) to pay attention. My name is Ahmet, and welcome to my TedTalk :)
its so sad that my most favorite game genre is forever bound to be unpopular and commercially unsuccesful
Nope, this is good news. IMO, no triple A studio in this modern gaming landscape can actually pull off an immersive sim properly. There's an immersive sim drought right now, but this means that indie devs who actually care about the genre will be pumping out much more memorable and mechanically rich games than a triple A studio ever could. If a triple A studio made an immersive sim right now, they'd just be compromising on everything, and that isn't something I want.
@@dudeguy8553 i hope you are right
@@Krudanze What is your favorite sim?
@@protosopic6398deus ex (first one is my favorite), arx fatalis, prey 2017, system shock 2, system shock remake, thief 3, vampire bloodlines. I definitelly forgot about some but these come to my mind right now. Yours?
@@Krudanze I haven't played a ton, but Prey 2017 is amazing!
I feel like the new hitman games should be mentioned. Super successful (I think) and most missions end up being "this is your target somewhere in this map. Have fun"
true
Not new, any hitman except codename 47 and absolution.
@@morkgin2459 This guy knows nothing
@@andypantsgaming which guy?
@morkgin2459 well yeah, all the old ones are too, but I just meant as an example of a current, successful one
This reminds me of Richard Garriot explaining that he and Origin Systems spent 3 years building a virtual ecosystem for Ultima Online whereby herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat herbivores, monsters eat or just kill carnivores, and humans hunt monsters, and they tweaked it to perfection to create a balanced system. Then they launched the game and in the first month the player base had managed to murder every single thing with legs to the point that vegetation was now blooming out of control.
In the end, no matter the conditioning, people are people
I just want to emphasize your point that the majority of the gaming market isn’t ‘gamers’ it’s your coworker who plays maybe one triple-A game ever 2 months.
Yet games like Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3 are extremely popular
I'm slowly becoming that coworker 😫😭
@@ni9274and look who plays them, moms and dads 😂😂😂
@DanteS-119 you clearly don't know how many people play games today
@DanteS-119 haha....speak for yourself
I love when I play Prey and I go into the cargo tunnel and send an explosive barrel at an Typhon at 90 miles per hour.
2:28 just commenting on where I am in the video. I think this question is part of the problem. “Why didn’t they sell well?”
The goal post for success is all over the place. Immersive sims aren’t for everyone and that’s what makes them special but because everything needs to appeal to everyone and break sales records, great games are listed as failing to meet expectations.
I think immersive sims suffer the same fate as action rpgs. They suffer from their own success. The feeling of immersion/progression is so good that everybody and their mother implemented elements of immersion/progression to every game that exists. Thus giving a part of the feeling and reducing the market need for the original genre.
Another example is mobas scratching the same itch as rts while having way way way lower point of entry.
this. Games like GTA, Zelda, ecc. take the good stuff about these games and leave out the nerdy aspects
@@Yarooooooooooooo12indeed, and that is why they are beloved games the world over instead of being stuck as nerdy cult classics. That said, as douchey as the niche cult classic nerdy crowd can be (case in point, this video), the marketplace can and should have them both mainstream and niche games, as variety is the spice of videogames and media/art in general
@@Yarooooooooooooo12 another example would be Minecraft, specially the pre-alpha/alpha/beta versions. In fact, it could be said Minecraft has cured the itch for nonlinear immersive games for many, so they don't attempt other nonlinear immersive games as much.
True, the game has added more content and become more objective/task/feature based since official release (after all, Notch sold out to M$), while the pre-release versions were way more immersive in their deceptive simplicity and lack of tasks/objectives/features/etc. [In fact, the ultrasimplicity of early Minecraft coupled with its accesibility and childish presentation arguably made it the most beloved immersive nonlinear game.] But, while I love the pre-release versions since forever and don't touch the official release, I do play many other games that aren't nearly as self-directed/non-linear/immersive. So like you say, the normie games implementing some immersive features has kept the ultraimmersive nerdy games in a beloved culty but niche category (and heck, Dishonored and Deus Ex do have a sizable fanbase, just don't expect Zelda/Skyrim numbers).
Far Cry 2 and Crysis 1 are still my favorite versions of their respective series (both derived from Far Cry 1) because of their experimental approach to immersion through gameplay. Every action from pulling out a map, driving land and sea vehicles, finding weapons caches for very limited ammo reserves etc. had an effect that reinforced immersion by putting the tools the player used in their in-game hands. Simply putting the player in a large environment with objectives that could be solved any number of ways, with deceptively observant and tenacious AI, can make the player feel like they are a man behind enemy lines in a hostile environment where combat is spontaneous and unpredictable. This reactive and unfair approach to combat is paradoxically liberating because it is a reversal of linear gameplay formula.
Rather than players reacting to movement and gameplay but acting on initiating combat, the player has full agency to plan and approach gameplay at their own pace, but the combat can quickly get out of their control, forcing them to improvise in ways that are purely unscripted. I have seen groups of enemies use signal flares to call reinforcements, hide from sniper fire, flank your position, spread out in perfect silence at night to erupt in gunfire and charge into the area where they think you are. Even counter your sniper position in the open by hopping in vehicles and quickly close in. The only thing greater than their intelligence was their sheer tenacity, and every gunfight overrunning your position felt visceral no matter how hardcore or casual the scenario or the player's abilities. All of those aspects combined made for unique experiences that the latter games in the series improved on, but also made a bit too casual that some of the immersive sim elements were lost for convenience. They were tedious games, but I always go back to them because they made the simplest of objectives a challenge that could be solved differently again and again.
I recently played Far Cry 1 for the first time. Very interesting relic from that time. Agree FC2 and Crysis are better ... but interestin games nonetheless. Way more interesting than COD
@@andypantsgaming Far Cry 2 without a doubt has more immersive sim elements in terms of AI (i.e. behavior during different times of day/night, when to utilize vehicles, tracking the player to safehouses, less observant to the player when they drive without headlights etc.), and in terms of character interactions (buddy system, with their own reputation and side missions, alternate objectives to the main missions, permadeath, and unique voice lines for whether or not the player aids their alternate objective, or gets to their rescue in time [resulting in permadeath]. Not to mention the structure of faction leaders which is affected by whom the player allies with and kills, and who is next in line to take their place). All of these aspects are also rooted in the setting and the story's message, which is a level of immersion I have hardly seen in fps games that aren't derived from RPGs like Fallout is to Oblivion.
Have you played KCD? It’s also an impressive simulation.
@@raskolnikov6443 love kcd
Immersive sims = one of the best genres.
Very interesting vid. I love to hear immersive sims mentioned. Growing up games always had the sense of magic for me, and immersive sims recapture that for me better then most things.
I have played all of the modern immersive sims that you listed, and i wasn't until I played Prey that i realized I had been playing all those games wrong. I loved all the games because they were great, but I had been trying to get from point a to point b as fast as i can. The same exact lightblub moment happened to me in prey. Finding out you can use the glue gun to make platforms made me immediately love the game. After playing prey, i went back to dishonored and deus ex with a whole new perspective. I started to try to find all the different routes you can take to achieve your goal. This really expanded the replay value of the game
At 9:40 "Are you going to be looking for alternate ways...?" No, I wouldn't. It's worse. If I stumbled on an alternate way, I'd be worried that if I do that I will break the game and will have failed to trigger something I was otherwise supposed to. In most games, if you do the unexpected, you risk breaking your save. This to me is actually understandable for most games. It is hard for the developer to make every branch of every consequence work for every possible thing that the end user will try.
Agreed. Not to mention, many times when the storyline is engaging, the gamer will obviously want to follow it along to its natural conclusion. Messing up and adding twist upon twist will be engaging to some to varying degrees, but eventually many will want the story to progress to the ending they feel most natural (to them at least) and be done with it, no matter the conditioning or marketing or whatever. True, videogames can allow you to focus on the gameplay and not the storyline to varying degrees, but not every game can be as story-less or goal-less, as, say, Minecraft Beta.
"All you had to do was follow the damn train CJ!!" -Big Smoke
That quote comes to mind when talking about AAA games and Immersive Sims
I remember in games before objective markers, you found out where to go and what to do by exploring the world and talking to NPCs. This wasn't so bad back when limitations confined the whole world to a small enough size that you could traverse it in less than half an hour. Games can be made with such large worlds now that it would take an extraordinary amount of creativity to guide the player through the game without gating off areas in ways that are annoying or remove the player from the immersive experience. In other words, I suspect the AAA companies don't see any profit in it. Instead, we're stuck with interactive movies that have sidequests and collectibles.
Sometimes I play games like RDR (both games are awesome) and sometimes I paly immersive sims like Thief, Deus Ex and Prey. Depends on what I feel like playing. I'm a huge fan of CRPGs and when they have multiple ways of solving one problem I like to think of them as text-based immersive sims.
Another 2 reasons of unpopularity of immersive sims is that those games can be quite a nightmare to develop as they are very demanding when it comes to making a good level design and properly polish features which for modern gaming popularity is key. And immersive sims usually don't have the best mechanics which makes singular features like shooting, platforming or stealth feel quite janky comparing to specialized games and make them less desirable while they have more mechanics.
My own issue with immersive sims is that balancing can be quite an issue. For example with Dishonored once with artifact powers game became like a cake walk to complete even on highest difficulty which's boring and not well balanced. And what make first Deus Ex so great is how limiting it comes on upgrates (one installed you can only upgrate and they can't be reversed, same with skills) and how even with upgrates you can die or unable to find/complete some objectives if you're not careful. Plus deus ex is quite punishing if you try to complete own path by not using required upgrates/skills and not properly thinking on situation. And these moments are important for immersive sims as you not only require to think even even if you're high level and it makes it feel less boring and mechanics not an easily exploitable when playing.
Edit: spelling and some thoughts.
You can break deus ex too.
You know what, it's time to reinstall Deus Ex, I still havent done a no powers walkthrough.
I'm amazed how much better this is than Cyberpunk.
I'm good with Deus Ex HR, but Prey completely broke me. I felt so insecure, not being able to reliably defeat even the weakest enemies.
And if I wanna feel more insecure and miserable, I can just go to my office and start doing my job!
Pray is one of the best game i play in my life, like first Deus Ex or System Shock 2
Gather roud, everyone, it's time to have a funeral for another game genre/style until some title brings it back in a few years
I disagree that the reason for these games not selling as much as others has anything to do with nuances of the gameplay. That's not a point of sale thing, maybe it can be a cause for a refund at most but I doubt they got an insane amount of refunds because of it. Things get sold by the marketing they get and how well that was handled, also by the impression you can get from the game in video format and by a short description. System Shock, Deus Ex and Thief all suffered from bad graphics and lack of marketing and user awareness. Same for Pray as I remember it was not given the attention from the publisher it needed, and the naming caused a controversy.
I'm fairly convinced part of the problem when marketing these games is calling them "immersive sims" in the first place. Its a pretty dumb term that doesn't actually mean a whole lot unless you understand the legacy of the genre, and if you do then you're not the average consumer. They shouldn't be marketed as just normal shooter games either, because that might set the wring expectation, but whatever the right way to do it is, I don't think we've found it yet.
I think you are ignoring the marketing power of word of mouth and popularity. Think about games like the recent release of Helldivers, Elden Ring, and Breath of the Wild. Those three games have each been marketed everywhere not just through corporate marketing, but memery, youtube discussion, and friends talking about them. This increases the chances of people buying them because their friends are saying "you've got to try this game". Word of mouth is a very powerful marketing which Immersive sims can't really tap into because they design isn't as conducive to the average player.
I think you nailed it. When I first heard the term "immersive sim" my brain was confused. I had to do some pretty extensive research to truly "get it." It led me to try Prey as my first "ImSim" and to be honest I didn't get too far. I got stuck in a room with two Typhon bastards who keep lighting me on fire. I thought I had my moment when I realized "oh dang I can use the turrets!" but after killing one, the remaining enemy destroyed my turrets. So I'm back to square one. I put it down for the time being. One day I'll get back to it
Just call them adventure games and move on. I didnt know what "immersive sims" was supposed to mean either.
They weren’t advertised as immersive sims
@@raskolnikov6443 Yep, non of the new gen immsims were advertised as immersive sims and they are not much of immisim themselves other than Prey.
I wouldn't say Immersive Sim games don't require an objective marker. I think the idea should be that, here's the destination, have at it. I think the marketing needs to be better. Call them a stealth game (Deus Ex games are pretty much played as such) or an RPG, etc. Maybe devs need to implement some smart gameplay design that tells players to think outside the box.
The objective marker thing is interesting to me, since I think it’s why I’ve noticed two camps when it comes to New Vegas. People who think it’s really short because they blitz through the main quest, and people who explore the map and talk to all the NPCs.
I enjoy both types. I consider them different styles, both have their own fun and immersion styles.
Cant talk about immersive sims without including the best ones System Shock and System Shock 2
Average player here. And at my age of 40, getting stuck on a level or trying to figure out where to go and how to get there is the last thing I want in a game. It’s not worth it to me. If I get an hour to play a game and that entire hour is spent scratching my head, I’m out. Great video though, it’s 100% spot on.
An excellently vocalized view. I think there are a lot more immersive sim elements in games then people realize but we are conditioned not to look for or even recognize these elements. It's more often the gamers desire to intuit how the developer wanted the game to be beaten and when they find an alternative route or method they almost feel like they are cheating. I really enjoyed this video which accurately describes how most people desire to hide within the herd rather than standing out. For whatever it's worth you may now consider me a subscriber. Good vid
This is such a great video. Well thought out and discussed very insightfully. Nice!
The reason they aren't popular is the tutorial. If the tutorial made it clear, multiple paths are possible. Gamer might understand what is being asked of them.
But you were part right about working class gamers. We have jobs and responsibilities. We don't have the hours to burn on games. So yeah, I might click the easy function to enjoy the game but to also complete it.
I played Deus Ex. And found it enjoyable and unpredictable. I killed an agent in the game because I always fool around and aim my gun at NPCs. Usually, the gun won't fire, or it does, but the NPC is invulnerable. This time, I killed the NPC. I was shocked I moved on. Later, the boss asked if I knew anything about the dead agent. I responded no from the choice tree. He grunted, said if you hear anything.
I played Deus Ex in college and finished it. Then later I played Dishonored I was having a blast but now I was working. Two months later I was no closer to finishing it. I took a break to play Tomb Raider and beat it in 3 weeks. Finishing a game is very satisfying. Recently I bought a digital bundle of Prey,Dishonored and Dishonored 2 plus all the decades for 30 dollars. I will try these games again hopefully finishing them.
The Original Deus Ex was such a good game. It was fun exploring all the options and sneaking in overhearing conversations and discovering stuff. You really felt that YOU "discovered' the stuff and investigated it etc.
Deus Ex Mankind Divided captured me entirely. I was hooked. I haven’t been that in love with a game in so long, it was a wonderful experience to play it all the way through.
You’re making me want to play through Prey again!
I had this exact experience with Prey. I played it as a kid and hated how both the gunplay and enemies felt floaty and unresponsive, and once I ran out of pistol ammo I gave up. Came back to it years later once I got into ImSims and it's now one of my favourite games. It was all about knowing what kind of experience I'm in for
Like someone who likes both immersive sims and linier games - linier games often give you better experience. They are scripted after all so they can give you the right amount of challenge, and cinematics and "random" events. And its probably would cost a lot more to make additional 5 different ways to make a train robbery as good. For me - the most immersive thing about Prey were the side quests - I did them all. But they all were great and had additional animations or voice lines or whatever. Yes, finding that person with the laser gun outside of the station while I just explore was fun, but if I got the gun with that side mission I did later - - it would have been better - coz there would have been a story attached to it.
Lets be real lot of us play Gta games for the first time not even attemping missions, i play gta sa first time just like open game, drive bikes,cars, shoot ballas and die and do it all over again, those games were also created to be enjoyed outside main story where in immersive sims your entire purpose is to play the game and finnish it
I remember i tried to play that game and couldn't get pass the first area because I had so few bullets or something
This games were amazing and my favourte game genre
Arkham City's Freeze boss fight is memorable because you can only progress with different methods of attacking
Gadgets had setups from earlier so it feels like you are the one who come up with the solutions
It is a very good immersive level in the game
I'm going to develop a immersive sim in the future but currently I'm making a classic linear shooter :D
Prey is one of my favorite games of all time. I love immersive games.
I didn't know the name of the game type, but now i do. Immersive sims and immersive sim elements are MY FAVORITE THING in gaming. I love it when crouching actually lets you access strange places that the devs didn't intend consciously, breaking windows and interacting with in game physics that have an effect on the world.
Lately I've been playing postal 2. Hitting people by kicking objects their way or distracting cops with donuts is very very fun. I'm hooked on The Darkness. Action game, sure, but you can see walk into trash cans and tables and the game physics will move them and whatever. Small elements that i like.
Would the original "Thief" games fall into this? I never played them but I'd give them a try if so.
Thanks now I understand how we went from new vegas to fallout 4
The best example of this is the Fable series. Part 1 felt open world. While on a quest you could essentially wander the map. Fable 3, you follow a glow trail and miss tons of content. There's even areas on the map you'll never explore!!!
Immersive Sims are made by imaginative, creative, high IQ developers,, for imaginative, creative, high IQ gamers - a small minority. In this world, it's almost a miracle that there's a market for them at all.
The fact you used sticking a bucket on someone's head in Skyrim as an example of realism is hilarious hahaha
It's not an example of realism, it's an example of system simulations and how they can allow you do come up with creative solutions that weren't explicitly programmed by the game.
@@hackbod yeah I know, it's the way he phrased it as games pursuing realism that was funny, by showing THAT example lol. You described it better than he did IMO. I would also argue that Skyrim isn't a great example of what he's talking about in this video, as I don't think putting a bucket on the AI's head and them being so stupid that they don't notice or react to it really counts as Immersive Sim style emergent solutions to problems. In most immersive sims, the idea is that not only can the player be creative with how they can interact with the world, but the AI can react to it.
Very well articulated. Dues Ex was like a revelation for me, it brought so many things to a video game I had always wanted but didn’t know were possible. Creativity, imagination and problem solving (on the players part) are absolutely needed to make a truly great game. Oh, and I believe a lot of what you said is true of cinema as well. We all have a brain and it feels good to use it and not have every detail of a plot spelled out for us.
I agreed with the video starting out, but you hit the nail on the head.
I know RAZORFIST hates the term immersive sim. but the genre really has you tell your own story and most devs now are competent in story telling enough to trust the player to interpret it on their own
I do agree though you have to like problem-solving and figuring things out to play it
You can sum up the reason why as being that most people don't actually want to have to think that much about what to do in an average game experience. When ever there are two paths there is the choice of which to follow. That's basically the most simple mental challenge in any game. The more challenges the more some people will get stressed. They like having choices at flashy moments that stick out but the true freedom to make choices constantly stresses people out and they don't like it. Especially if making choices has actual consequences and can stall your progress
Perfectly explained. I still can't fathom the fact that Square Enix made Eidos abandon Deus Ex for a stupid marvel game
9:37 GTA V has 2 alternate ways to solve every heist bro.
another factor is just effort. to create a solid and stable sandbox for all these possibilities to play out is just plain more effort. the emergent gameplay is also harder to test and to integrate a story with. i dont see a publisher greenlighting an immersive sim nowadays when he can have three cookie cutter formula type of games instead. just look at how MGS5 the phantom pain broke the camels back on Koshima vs Konami. while not an immersive Sim it had very much player freedom in mind.
Interesting. Far Cry 1 is actually hard af tho.
I always loved immersive sims, tho if you talk about them to friends they give the "he's a nerd" look.
I honestly think that era is gone, until a new developer somehow catches lightening in a bottle and makes somethin somehow everybody likes while remaining "true to the genre". BG3 did this well, for the time. But I don't think BG3 is bringing back Imsim.
This video is incredible. It perfectly highlights the problem with modern games and modern gamers. Modern gamers are too stupid to understand the complex masterpieces of the past that I enjoyed growing up. Fortnite babies simply lack the brain power and training to play the extensive list of masterpiece immersive sims (deus ex, and system shock) that turned me into me expert gamer I am today.
Imagine if a game like BALDERS GATE was released in the year 2023. That would NEVER ever win multiple game of the year awards, it would NEVER be a best selling game, and it most certainly would not sell over 10 million copies.
Oh wait, it did.
Watching this video was an experience. I knew this video would be of exceptional quality when you spoke about dishonored, you talked about how it's hard to know if developers intended for use to use the stop time and possession abilitys in the way you described. EXCEPT THIS AN ACHIEVEMENT IN THE GAME. HOW COULD YOU EVER THINK THEY DID NOT KNOW??
You talk about modern games all being linear with a main story, and all providing players with the same experience, unlike the games of the past. This is the wildest thing I have ever heard. Do you even live on earth? You say this, unironically, while playing GTA4 an open world sandbox game that gives the player multiple choices throughout the game which affect the story.
Modern games are too easy? Almost every modern game has difficulty sliders that allow you to make the game harder, the only game I can think of that does not is.....THE SOULS GAMES AND ELDEN RING. These are best selling games and are wildly popular, and won multiple awards. If the issue is that modern games have an easy mode then...I have no clue what point your trying to make. Deus ex, the orginal deus ex, the game you say is an amazing immersive sim has....(you need to sit down for this) it has.....an easy mode. I'm sorry to tell you this.
I have no idea why you complain about objective markers, whilst playing GTA4. Do you really think it would be fun to play GTA4 without objective markers? Imagine the game telling you to go to romans house, and then you pull up your map, and then you remember that you have not played the game for a week because you have a job and then you realize you have forgotten where romans house is, so you can immerse yourself in the experience of being lost and driving around aimlessly. Here's a fun experiment. Play a game with objective markers, and turn them off.
0/10 video.
Thank you for saving me the time of watching the video.
I also lived through the good old days.
And don't get me wrong, It was the good days.
But we always knew we were filling in the blanks, gaming was a lot more like reading a book, than watching television. Simply because the technology was too primitive back then. You had to imagine the textures and models weren't terrible, sometimes literally squinting because monitors back then had so few pixels.
I think the immersive sim is about to make a huge comeback.
Mostly because of advances and artificial intelligence.
Specifically agentic, knowledge graphing, chain of foo, prompt optimizing, local, oss, multi shot inferring LLMs
Good luck searching for that.
All of that stuff exists, I know because I had to learn all those terms in the last few weeks. Sometimes I think my head is going to explode, progress is going so fast.
Basically smart NPCs and living worlds for very small compute costs. For certain values of small, You might need to buy a second 3060 just to run the AI. But that's a price I'm willing to pay.
Here's the coolest part, once you have an intelligent game master to run the game, the amount of things you have to actually program go down by orders of magnitude.
Some of it's going to require training in the virtual environment to find stable states. But that's something else the AI can do. You just need to rent enough video cards.
No more having the program weather systems, Day and night cycles, npc cycles, etc, etc, etc. It's a very long list.
I might a little bit high right now. For certain values of little bit. Allegedly.
ehmm difficulty sliders meansa nothing if its not well made, some games difficulty settings are so bad that forces you to not use some weapons with is not how a difficluty setting should be, it should be a harder version of the game not impossible not needing to use glitchs or bugs etc.
I think the video's author is just sad that Prey doesn't sell as well as Fortnite, it's simple, it won't - but 6 million copies is respectable for anyone. Plus he doesn't mention Baldur's Gate because it's not "muh pure imsim experience".
At any rate, one would hope AI will make these "imsims" and other games profitable so they don't have to sell dozens of millions, which they won't - and it's nothing to cry about, 5-10 million is huge already, it only doesn't feel like it because of the industry's bloated budgets.
Honestly makes me appreciate Cyberpunk 2077 even more for its immersive sim elements
Less than 3 minutes into video. I’m so glad you brought up the Customer eXperience (and by extension building a relation with customer). Sadly this change… Now people are treated as consumers: “just buy products, and get excited for the next product”.
EDIT: I would not blame CX for issues in game rather lack of it. Now everything seems to be about profit often short term gain (for example a worse quality product which will seek due to the brand) rather than customer experience. In order to gain customers trust and hope they come back, one need to show it is worth doing business with you.
Not something we see in modern gaming with buggy, broken releases or games trying so hard to appeal to everyone they end up being for no one. Not to mention games made from the template with lack of innovation. (I’m referring to big budget titles).
Deus ex and dishonored series are both amazing to play
9:05 You probably know this but some of the alternative approaches to get past Drahomír Koníčky's checkpoint are: you can go to the forgers headquarters and give them money for a fake ID. Or meet the forger (by sneaking or fighting in), talk to them and then tell the honest cops about the scam. (You also get the choice to help the forger distribute more fake IDs.) There are probably other ways ways?
I was recently playing Hellblade and it doesn't use waypointed objectives. I just was not used to it!
Will talk about mankind divided at any time !
I love immersive sims. I always use the most straightforward solution. It doesn’t at all diminish my enjoyment. I played Prey almost like a cod campaign. Loved that!
Your listed reasons don’t make sense imo. Immersive sims is one of my favorite genres. But I almost never interact heavily with the sandbox.
People are stupid, that is why his points make sense. lol... They get accustomed to a way of thinking and can't get think outside of it, classic sheep/follower mentality. Dishonored for example, having the objective on a floor where the guards will deny you entry is already too much for people. They literally had to add in a whole hint/tip system to cover such obvious stuff... If they say you can't go up the stairs, maybe try sneaking in or finding alternative routes, but they hit the roadblock and just sit dumbfounded... Was an actual problem for the dishonored devs. You seem to have at least the basics so it seems obvious, but it is shockingly surprising how inept the vast majority of the general audience of gamers are...
Immersive sims are constantly hailed as a genre when to me they're a design philosophy
Hmmm, idk dude. One of my favourite games is TLOU, and i remember playing Prey after that (i got late into TLOU) and absolutely LOVING it. I don't think it's a matter of "Triple A games are easy and mindless so that they can be successful" cause when you look at Elden Ring (no markers at all, and not that easy either) then it isn't about markers and difficulty anymore. What's dragging the genre back is, imo, the players very creativity, and willingness to interact with the world in ways few other games let you. I guess immersive sims can be as good as the player "allows" them to be, and that's the problem.
After playing so many games that 'say NO', deny the player access or opportunity which is obvious, then the rails begin to show. After fighting with the rails enough, we just don't bother for the most part. So much is cut-scene driven with scripted events that sometimes I'd rather just watch the movie instead of pushing the narrative through the mud slowly.
These are my exact thoughts on this video; he describes the average gamer as some Neanderthal with zero critical thinking skills: “All this is simply too complicated for the average person”, as he describes the most basic ways to complete a mission objective. I think all of this is situated upon a strange superiority complex, which stems for their need to validate their choice in video game by lording it above everyone else; “No! You’re just not smart enough to understand the game!”, when it’s really just a choice of opinion and nothing more.
Also some imsims are extremely easy. The default options that Dishonored gives you make 90% of the game extremely easy unless you're aiming for a no-kill or no-alarm run, let alone if you start using the extra tools it gives you.
@@bigdojacoom8999 that’s really a disingenuous way to interpret what he meant, the average gamer are not only usually busy but also have an insane access to games aswell, which results in the average gamer being frustrated whenever they are stuck and ultimately dropping the game nothing has to do with superiority complex or average player being dumb like you are saying, look at the design choices of games like FF16 in many interviews focused on the fact that it was accessible to everyone to enjoy which resulted in an extremely dumbed down game with only focus on storytelling and combat with shiny spectacles, there was even an interview where the director said that they removed optional dungeons to allow players to focus more on the story and not over complicate things.
There is really a good reason why linear games are taking over and some fanbase like Zelda are begging the developers to go back to linear game design because it’s very hard to appreciate open ended games without giving too much time for them especially if they don’t have a compelling cinematic story.
what a great video mate i really miss deus ex would love to see a new entry on this amazing franchise even the Jensen VA wants a new game
I don't think this is about things being too complicated necessarily. I think you were right to say people don't really know that these games have numerous options and ways to interact with them. When I played Mankind Divided years ago I wouldn't have tried the things you mention because there is risk to your time in video games. If you try something that doesn't work games will very often punish you for this.
Interesting take. I sued to love these kinds of games and I've noticed I can't get into them at all any more - I think my brain is too tired being an adult and yes i CRAVE a linear story with as littel devation allowed as possible to funnel me through to the end. battle-cutscene-battle repeat credits :)
Prey is one of my favorite games bought it twice so underrated
In Deus Ex HR I used one of the hackable turrets by picking it up and bringing it in the elevator with me, when the boss fight starts as you open up the elevator I ran behind my homie turret and it took care of it for me I absolutely loved it.
In fallout New Vegas at the very very end of Sierra Nevada dlc I used turbo and was able to steal all literally all the gold and I didn’t have to worry about money the rest of the game. Thanks for the memories.
Also this is a reason I don’t like Assassin Creed games as much because it doesn’t give you freedom
my brother if you get tired of the whole performative act you're doing right now by playing the heel, then you should cover more of immersive sims
Been scrolling for 10 minutes to find a good video. This is a genuinely good video with no bs. Thank you
if i was still in school, i would agree with this video 100%
but im a grown man and time is no longer on my side, having objective markers it's more like a commodity now honestly
And another thing, these games are not popular because, You simply cannot market them anymore properly, and some of them are simply not appealing anymore because nobody has patience to play them, look at RTS games handing Starcraft to a kid that grew up with fortnite will not mix well
i find it a miracle that baldurs gate 3 is so popular, when the game it self is pretty complicated for your average person but it has a lot of eye candy.
i played all of these games featured in this video and i liked all of them a lot, but i can't recommend them, because There is almost nothing visually appealing in them for today's audience to be blunt No anime girls, No tits, No fan service, No big daily rewards, and sadly no gachas or cool skins. ofc a kid will be attracted to the multi colored fortnite skin rather the bleak and grim looking dishonored.
T.L. D.R.
I love them a lot, but my nephew will most likely hate them and call them boring to look at compared to animes or fortnite.
yeah, i feel you. I don't know where to place my grievances with the issue at. these are some of the most cool gaming experiences i have had (deus ex was for SURE) and they'd still bore folks to sleep. Even guys around my age in their mid twenties would have no interest in a deus ex game nowadays.
Funny enough this is why people don't like Sims, also marketing teams are awful at promoting most games.
As a former CoD player in the 360 era, I remember getting Human Revolution for $10 to try it out around 2011. I hated the game and dropped it within the first 30min. At the time I thought it had awful gameplay, you died too fast and was boring.
I picked it up again, around 2012 and actually gave it a chance. I fell in love with it, I played the game non stop till I finished it. Sims are like soul's games, you have to forget everything the mainstream has thought about games. Just go in and learn to explore, think outside the box, not just go in running around expecting the game to play itself. Talking about it just makes me excited for the system shock remake/port later this month.
I noticed this going from Oblivion and Skyrim to Morrowind. I had to use the actual in-game map to navigate as well as road markers. I also had to pay close attention to my character’s journal entries.
The corporate entities give the consumer their own lil ways to ruin everything they love while begging for more
My sim gamming brethren Deus Ex is my shit together with Dishonored
i think the best example is death stranding
you are spot on,
15 years ago I was kind of into puzzle games, but after a long day of work trying to solve other peoples problems for years. I just didnt want to solve complicated puzzles in games anymore. I just wanted to turn off my brain and enjoy a going through the motions kind of game.
I remember Prey, Deus Ex, and Dishonored way back and never finished them mostly cause of what you said. I also waited till they were heavily discounted before buying.
I really want to play Prey again now. One of the best games I've played in years.
I'mma be honest: Deus Ex Mankind Divided has been one of the buggiest games I've played, with very clunky systems and ugly graphics backing it up. The game was a crashfest, and when it had the pleasure of not crashing, it loved having graphical glitches. When the glitches weren't happening, I was dealing with the controls, painfully slow weapon swap, awkward attachment system with "just know it lol" mechanics like which attachment goes in which gun, among other things. I don't feel like the game encouraged me to experiment because my rewards were almost always money or something I could sell for money, and the game's fucking horrid platforming where Jensen reaches terminal velocity after falling half a meter made me not want to jump unless I absolutely had to. Don't even get me started on the pointlessly high amount of lootable containers or energy still limiting takedowns, because of course you're too tired to punch someone but can fire a grenade launcher forever.
Some things were genuinely interesting, like hiding behind a box and moving it around, or blocking doorways with heavy objects, but those things didn't make up for the amount of time I wasted to shoddy design, bugs and the mediocre story beat of "robot racism bad". The first game wasn't the most stellar thing in the world and was as clunky as MD, but at the very least I cared to see what would happen next because it asked interesting questions... and I don't think "what if teh robot racism happen?" is a thought-provoking question. The only upside to the story is that Adam is still a genuinely interesting character with learned views and drops some really dope gems of wisdom on other characters.
I actually believe that today they would have sold amazingly. As Baldur's Gate did last year.
Thanks for a great video pointing out this. While it's kinda sad that this happens, at the very least I can now keep this in mind whenever I would try ImSim
Thank you for explaining to me why I never finished RDR2. I played it for countless hours just hunting and getting into fights and doing the random encounter stuff, but I could never bring myself to finish the story missions. This crystalized for me why that was true.
Also, in RDR2, the developers provided a day/night cycle, but the enemies all had perfect night vision, which actually made ambushing bandits at night - the obviously best stratagem - a handicap for the player.
I knew that game was great, but I never knew why I didn't love it. Your example from RDR2 just brought it entirely into focus.
Great video.
"keeping the mines in would force them to redesign every level in the game" -- alternatively, they could have removed player collision from the mines and scissor clapped imaginary dust off their hands, content in the knowledge that they were completely done solving the problem.
Dude you’re my new favorite gaming channel. Keep rocking!
Couple years ago I picked up the dishonored series and fell in love with its play style. It was revolutionary for me really
I saw you’re video about underrated games so I decided to buy Deus Ex, looking forward to playing
Honestly, with Baldur's Gate 3's success (not specifically an Immersive Sim but shares a lot of elements) it looks like these types of games have a potential for the mainstream audience. Also, with Elden Ring, we've seen that difficulty can work in mainstream as well.
I remember how cool I felt playing Deus Ex HR on highest difficulty with no markers, I was familiar with the game having beaten it thrice before. but simply removing markers made it an almost new experience.
also I love how in Mankind divided you can basically turn the game into call of duty by maxing out combat augs.
Gloomwood is goated, can't wait for the full thing
One game that i would say is a 'soft' immserive sim that's gotten really popular recently is Helldivers 2. While a lot of missions are, blow this up, blow that up, there's also a few missions that can be done by stealth. And this wasn't initiallt intended but rather a consequence of the systems in the game. Everything you do has different levels of sound like in a stealth game. Certain weapons have different sound values etc.
And while being able to complete a whole mission by stealth is incredibly hard, is still mostly possible. And this is on top of the numerous approaches you can have to the the game.
It's not a meta, but I love the eagle smoke strike. I use it either so the enemies can't see me approach the objective, allowing me to do it and dip, or if there's a ton of them shooting me in an open area, use it, and go in a different direction to lose their track.
And the fact there's so specific class mechanic means people can be very flexible in what they can do, and how they can create team combos.
This also helps with solo, as you are able to hone in on a specific playstyle. Long distant? Close and personal? Fast build? Explosive build?
All of this is further encouraged with the fact there are different factions with different propreties and behaviours that require you to adapt your build to them.
HD2 isn't as in-depth as games like Deus Ex, however, is very much leaning towards that over an easy and low brain power game (not that you can't shut your head off while playing this).
The real reason those games didn't sell well is that they were simply poorly marketed. Looking at the names and box art of games such as GTA, Skyrim, and Red Dead, it's immediately obvious what they are about: The common fantasies of being a criminal, a cowboy, or a viking. But nobody has any clue what a game called "Dishonored" or "Deus Ex" would be about, and the box art doesn't really make us much wiser.
Yea, if your game deviates from the general 'normal' games of the time than it is pretty important that the marketing or a tutorial in the game is well designed to integrate players into the right mindset for that type of game so that they get the most out of it and can actually enjoy it for what it is. People are seeming to lose that creative thinking skill. For those already used to it, it is second nature to at least try and be disappointed by the lack of options of most games, but the opposite is true with them not even considering things at all thanks to the lack of it normally...
Broski totally ignoring every human else beside AAA generalized grey mass consumers and the existence of countless indie Imm-sim success stories and B-tier good Imm-sim games selling pretty well...
Quality/Enjoyment =/= Popularity/Sales
Yeah his rambling is just pointless. Souls, Resident Evil and Stalker games sold millions of copies and they were never handholding it's players, they never had quest markers you need to figure out everything yourself but that goes against his biased view. And what about countless f2p games like War Thunder or Dota 2? They are way more complex than his immersive sims (what a stupid term). And Prey was garbage with it's trash level design, and i loved original Deus Ex, Dishonored 1 and DXMD. What a worthless video.
@@Dregomz02 Well, true, I would not be so harsh but majority of points he makes are either redundant or over-stretched.
Isn't Baldur's Gate 3 a counter-example? Sure it's not technically an immersive sim, but most of the characteristics you describe that mean they aren't going to be popular are also present in BG3... and that was fairly popular. (Though I guess you could say "extremely popular for that type of game," but regardless of the type of game its sales were pretty good.)