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
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.
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.
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.
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,
People have always thought one way. As Robert Heinlein once said "throughout history, being too different from your neighbors has always been a crime."
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_gaming 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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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"
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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 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).
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.
I think this just proves there are bad games, not games lacking in immersion. There are linear story games with plenty of immersive options like the Simpsons Hit n Run and Timesplitters. There are also open world games with plenty of non hand holding like Elder Scrolls, Witcher, and Dark Souls. But there are only a handful of games that rely solely on objective markers and forced cutscenes.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 think it’s simpler than anything to do with the game mechanics. It’s about the level of nerdiness/accessibility/marketing/names. Deus Ex? Wtf how do I even say that?! Nobody is telling their friends about deus ex at school without getting labeled as an outcast. Call of duty? “Oh hell yeah those are words i’m familiar with “ Dishonored, Deus Ex, Prey all have similar gritty, dark cover art with obscure characters and unusual looking sci fi tech. This is nerd territory, people who don’t wish to be called nerds will actively avoid taking an interest in them. Skyrim? “I get to fight a dragon! Cool as hell“ This was a brilliant marketing move by Bethesda. They moved away from the extreme nerdiness that was morrowind, a dnd rolls based attack system, to a more mainstream system in oblivion, to an even more mainstream system in skyrim with skill trees. They moved from having obscure creatures like silt striders, to having the most mainstream fantasy creature to have ever been devised. Finally, normal people could play without feeling weirded out by all the newness and they got to roll around in their childhood feels once again. Zelda, one of the longest running franchises from one of the biggest game companies in existence, clearly they know how to make games so easy that children can easily pick them up. Immersive sims can totally achieve this, they just need to be marketable materials with a wider less nerdy appeal. Nerds are and always will be a niche.
We'll just lose so much.... content like that! It took me years to stop being so miffed at skyrim once I realized what was lost. nowadays i don't care because my modded experiences (attempt to) bring it back.
@@littlekmc1493 i agree, morrowind was one of my favorite games of all time, I was so hype for the next one in the series “deeper systems, more complexity!” I thought. Then we got oblivion “ok a little step down towards simplicity, I don’t love it but the core game is still there” then skyrim “Woah, this might as well be a different genre, it’s like call of duty fantasy edition”
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 :)
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.
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.
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
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!!!
Agreed, however the difference is that those games cost a lot to make, so they have to put up AAA numbers. Kind of like any superhero movie that doesn't make Avengers numbers is considered a failure because of how bloated their budgets were. One thing no one says tho, is that devs always live in big expensive cities and have to have big salaries. True, they are overworked, but AI will take care of that. So perhaps the cost of videogame making will go down - or so one would hope - and these niche masterpieces will be able to be profitable without the need for AAA numbers, and perhaps their popularity will grow too.
@@cookieface80 that's more an issue of overblown budgets, literally anything but huge sellers like cod/fortnite or cheap indies is unprofitable, no middle class of AA games anymore, sad
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...
I didn't enjoy Prey NOT because it was an immersive sim. I didn't enjoy it because it wore the skinsuit of a shooter with NONE of the variety of weapons, weapon feedback, gun variety and enemy variety that should come me with one. I loved the freedom and multitude of ways I could solve a problem but as soon as the solution was to pump something full of lead the entire game fell apart.
I've been playing games since they were coin-op, and deeply love the high immersion (Deus EX and Dishonored are in my top list) but God bless whomever invented the "objective pointer", for when I am forced to stop playing for weeks or months due to work and then come back and don't need to restart from scratch because I don't know anymore what to do or where to go!
"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.
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
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
I've been playing Fallout 4 again for the past month and a half and I have a very hard time looking for missions because the game doesn't tell you what to do, so I'm just exploring the map and shit and always stumble across something that's connected to a mission but I always find out after looking it up on Wiki
An amazing immersive sim is the forest. It really doesnt tell you anything about how to progress the story. The only ways is to search it up or to explore and fight the randomly generated enemies that spawn. Thats a great game
I installed Prey about a year ago wanting a Deus Ex HR (which is in my top 3) but I realized near the beginning that my adult energy wouldn't let me immerse myself correctly. Ended up uninstalling and playing the three modern shadow warrior games instead, mindless gun n shoot. Anyway irl grinding sucks man I want to play cool games
I think that people and companies don't understand what word niche means. You don't need to be popular or sell 10M copies to succeed. Just because it isn't as profitable as other games it doesn't mean there's no market for that stuff. The worst thing is when turning the niche game into wide-audiece product, they always fail and are often nail to the coffin for certain series and it's not limited only to modern games, there are plenty of cases from early 2000's where changing game direction killed whole franchises. Simple lesson of marketing keeping core audience instead of alienating it is always cheaper and easier than finding new customer, finding new target often means sacrificing current audience which was already buying your stuff, new customer may like it or not.
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.
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.
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.
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
They put mission markers to meet expectations, when they could design the game differently to set the expectations right instead. For instance, instead of having an objective on the upper floor, make it and objective to find a way to the upper floor. A simple tweak.
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.
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.
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.
I have to defend quest markers a bit. As someone who has spent far too much of his real life searching for lost items and driving around labyrinthine cities, having a marker to aim toward has saved me an enormous amount of frustration during what's supposed to be FUN time.
My friend and I back in the day would side by side. Play the same game. Human revolution , hey bro I just got silver tongue...he is in the same area killing everyone in the police station lol
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).
I feel like some immersive sims create too much excess confusion for gamers sometimes, too, though, it’s not a flawless system. I remember gaming back then when not every game really held your hand. I also remember a lot of games where I got bogged down with multiple overlapping and confusing main missions, side missions, collection quests, NPCs I was reporting to, and so on; god forbid you take a six month break from the game and then try to come back to it; you literally had no idea what you were supposed to be doing, who you were supposed to be doing it for, why you were supposed to be doing it, or where on the map it was supposed to be done. I probably gave up on at least half a dozen “great” games for exactly that reason!
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.
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 actually struggle with the more linear games like Call of Duty. When there is only one way to do an objective, I often mess it up. But give me the freedom of coming up with my own solutions, and I can often easily complete the objective on my first attempt.
Didn't expect when stealth games were big either. It just takes the right devs designing the game in the right way so as to have it approachable enough. In this case, maybe induce a small tutorial that kinda sparks that creative thinking mindset instead of just expecting the players to figure out the correct mindset. Design lighter and heavier complexity options that allow for those that want a simpler less thinky gameplay style, but still allows and rewards those that go even more out of the box with their creativity. Just like the gameplay in the genre itself, devs need to think more creatively about how they solve these issues in the genre so that it has that opportunity to thrive. Maybe someone will achieve a new standard for it and they will take over. Never know.
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
Fun fact. Assassin's Creed was intended to be more like an immersive sim, or have immersive sim elements. Thats why the game is so repetitive and can feel very mid, or boring to many. I personally love the atmosphere and simplicity of the game and its slower nature. It works because the game is so short. But you weren't supposed to have markers and waypoints and run in a straigt line between a set of the same three repetative task before a kill. You were supposed to sneak, snoop, eavesdrop and listen in a more natural way by just walking around and exploring the cities in a more organic way. But Ubisoft executives started to meddle and wanted a more "GTA like" experience. And the minimap and quest markers was born.
Excellent video! I always find myself at a loss when trying to explain immersive sims to the uninitiated. And just telling them "go play Prey" doesn't work because, as you stated, they don't really get how to play an imsim.
Although it has an Easy mode and clear quest markers playing BG3 startled me into realizing just how lazy and conditioned my approach to games had become. It was challenging and yet refershing to actually think about what to do and how to go about it instead of functioning as a sort of extension of the writers and quest designers. It helped me realize how much most games actually stifle the creativity of the player, instead of fostering it.
Then you have open world multiplayer immersive sims like Star Citizen. Have a mission to grab some boxes from a bunker defensed with turrets? You could blow up the turrets with a gunship or sneak past them in a ground vehicle. You could even slog on foot if you wanted to. Bad guys took over part of a distribution center? Go in on foot and kill ‘em with rifles or strafe them with your starship. Got a rock you want to mine but it’s too big? You can use mining gadgets, different mining lasers, or ask another player to come help you with their mining ship for extra laser power. Want to pirate a players ship? You have to consider if you want to take down the comm array to try and prevent you from getting persecuted, where you want to try and intercept them, you could try and sneak aboard their ship while they aren’t paying attention it try and set up an ambush on a trade route with a whole squadron of your buddies. And pirate gameplay basically hasn’t been implemented yet, it is 100% players using the basic in game systems to make an accomplish their own goals. And this all takes place on the single largest game world ever implemented in a video game.
@@andypantsgaming it’s my favorite game. I’ve got hundreds of dollars into it at this point and hundreds more in flight sticks. However, half the time I fucking hate it and it’s extremely difficult and complicated to get into. The other night I landed my cargo ship just a little bit too hard and lost a couple days worth of mining money. It’s not really a game at this point, more of an extremely buggy tech demo of an alpha test. I mean a nightmare of bugs. It’s really bad. However, because it is so hard to play due to both bugs and just difficult gameplay, it has the absolute best community I’ve ever seen. People in game are pretty much always willing to drop what they are doing to come help you out if you are stuck. There was a guy who got stuck in the hover bike garage on his 400i and several people flew over to try and help him out. He was already unstuck by the time I got there. Kids with Fortnite attention spans just don’t last long enough to clog up the community. There are of course trolls and griefers like in any game. Some people just want to hurt people and get a rise out of them. For the most part, it’s a good community. There is a free fly right now if you want to try it out for free by the way. If your computer can even handle it, it’s completely unoptimized still.
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
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.
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
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.
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."
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."
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.
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_gaming 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.
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 😂😂😂
Nobody has times to be "gamer" anymore.
@@DanteS-119 you clearly don't know how many people play games today
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.
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 :)
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
its so sad that my most favorite game genre is forever bound to be unpopular and commercially unsuccesful
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.
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.
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.
"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 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).
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.
I think this just proves there are bad games, not games lacking in immersion.
There are linear story games with plenty of immersive options like the Simpsons Hit n Run and Timesplitters.
There are also open world games with plenty of non hand holding like Elder Scrolls, Witcher, and Dark Souls.
But there are only a handful of games that rely solely on objective markers and forced cutscenes.
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.
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
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.
I'm going to develop a immersive sim in the future but currently I'm making a classic linear shooter :D
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'm amazed how much better this is than Cyberpunk.
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
9:37 GTA V has 2 alternate ways to solve every heist bro.
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.
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.
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
Prey is one of my favorite games of all time. I love immersive games.
My biggest issue with Prey was not the where to go or the what to do, but the AI.
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.
Prey ist such a masterpiece. 10 mins in Prey is equal to 358h Starfield in the "immersive scale chart". And I like Starfield.
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 think it’s simpler than anything to do with the game mechanics.
It’s about the level of nerdiness/accessibility/marketing/names.
Deus Ex? Wtf how do I even say that?! Nobody is telling their friends about deus ex at school without getting labeled as an outcast.
Call of duty? “Oh hell yeah those are words i’m familiar with “
Dishonored, Deus Ex, Prey all have similar gritty, dark cover art with obscure characters and unusual looking sci fi tech. This is nerd territory, people who don’t wish to be called nerds will actively avoid taking an interest in them.
Skyrim? “I get to fight a dragon! Cool as hell“
This was a brilliant marketing move by Bethesda. They moved away from the extreme nerdiness that was morrowind, a dnd rolls based attack system, to a more mainstream system in oblivion, to an even more mainstream system in skyrim with skill trees. They moved from having obscure creatures like silt striders, to having the most mainstream fantasy creature to have ever been devised. Finally, normal people could play without feeling weirded out by all the newness and they got to roll around in their childhood feels once again.
Zelda, one of the longest running franchises from one of the biggest game companies in existence, clearly they know how to make games so easy that children can easily pick them up.
Immersive sims can totally achieve this, they just need to be marketable materials with a wider less nerdy appeal. Nerds are and always will be a niche.
We'll just lose so much.... content like that! It took me years to stop being so miffed at skyrim once I realized what was lost. nowadays i don't care because my modded experiences (attempt to) bring it back.
@@littlekmc1493 i agree, morrowind was one of my favorite games of all time, I was so hype for the next one in the series “deeper systems, more complexity!” I thought. Then we got oblivion “ok a little step down towards simplicity, I don’t love it but the core game is still there”
then skyrim “Woah, this might as well be a different genre, it’s like call of duty fantasy edition”
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 :)
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.
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...
The corporate entities give the consumer their own lil ways to ruin everything they love while begging for more
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.
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 remember i tried to play that game and couldn't get pass the first area because I had so few bullets or something
Prey is one of my favorite games bought it twice so underrated
I enjoy both types. I consider them different styles, both have their own fun and immersion styles.
The Skyrim bucket example is not one of an immersive sim and emergent gameplay, it's an example of how ass shite Bethesda is as a company.
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!!!
Literally all these games sold well. That's like saying unless a movie has the popularity avengers, it has performed poorly.
Agreed, however the difference is that those games cost a lot to make, so they have to put up AAA numbers. Kind of like any superhero movie that doesn't make Avengers numbers is considered a failure because of how bloated their budgets were.
One thing no one says tho, is that devs always live in big expensive cities and have to have big salaries. True, they are overworked, but AI will take care of that. So perhaps the cost of videogame making will go down - or so one would hope - and these niche masterpieces will be able to be profitable without the need for AAA numbers, and perhaps their popularity will grow too.
The publishers say that they sold poorly and shut down the studios, or forced to make live services in the case of Eidos Montreal.
@@cookieface80 that's more an issue of overblown budgets, literally anything but huge sellers like cod/fortnite or cheap indies is unprofitable, no middle class of AA games anymore, sad
Baldur's Gate 3: "Am I joke to you?"
not an immersive sim, although Larian attempted to cover every base and further expands what you can do with every patch.
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...
I didn't enjoy Prey NOT because it was an immersive sim. I didn't enjoy it because it wore the skinsuit of a shooter with NONE of the variety of weapons, weapon feedback, gun variety and enemy variety that should come me with one. I loved the freedom and multitude of ways I could solve a problem but as soon as the solution was to pump something full of lead the entire game fell apart.
I've been playing games since they were coin-op, and deeply love the high immersion (Deus EX and Dishonored are in my top list) but God bless whomever invented the "objective pointer", for when I am forced to stop playing for weeks or months due to work and then come back and don't need to restart from scratch because I don't know anymore what to do or where to go!
"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.
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
Been scrolling for 10 minutes to find a good video. This is a genuinely good video with no bs. Thank you
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
I actually believe that today they would have sold amazingly. As Baldur's Gate did last year.
I've been playing Fallout 4 again for the past month and a half and I have a very hard time looking for missions because the game doesn't tell you what to do, so I'm just exploring the map and shit and always stumble across something that's connected to a mission but I always find out after looking it up on Wiki
An amazing immersive sim is the forest. It really doesnt tell you anything about how to progress the story. The only ways is to search it up or to explore and fight the randomly generated enemies that spawn. Thats a great game
I installed Prey about a year ago wanting a Deus Ex HR (which is in my top 3) but I realized near the beginning that my adult energy wouldn't let me immerse myself correctly. Ended up uninstalling and playing the three modern shadow warrior games instead, mindless gun n shoot. Anyway irl grinding sucks man I want to play cool games
I think that people and companies don't understand what word niche means. You don't need to be popular or sell 10M copies to succeed.
Just because it isn't as profitable as other games it doesn't mean there's no market for that stuff.
The worst thing is when turning the niche game into wide-audiece product, they always fail and are often nail to the coffin for certain series and it's not limited only to modern games, there are plenty of cases from early 2000's where changing game direction killed whole franchises.
Simple lesson of marketing keeping core audience instead of alienating it is always cheaper and easier than finding new customer, finding new target often means sacrificing current audience which was already buying your stuff, new customer may like it or not.
You’re making me want to play through Prey again!
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.
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.
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.
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
They put mission markers to meet expectations, when they could design the game differently to set the expectations right instead.
For instance, instead of having an objective on the upper floor, make it and objective to find a way to the upper floor. A simple tweak.
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.
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.
Antichamber comes to mind. But 99% of causal games would never get past the stairwell without googling it. Scary thought.
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.
I have to defend quest markers a bit.
As someone who has spent far too much of his real life searching for lost items and driving around labyrinthine cities, having a marker to aim toward has saved me an enormous amount of frustration during what's supposed to be FUN time.
My friend and I back in the day would side by side. Play the same game. Human revolution , hey bro I just got silver tongue...he is in the same area killing everyone in the police station lol
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).
Immersive Sims will never be popular. *Red Dead 2 enters the chat with 63 million copies sold
I have never played Dishonored but damn, that was a good one
Im terrible about finding gameplay loops and such, i always do very quickly and it kills the ENTIRE experience for me
I feel like some immersive sims create too much excess confusion for gamers sometimes, too, though, it’s not a flawless system. I remember gaming back then when not every game really held your hand. I also remember a lot of games where I got bogged down with multiple overlapping and confusing main missions, side missions, collection quests, NPCs I was reporting to, and so on; god forbid you take a six month break from the game and then try to come back to it; you literally had no idea what you were supposed to be doing, who you were supposed to be doing it for, why you were supposed to be doing it, or where on the map it was supposed to be done. I probably gave up on at least half a dozen “great” games for exactly that reason!
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.
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.
Perfectly explained. I still can't fathom the fact that Square Enix made Eidos abandon Deus Ex for a stupid marvel game
I actually struggle with the more linear games like Call of Duty. When there is only one way to do an objective, I often mess it up.
But give me the freedom of coming up with my own solutions, and I can often easily complete the objective on my first attempt.
Didn't expect when stealth games were big either. It just takes the right devs designing the game in the right way so as to have it approachable enough. In this case, maybe induce a small tutorial that kinda sparks that creative thinking mindset instead of just expecting the players to figure out the correct mindset. Design lighter and heavier complexity options that allow for those that want a simpler less thinky gameplay style, but still allows and rewards those that go even more out of the box with their creativity.
Just like the gameplay in the genre itself, devs need to think more creatively about how they solve these issues in the genre so that it has that opportunity to thrive. Maybe someone will achieve a new standard for it and they will take over. Never know.
Never heard of Prey til now and half way through the vid I added it to my PS4 and im loving it so far.
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
I really want to play Prey again now. One of the best games I've played in years.
Fun fact. Assassin's Creed was intended to be more like an immersive sim, or have immersive sim elements. Thats why the game is so repetitive and can feel very mid, or boring to many. I personally love the atmosphere and simplicity of the game and its slower nature. It works because the game is so short.
But you weren't supposed to have markers and waypoints and run in a straigt line between a set of the same three repetative task before a kill. You were supposed to sneak, snoop, eavesdrop and listen in a more natural way by just walking around and exploring the cities in a more organic way. But Ubisoft executives started to meddle and wanted a more "GTA like" experience. And the minimap and quest markers was born.
Excellent video! I always find myself at a loss when trying to explain immersive sims to the uninitiated. And just telling them "go play Prey" doesn't work because, as you stated, they don't really get how to play an imsim.
Although it has an Easy mode and clear quest markers playing BG3 startled me into realizing just how lazy and conditioned my approach to games had become.
It was challenging and yet refershing to actually think about what to do and how to go about it instead of functioning as a sort of extension of the writers and quest designers.
It helped me realize how much most games actually stifle the creativity of the player, instead of fostering it.
Works amazing in vr
My understanding is it was too short and ended oddly.
Then you have open world multiplayer immersive sims like Star Citizen.
Have a mission to grab some boxes from a bunker defensed with turrets? You could blow up the turrets with a gunship or sneak past them in a ground vehicle. You could even slog on foot if you wanted to.
Bad guys took over part of a distribution center?
Go in on foot and kill ‘em with rifles or strafe them with your starship.
Got a rock you want to mine but it’s too big?
You can use mining gadgets, different mining lasers, or ask another player to come help you with their mining ship for extra laser power.
Want to pirate a players ship? You have to consider if you want to take down the comm array to try and prevent you from getting persecuted, where you want to try and intercept them, you could try and sneak aboard their ship while they aren’t paying attention it try and set up an ambush on a trade route with a whole squadron of your buddies. And pirate gameplay basically hasn’t been implemented yet, it is 100% players using the basic in game systems to make an accomplish their own goals.
And this all takes place on the single largest game world ever implemented in a video game.
Are you enjoying it? Is the game easy to pick up and play?
@@andypantsgaming it’s my favorite game. I’ve got hundreds of dollars into it at this point and hundreds more in flight sticks. However, half the time I fucking hate it and it’s extremely difficult and complicated to get into. The other night I landed my cargo ship just a little bit too hard and lost a couple days worth of mining money.
It’s not really a game at this point, more of an extremely buggy tech demo of an alpha test. I mean a nightmare of bugs. It’s really bad.
However, because it is so hard to play due to both bugs and just difficult gameplay, it has the absolute best community I’ve ever seen. People in game are pretty much always willing to drop what they are doing to come help you out if you are stuck. There was a guy who got stuck in the hover bike garage on his 400i and several people flew over to try and help him out. He was already unstuck by the time I got there. Kids with Fortnite attention spans just don’t last long enough to clog up the community.
There are of course trolls and griefers like in any game. Some people just want to hurt people and get a rise out of them. For the most part, it’s a good community.
There is a free fly right now if you want to try it out for free by the way. If your computer can even handle it, it’s completely unoptimized still.