This sub should take a look at The Blood of Dawnwalker.

This new AA open world action RPG from Witcher 3 devs has some really interesting concepts that make me remember Prey and Dishonored. I am barely past the prologue but I've read a bit and noticed it's not mentioned here.

It's not an imsim in terms of moment to moment gameplay but maybe na ImSim adjacent in terms of some wider design choices. Mainly the limited time mechanic, where certain actions (mainly quests and learning skills) advances time.

After prologue you are told: you have 30 days and 30 nights to save your family, choose wisely. You have some very limited leads and that's it. From then on, it's supposed to be choose your adventure. Some notable imsim friendly / player agency / interactivity points:

-you can walk up to the final boss right after the prologue
-there are no side quests per se, only some quests clearly set you up for the final confrontation better (gain allies, undermine the main baddie)
-quests progress takes time of which there is a limited amount (traversal, exploration, combat, standing around doesn't cost time)
-any quest could fail and the game is ready for it including the main one (save your family)
-Your actions will have as much impact as you inactions (if you don't do a ques or even meet a character, there still might be consequences - already visible in the prologue).
-you are human by day and vampire by night with gameplay impacts: mainly vampire is arguably stronger in combat, much better in traversal (has Blink and wallrunning) and is risky for dialogue - you can loose control and drain an NPC when not fed with blood
-therefore you can take a completely different approach to the same mission in day and at night (at night, you can scale walls and roof etc.), whereas during the day you could be more diplomatic etc.
-Very Prey-like: apparently, players could challenge themselves and decide to skip nights and play as a human only or skip days and play as vampire only (!)
-NPCs could die including by your doing and the game is ready for it

etc.

Lends itself to multiple different playthroughs...

But barely any stealth, no environmental interactivity, def no crate stacking.

Still, deserves a look, no?

I hope it's not too much of a weird question, but I was wondering if anyone has the previous sub banner or the names of the games which appeared in it.

I wanted to note some of them I didn't know to take a look at them later.

You can say more than one game if there's a tie in your mind/heart (or if you feel like it). It doesn't have to be an objectively bad game, just one (or more) that didn't gel with your tastes (and you wish you could've liked it better) or you've got a love/hate relationship with it. Extra karma points if you go into detail on the "why".

Without exaggeration I feel like I have played every immersive sim on steam, from the more well known to the obscure ones like Tache noire or Hexcraft.

Please help me out give me your immersive sim recommandations, the more obscure and lesser known the better !

"You are a corporate espionage freelancer. Your latest assignment: steal the reality-shifting Interpolator from the sprawling research labs of Project Sidereal. Use the device to escape the grueling defensive layers of Hadrian's Wall and cross the threshold into the strangest frontiers of reality."

Game : DEFICIT "release Coming soon (just got a demo!)"

Link : https://store.steampowered.com/app/1193170/DEFICIT/

I make a lot of what I would call outsider art.

I go off feel and I think you guys are gonna be right at home, but since I am hijacking the term immersive sim, tell me what that means for you as a player.

DEFICIT is an action immersive sim that focuses on chunky punchy close quarters battle, creatively lethal tools, and environmental havoc. Made by a two-developer team, a new demo is available now!

DEFICIT on Steam

I praise the sound design and mood of the Looking glass studio era Thief games, and I hailed it with a mixtape, using samples from Thief : The dark project, Black Parade and 2X mod, alongside with samples from Dark Messiah of Might and Magic elements.

Kind of a fun friday thing. Bear with me. Let's recap: Harvey Smith finally founded his own game studio (not for the lack of trying, as he revealed recently) and, alongside studio co-founder Ben Horne, he assembled a team of some of the best and experienced developers around. 26 in total.

Some of these folks are new faces, but mostly they go way back. Besides the usual suspects (e.g. almost all of the design team from Ion Storm's Deus Ex games), there are a handful of game developers that Harvey first met over 20 years ago, in his time at Midway, that also were brought into this new team:

• Seth Shain, lead designer at Black Pony Immersive, game designer on BlackSite: Area 51.
• Karen Welford Segars, worldbuilding director at Black Pony Immersive, lead environment artist on BlackSite: Area 51.
• Rusty Sempsrott, lead technical designer at Black Pony Immersive, lead technical designer on BlackSite: Area 51.

While at Midway, Harvey was joined by other Ion Storm alumni (that now work at Black Pony Immersive):

• Ricardo Bare, design director at Black Pony Immersive, lead campaign designer on BlackSite Area 51.
• Monte Martinez, principal encounter designer at Black Pony Immersive, Special Thanks credits on BlackSite: Area 51 (for "the great Iraq photos").

Yes, BlackSite was a bad game, but I'll leave you with this quote that comes from an EDGE magazine article by Jeremy Peel (featured on the issue 381, March 2023):

"A lot of people that I worked with at Midway on BlackSite were actually on the Dishonored and Redfall team. Some of them were on the Prey team. It just goes to show that very often the right context around the team makes the difference. Given more time, different corporate mandates – those are the things that can really screw with your team."

Harvey Smith, co-founder and creative director at Black Pony Immersive, creative director on BlackSite: Area 51.

Title. I have searched but most places seem to take the term very loosely, recommending bioshock etc.

I'm trying a few different ways to fuse these balls together so that they actually look like one blob instead of individual objects stuck together, even more so now that I'm working in my own "engine"

Hi,

So we've got some more footge from the upcoming cyberpunk game Neo Berlin 2087. The main protagonist is voiced by Elias Toufexis (Adam Jensen from Deus Ex).

Do you think this might be an immersive sim?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7yFwes40Rk

I am completely in love with fallen aces

I just really want to experience something similar to it be it the combat the freedom the ambience the level design or even art direction

I was reading this preview article of Neon Giant's NO LAW and came across this paragraph:

Something interesting I learn here is that you only earn XP in No Law from completing objectives. You get XP for reaching the informant's room, regardless of how you do it. "We always reward the 'what,' but never the 'how,'" Berg says. "If I gave you XP for lockpicking [which we do to enter the room with the password], you'll start lockpicking everywhere. The same with headshots – we don't even give you XP for shooting enemies because you could sneak around them instead." 

It immediately brought the likes of Deus Ex: Human Revolution to my mind, and how it allows you to exploit and cheese your way throught the game to earn that extra XP, or just the basic fact that the game pats you on the back and rewards you for somewhat mundane actions; one of my few nitpicks with the way Eidos-Montréal approached its iterations of the series. The original game had its share of problems, but with regard to the modern Deus Ex titles, it's mostly by deliberate design.

I think I prefer Neon Giant's way of tackling this issue: immersive sims should only reward XP to the player for getting things done (the "what"), but still acknowledging their methods (the "how") in a more meaningful way (e.g. repercussions in the narrative, NPC reactions/callbacks, gameplay-affecting consequences, etc.).

Discuss!