Take some time to read an in-depth article on the basics of immersive simulation games by Maxim Samoylenko. The post shows some ways you can mix different gameplay styles and other little tricks to build a better experience.

So-called immersive simulation games have been around for decades, but people have different opinions about what they are and what are their core aspects and elements. What qualifies as an immersive sim? Why such different games as BioShock, Deus Ex and Thief all are considered immersive sim classics, while some other games (for example, Far Cry) usually are not?

Immersive sim is not a genre, but rather a design direction and a set of guidelines — they have been single-handedly created by the now-defunct company called Looking Glass, and there could be different schools of thought about whether games that are made neither by Looking Glass nor by any of their followers (Ion Storm, Irrational Games, Arkane Studios, OtherSide Entertainment and, to an extent, Eidos Montreal) can be considered “proper” and “true” immersive sims. In the scope of this article, however, it’s not important. The goal of this text is to classify certain games that are widely agreed to belong to the immersive simulation design, rather then to debate if certain games do or do not belong to it.

In my view, each immersive simulator stands on five pillars listed below:

Choices: It is designed from the ground up to provide the players vastly different ways of overcoming challenges and completing objectives — through non-linearity of environments, significant and gameplay-defining differences in character progression, or both. Tools: It provides a multitude of meaningful tools players can use, primarily through the interactivity of the game world and advanced physics-based systems, that further personalize gameplay experience and self-expression. Systems: It is designed to be an interplay of many complex systems, such as AI, physics, level design and more, which result in emergent and sometimes hardly predictable gameplay situations, and ensure that each playthrough is unique to an extent. Focused Design: It usually puts players in believable, meticulously designed locations which make sense as actual places, rather than video game levels; it also puts great emphasis on production values and design aspects that matter for creating highly atmospheric, highly immersive experiences. By virtue of being “an inch wide and a mile deep”*, it constrains game spaces to relatively smaller areas, but full of rich simulation. Message: It employs mature storytelling and conveys certain ideas and messages through advanced narrative mechanisms without limiting interaction and taking control from players, and sometimes leaves narrative and dramatical choices and consequences to players.

It’s pretty clear that if you unpack the term “immersive simulator” and try to provide additional context to each of these two words, Focused Design and Message would constitute the immersive part, whereas Choices, Tools, and Systems are core to simulation.

Now, getting back to the initial question — how come such different games as BioShock, Deus Ex and Thief all belong to the same design school?

Looking Glass made a lot of great games, including Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri and Flight Unlimited series, but perhaps three the most adored franchises by the studio are Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Thief. These three are considered the pillars of original immersive simulation design, and interestingly enough, each of them can be put at very different spots on the immersive sims spectrum: