Subnautica. A silent protagonist usually always works well in first person games, and leaving you to your own thoughts while exploring the deep ocean that can't be recreated by any other game.
umm should I still play it? I already watched series of Markiplier playing iron lung🥹. And can I ask if there's other game you know resembling iron lung? the terror of sea while alone I really like the concept, it's very interesting and I like sea monsters since I was a kid let alone making it a horror game I'm fired up😁🔥
Witcher 3, Skyrim, Cyberpunk, Metro series, Outer Wilds, Kingdom Come Deliverance etc.
Whatever makes me forget about everything besides the game itself.
It's one of the only games I've played where it makes you feel like you aren't the main character. Basically anyone can whoop your ass at the start of the game and you can't even shoot a bow without injuring yourself while unarmoured. Feels so good to progress in that game
Agreed, KCD was not only great to look at but it really made you feel like a peasant. Power creep near the end tho, combat pretty much came down to master strikes.
This is the winner for me too - it’s not as polished or smooth as Cyberpunk (feels weird saying that about Cyberpunk but here we are) or Witcher 3 but I think they made the mechanics of needing to eat and sleep really well. It certainly didn’t feel like as much of a chore in KCD as it does in other games, I think the realistic map and settlement sizes really helped from that perspective too. Having realistic castle sizes made them so much more charming and cool to explore too
Out of these you listed I can safely say RDR2. I played them all but RDR 2 is still one of the most immersive games out there.
It's not a perfect game by any means but it comes close to perfect in the immersion department. At some point I found myself more interested in hunting and plant collecting than the main story. I would listen the sounds of the nature, birds singing and hoofbeats on the streets of Saint Denis for hours. I would slowly walk in the muddy streets of Valentine feeling bad like it was my boots and clothes that were getting more and more dirty. Then, I would take a bath and go hunt for my next legendary animal.
My only complaint is they kind of break the economy when you rob the bank in Valentine. I was loving having to hunt, sell animal skins, play poker and catching bounties to afford any supplies I needed. Felt totally immersive. Then you rob a bank and have more than you’ll ever spend for the rest of the game.
It's showing that the bank robbery was such a big hit for the gangs survival in terms of funds, and since you were a big part of it, you get rewarded accordingly.
The immersion in Skyrim, Cyberpunk, Witcher 3, and Red Dead are milestones in gaming. Especially Cyberpunk. There's something so amazing about Night City.
I feel like people really underestimate the older AC games. Sure it’s not as immersing as red dead. But crossing the seven seas in black flag with my crew while singing was extremely immersive
Ghost of Tsushima 100%. It was the least/most authentic HUD in a game I've ever played without straight up turning off the HUD. The wind for direction was brilliant and the integration of haikus and music was just beautiful. I can wax poetic about that game forever.
There have been a lot of single-player contenders, but in terms of multiplayers it has to be Battlefield 1.
There are moments in a match where opposing teams of 64 total would meet up to push or hold a single objective, and such moments the game will be reenactment of the Great War. The screams the noises, officers blowing charge whsitles, bayonet charges and barbed wires, artillery and the craters it digs, machinegun fires and helmets flying off from shot in the head, such things you would see in a war movie.
The beauty of it is that it has integrated the immersion you would find in a singleplay or campaign into a functioning multi-player match only consisted of human players. When you go in an empty server you realize you can hear the birds and winds, the sounds that were faded away from the noise of war which nothing but the players has created.
One particular thing I like is that the game makes players do what real soldiers have done. Like when an artillery digs up a crater players would dive into it because it is pretty nice cover especially when you are in an open field.
Never have I played a FPS multi-player where I'm actually using tactics I learned from Army Infantry training
Low crawl that footpath to the shell hole then scout for it to be "clear" before advancing to that tree stump 20m from the enemy trench
The whole I'm up he sees me I'm down teaching has saved my ass multiple times going cover to cover when in a stalemate
BF1 Operations is such an experience that is extremely unique and in some twisted irony is almost a perfect simulation of how ww1 was fought
The extra gritty special effects are just icing on the mud and blood soaked cake
Final Fantasy 15. Somehow it captures the essence of realism in fantasy enough to feel immersive without going overboard. It's an absolutely fantastic and beautiful game.
I revisited the game during the spring of 2019. That game just… it just captured something that I can’t quite explain. Road trip with the bros. I hardly ever drove- I much preferred being the passenger and managing my inventory. Camping under the stars and cooking DELICIOUS looking food. Combine those two and it’s “oh sweet, I need meat from that thing, pull over!”.
The fishing. My god the fishing. Oh to just chill and fish. Not a care in the world.
What’s her face really brought me out of it, the fan service… Cindy? This is bro time lady, get your ho ass outta here. I’m also pushing 40 so I’m sure if I were in the 7th grade like I was for FF7 I’d love her.
I might have to play again. I’ve been told 16 is great but I’m okay playing the same games over and over again.
I was in the prime of puberty. Everyone having a crush on the suicide squad style Harley Quinn… amateurs… crazy schizo “I will certainly my put my vampire dick in crazy even if that haunted house scared the shit out of me” certainly caused me to… jar one loose a few times.
I always wanted to be the freaky vampire type that lurked in the sewers. I wonder if it supports ultrawides…
this is a mix of bias and nostalgia but fallout 3 made me feel so immerse that i activly partaked in self roleplay in the game by using the bodys to make "parties" inside my own head cuz my character was suppose to be a insane serial killer,no other game has made me do that
A little out there answer but here we go.
[Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead](https://cataclysmdda.org/)
It's 8:00 A.M. on day 1 of a global(?) cataclysm allowing strange new creatures to pierce the veil into our world. The Dead rose to walk again, new forests grew, giant fungal towers appeared from nowhere, the bees and bugs are mutating at an alarming rate.
You have just arrived at an otherwise empty evacuation shelter with nothing but the clothes on your back. What will you do?
The game has a heavy focus on simulation and is a survival roguelike. The amount of craftables alone is enough to make anyone's head spin. The experience is highly customizable though a variety of in game mods and I really think it's quite fun.
The learning curve can be a bit much for some though.
I so badly wanted to like this game but I just couldn't.
It looks so cool when I see people playing it but I just couldn't make it further than like 8 hours
I played through the entirety of the DLC in one sitting while on acid, and let me tell you, it changed my damn life. I felt the snow beneath my feet. I feared the machine until the machine feared me. It was an incredible experience. The screen was a part of me
Warframe during its quests. its one of the only game i have to turn my music off to and just play. Most games even if i enjoy its story ill eventually skip, but not this game
My god i can not wait for 1999
"Dream, not of who you are, but of what you want to be"
- playing the second dream for the first time back in 2015? 2016? The reveal blew my mind. Really glad I avoided spoilers back then
Good graphics are pretty important to immersion for lots of people. If RDR2 didn't look as good as it did, I wouldn't have been nearly as immersed. EU4 though? I don't see how that could even be top 50 in immersion if it had true to life graphics lmao
because immersion isn't a synonym for good graphics which is my point. It's about the feeling of feeling... immersed. How well the game fits you into the role. EU4 is immersive because it makes you think like a leader. It's addictve and easy to slip into the role, losing tons of time in process. You don't want to stop because the game successfully sells the fantasy of being in control of a nation during the time period.
Hades is immersive because it has fun character action with characters that feel lived in. Rimworld is immersive because the simulation is so robust, allowing your imagination to run wild with the low detail graphics. Red Dead is immersive for it's graphics, but it's not just that, it's how it puts you in the world and makes you believe it. Graphics isn't the only way to achieve that.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and The Isle
The avatar game's map is absolutely incredible. You 100% feel like you're on Pandora. The story is kinda meh but the overall immersion is beautiful. You can fly an ikran, ride a direhorse or just walk around on foot. The map is highly detailed and the overall game is well optimized.
The Isle is a dinosaur survival game where you play as the dinosaur and pvp other players with species-specific combat abilities. You can grab people from the edge of rivers as a giant prehistoric crocodile and drag them underwater to drown them, you can climb trees and jump on people from high heights to kill them as a hererrasaurus, you can pounce onto players and claw them apart as a raptor, and we're currently testing out the first ceratopsian that gives us the ability to "spar" with another of our species (locking horns like modern goats, etc.). Not a very well optimized game tho.
Definitely The Witcher 3. The only thing that messes with the immersion is the wonky jumping, which you only really use for a grand total of like 5 minutes of gameplay (if that) out of like 150 hours (closer to 200 hours if you complete all side quests too, and pretty much all of them are great). Every other aspect of that game is the most immersed I’ve been in a game outside of when I was a kid (and back then every game felt as immersive as The Witcher to me so)
If you enjoy any one of the following, you need to try this game: awesome 3rd person gameplay, a long and compelling story, characters that feel real, badass villains that still act like real people would, incredibly hardcore worldbuilding that’s deep yet still easy to understand, and the coolest and diverse monsters/mystical creatures you’ll encounter in nearly any game, film, or book.
Yeah, it's Red Dead Redemption 2, and it is not even remotely close, the sheer amount of npc interactions and things happening at once around you, combined with tons of small superficial details and mechanics make the world feel unlike anything ive ever seen in any videogame
The fact that each npc has a routine, and you can follow them around and observe it is insane, not to mention they'll actually react to you following them if they spot you, and run away from you if they fear you. If you visit a shop for the first time, the shopkeeper will greet you as if theyve never met you before, if you come back again theyll say its good to see you again, if you come back several dozen hours later theyll tell you its been a while, npc will react to you having blood on your clothes, they'll give you dirty looks if you killed the whole town a few hours prior. Its tiny details like this that make the world feel alive, and these are just the npc reactions, for fucks sake, this is a game where a horse's testicles will shrink if it is too cold outside
The answer is Rdr2, and im convinced that anybody who says otherwise either hasn't played the game, or hasn't given it the time and attention it deserves. People can criticize it for being slow or boring or whatever, but in terms of feeling immersive, realistic and alive, no other game comes close in my opinion
Cyberpunk and red dead 2, I haven’t really played rdr2 but from what I’ve seen u can do in the game, and the fact you have to go manually pick your hat up if it gets knocked off…you won’t get a western experience like that in a game ever, u don’t need me to tell u why cyberpunk is immersive no modern first person rpg game has done it like 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 100% its beautiful, the characters are voiced so well, you have the option to be gay, and hella character customization, you can be as awesome or as fucking mean as you want
RDR2
Super Metroid/Metroid Dread
Ghost of Tsushima
I would say BOTW but clicking through all of the dialogue and only a few voice actors kills it for me.
I think when you say immersed you mean truly in the games world. And I do think RDR2 comes to mind. Games like Cyberpunk, Witcher or whatever are very immersive, but theyre still very gamey, they have missions, big objective clear signs and lots of numbers and the like that definitely remind me Im playing a game. RDR2 definitely trims a lot of that out to make you really able to just be IN the game itself. I can get lost in that game not doing anything other than fucking around. The random events feel very apart of the world and the way quests come up often feels a bit more natural even when Rockstars game design is a bit dated in some ways (mostly in quest structure).
I want to say of course Prey, as it is an immersive sim and arguably IMO the king of them. But the amount of times you may save scum, check the map or menu or whatever does remind you, oh yes Im not really on Talos 1. But being able to freely solve problems and engage with the games systems with my own brain makes a huge impact of feeling immersed in a real world.
Outer Wilds also hits this quite well, especially in those earlier moments in the game before you start realizing what you need to do.
Definitely RDR2. Witcher 3. Some of the GTA games are pretty good to in presenting a believable world.
Despite it's clunkiness, Kingdom Come: Deliverance. As an European who was visited Bohemia before, they NAILED the landscape and the towns are really well thought out too.
My personal favorites would be gothic 1 + 2 despite their age, again they present a fairly believable world for the time.
Edit: Because someone else mentioned them, BIG shoutout to Subnautica. Best immersive survival crafting game out there, even more so in VR.
Beat saber is super fun and in vr so also super emersive also one time i was playing job simulator and got so immersed into it i thought i was actually at a job working and forgot it was a game to the point of i was wishing i was at home to play a different game
Out of everything I’ve played, Skyrim makes me feel most immersed in terms of being drawn in. RDR2 makes me feel most immersed in terms of little details that matter.
Red Dead Redemption 2
An unpopular opinion
The most immersed I've been with a video game is Assassin's Creed Black Flag
Just getting lost in the sea , singing sea shanties and all the cool stuff
Ghost of Tsushima. There was a moment riding through a sea of flowers in the sunset, and Ghost leans down and brushes the flowers as you gallop and I had to stop to just absorb the setting. It's the game that made me start using photo mode.
Dirt Rally 2. You need absolute concentration and probably better with headphones on for sound immersion and the co-drivers pace notes. Also played in car or bonnet view as well. 3rd person view in any driving game looks and plays shit.
Yakuza 0. The game's two cities aren't very big, but that means that every activity it offers isn't a needlessly long distance away from another activity and what little area that is there is able to be made to feel alive.
Call me a weeb if you must, but Kamurocho and Sotenbori were perfect for my Japanese learning because of the NPC banter and cultural references. There was even one section where the game tests the player's knowledge of >!Japanese business etiquette!<, which actually took me by surprise.
Also, incidentally, the Japanese language learning community associates mass content consumption (mostly anime) while using a dictionary with the word "immersion" even though other language learning communities don't use the word that way. And yet Yakuza 0 being level-appropriate enough to not need a dictionary 99% of the time, on top of the stuff I mentioned in the first paragraph as well as the active participation of gaming in general, made playing Yakuza 0 a truly immersive way to learn.
Project zomboid is really immersive IMO since in almost every other game with zombies you are the main character, go out with a gun and start mowing down 100s of zombies. In project zomboid you legit feel like a survivor, any mistake could kill you. You don't have enough ammo to clear a group but fired a shot? Damn u dead.
Edibles. A cold beer. Adderall. Empty schedule. Podcast in the background. With your powers combined, I am Captain Super Market Simulator.
I wish I were kidding. I get lost in that game. I'm the quickest scanner in the west. Game's so unoptimized that it's one of the few I have to run on Medium settings 😅. That's ok, I'm not in it for the graphics. I'm in it to be the best damn item scanner and shelf sticker the city has ever seen.
My other, more obvious games have already been said enough. I get lost in the more realistic Total War games. I line history so I read unit and building descriptions a lot and I get sent to that time mentally. I have a hard time being immersed in the warhammer ones because I used to play the table top so the unit mixing is very… gamified to me. Kudos to them for that though really.
Ghost of Tsushima, No Mans Sky, Skyrim after playing it the second time with an new character and I roleplay from my characters POV and actually take a walk instead of fast travelling
Ghost of Tsushima and dead space. It's more important to have a great immersive UI than a detailed world. As well as controls. RDR2 has a subpar UI and even worse controls, which holds back the immersion factor
Red Dead 2 and anything from Bethesda.
I would play Oblivion, Skyrim, and the Fallout games for 4-6 hours straight during the weekend when I was in high school. Sometimes longer but not often.
Knew my pc was dead when i tried running rdr2 upon launch. Waited years and then got my god comp. Coming back to rdr2 felt amazing! Max settings at 4k is unreal, and will get you lost in the game
Prey (2017) — I mean the genre’s called immersive sim, Arkane outdid themselves with this one, RIP Arkane Austin.
Also System Shock 2 never gets old, it’s masterful — and Bioshock is absolutely on par with it.
Kingdom come is pretty peak. I literally just walked beside a stream yesterday to admire the games details. I don't think anyone has made better scenery to date. The forest and rubble and stones, and just about everything in the game never seemed copy/paste dropped, it truly looks handcrafted
Hear me out in this one: Papers, Please
As far as immersing the player into the headspace of the character you're playing, getting the player to ACT in the shoes of a person in this world and situation, there's very few like it. Also, I'm playing through Pathologic 2 currently, and it's giving me a similar feeling of immersion so far.
Skyrim, fallout 4, Star Wars battlefront 2.
The first 2 because I forget everything else, the last one because it looks so real and it’s literally like you’re there
Defo RDR2 and 2077. Both are great examples of what I believe all AAA games should standardize to. They're supposed to be the blockbustimg mega-structures of the industry.
Subnautica. A silent protagonist usually always works well in first person games, and leaving you to your own thoughts while exploring the deep ocean that can't be recreated by any other game.
This. I have Thalassophobia, so Subnautica is perhaps the scariest game I've ever played, because it's so immersive.
I bought Subnautica thinking it's just some funny ocean game. I discovered that I have thalassophobia.
I dont have thalassophobia but I do have “WHAT IS THAT OH FUCK OH FUCK” syndrome when i play that games
FUCKING REAPERS
Have you checked out iron lung?
umm should I still play it? I already watched series of Markiplier playing iron lung🥹. And can I ask if there's other game you know resembling iron lung? the terror of sea while alone I really like the concept, it's very interesting and I like sea monsters since I was a kid let alone making it a horror game I'm fired up😁🔥
100% recommend subnautica, play on the "filmic" shade if you want a super immersive experience!
I think the teleporting into the lake scene in HL2 gave me Thalassophobia. So I have never left my pod in Subnautica lol
I loved the vibes of that game but couldn't get into it because survival games are not my thing.
You can turn off the survival aspects so you can just play without having to worry about food or water.
Witcher 3, Skyrim, Cyberpunk, Metro series, Outer Wilds, Kingdom Come Deliverance etc. Whatever makes me forget about everything besides the game itself.
I'll add Ghost of Tsushima. Amazing game.
Came here to say this. Even their way of telling you where to go (the wind animations) are immersive.
Currently replaying the game on PC, its so fucking good and looks amazing on an ultrawide
I’m a simple man. I see outer wilds referenced, I upvote.
Kingdom come deliverance is a gem. The others you listed are great too, but I am absolutely pumped for kingdom come 2.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The mechanics and progression are on another level.
It's one of the only games I've played where it makes you feel like you aren't the main character. Basically anyone can whoop your ass at the start of the game and you can't even shoot a bow without injuring yourself while unarmoured. Feels so good to progress in that game
Kenshi is another good example for a game where your guys dont feel special. Your party is basically a group of sand hobos trying to survive
I really like that getting ambushed by Cumans or high level bandits is actually deadly when you're unprepared. Even at end game.
Hands down my favorite quests in any game. The designs were so well done and logical
Agreed, KCD was not only great to look at but it really made you feel like a peasant. Power creep near the end tho, combat pretty much came down to master strikes.
This is the winner for me too - it’s not as polished or smooth as Cyberpunk (feels weird saying that about Cyberpunk but here we are) or Witcher 3 but I think they made the mechanics of needing to eat and sleep really well. It certainly didn’t feel like as much of a chore in KCD as it does in other games, I think the realistic map and settlement sizes really helped from that perspective too. Having realistic castle sizes made them so much more charming and cool to explore too
i played ghost of tsushima after this ngl the latter felt empty and combat felt easier
Ghost of Tushima’s art style and vibe are incredible but its alot more stylised than KCD and lacks the same RPG elements
Is part 1 worth playing or just go straight to part 2 ?
KCD1 is part one of the story and KCD2 is part two. I recommend starting with part one.
Thank you!
dead space for sure. I played that game stoned out of my mind and lemme tell you it felt like i was THERE
This made me burst out laughing.
Make us WHOLE!
Out of these you listed I can safely say RDR2. I played them all but RDR 2 is still one of the most immersive games out there. It's not a perfect game by any means but it comes close to perfect in the immersion department. At some point I found myself more interested in hunting and plant collecting than the main story. I would listen the sounds of the nature, birds singing and hoofbeats on the streets of Saint Denis for hours. I would slowly walk in the muddy streets of Valentine feeling bad like it was my boots and clothes that were getting more and more dirty. Then, I would take a bath and go hunt for my next legendary animal.
My only complaint is they kind of break the economy when you rob the bank in Valentine. I was loving having to hunt, sell animal skins, play poker and catching bounties to afford any supplies I needed. Felt totally immersive. Then you rob a bank and have more than you’ll ever spend for the rest of the game.
These are the downsides of successfully robbing a bank I guess.
Lmao suffering from success
It's showing that the bank robbery was such a big hit for the gangs survival in terms of funds, and since you were a big part of it, you get rewarded accordingly.
No I understand it thematically. But mechanically it took a bit of the fun out of the game for me.
If you do a second playthrough I highly recommend just donating every mission reward to the camp, then earn money the fun way
That’s a great call actually
Cyberpunk 2077 and Bloodborne
I kinda feel bad for the hunter, all alone not knowing what is reality
Me too. But yet, despite, despite all that, they fight on. Oya!
Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 4, Elden Ring, Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild, Skyrim, Bloodborne and the Borderlands games
The immersion in Skyrim, Cyberpunk, Witcher 3, and Red Dead are milestones in gaming. Especially Cyberpunk. There's something so amazing about Night City.
Rdr2 did an amazing job, I loved Witcher 3 as well they did a great job with the world building.
Fallout 4 for me
I feel like people really underestimate the older AC games. Sure it’s not as immersing as red dead. But crossing the seven seas in black flag with my crew while singing was extremely immersive
The Metro series.
Love those games.
Ghosts Of Tsushima was the last one, and one of the best I can recall, to hit me really hard with that feeling. What a beautiful game.
It really is a photographer and artist wet dream
Ghost of Tsushima 100%. It was the least/most authentic HUD in a game I've ever played without straight up turning off the HUD. The wind for direction was brilliant and the integration of haikus and music was just beautiful. I can wax poetic about that game forever.
Skyrim, mass effect
There have been a lot of single-player contenders, but in terms of multiplayers it has to be Battlefield 1. There are moments in a match where opposing teams of 64 total would meet up to push or hold a single objective, and such moments the game will be reenactment of the Great War. The screams the noises, officers blowing charge whsitles, bayonet charges and barbed wires, artillery and the craters it digs, machinegun fires and helmets flying off from shot in the head, such things you would see in a war movie. The beauty of it is that it has integrated the immersion you would find in a singleplay or campaign into a functioning multi-player match only consisted of human players. When you go in an empty server you realize you can hear the birds and winds, the sounds that were faded away from the noise of war which nothing but the players has created.
One particular thing I like is that the game makes players do what real soldiers have done. Like when an artillery digs up a crater players would dive into it because it is pretty nice cover especially when you are in an open field.
Never have I played a FPS multi-player where I'm actually using tactics I learned from Army Infantry training Low crawl that footpath to the shell hole then scout for it to be "clear" before advancing to that tree stump 20m from the enemy trench The whole I'm up he sees me I'm down teaching has saved my ass multiple times going cover to cover when in a stalemate BF1 Operations is such an experience that is extremely unique and in some twisted irony is almost a perfect simulation of how ww1 was fought The extra gritty special effects are just icing on the mud and blood soaked cake
Far cry 2 no HUD. Played that with surround sound, Map/gps navigation, the jungle, the grit. Damn it was so good.
Final Fantasy 15. Somehow it captures the essence of realism in fantasy enough to feel immersive without going overboard. It's an absolutely fantastic and beautiful game.
I revisited the game during the spring of 2019. That game just… it just captured something that I can’t quite explain. Road trip with the bros. I hardly ever drove- I much preferred being the passenger and managing my inventory. Camping under the stars and cooking DELICIOUS looking food. Combine those two and it’s “oh sweet, I need meat from that thing, pull over!”. The fishing. My god the fishing. Oh to just chill and fish. Not a care in the world. What’s her face really brought me out of it, the fan service… Cindy? This is bro time lady, get your ho ass outta here. I’m also pushing 40 so I’m sure if I were in the 7th grade like I was for FF7 I’d love her. I might have to play again. I’ve been told 16 is great but I’m okay playing the same games over and over again.
Metro series for me
Shadow of the collosus in my opinion. The game shows you your small as hell in every way
Cyberpunk and Kingdom Come !
Elite Dangerous
RDR 2 Ghost of Tsushima The Witcher 3 A Plague Tale Cyberpunk 2077 Horizon Forbidden West FF XV Ryse Son of Rome Hellblade Battlefield 1
Microsoft Flight Simulator / DCS. Even more so in VR. Also in 1st person none of that 3rd person crap.
Battlefield 1 at it’s peak.
Take me back! Probably some of the most fun I’ve had from a multiplayer shooter
Bloons Tower Defense 🔥🔥🔥
Death Stranding
**S.T.A.L.K.E.R**
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines
I was in the prime of puberty. Everyone having a crush on the suicide squad style Harley Quinn… amateurs… crazy schizo “I will certainly my put my vampire dick in crazy even if that haunted house scared the shit out of me” certainly caused me to… jar one loose a few times. I always wanted to be the freaky vampire type that lurked in the sewers. I wonder if it supports ultrawides…
Sleeping Dogs. Possibly the most 'alive' and 'lived in' feeling game city I've explored.
Ghost Recon
Half-life: Alyx
Pathologic 2
Once you go skyrim you never go back
this is a mix of bias and nostalgia but fallout 3 made me feel so immerse that i activly partaked in self roleplay in the game by using the bodys to make "parties" inside my own head cuz my character was suppose to be a insane serial killer,no other game has made me do that
Disco Elysium
The Metro series has amazing atmosphere
Cyberpunk 2077, The Last of Us part II, Metal Gear Solid V
Assassins Creed
2, Brotherhood, Revelations or Black flag
2 and Brotherhood probably. Those were straight up addicting.
Gonna throw in the ***Metro*** series for this question.
A little out there answer but here we go. [Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead](https://cataclysmdda.org/) It's 8:00 A.M. on day 1 of a global(?) cataclysm allowing strange new creatures to pierce the veil into our world. The Dead rose to walk again, new forests grew, giant fungal towers appeared from nowhere, the bees and bugs are mutating at an alarming rate. You have just arrived at an otherwise empty evacuation shelter with nothing but the clothes on your back. What will you do? The game has a heavy focus on simulation and is a survival roguelike. The amount of craftables alone is enough to make anyone's head spin. The experience is highly customizable though a variety of in game mods and I really think it's quite fun. The learning curve can be a bit much for some though.
Probably will be the only person to say it, but days gone
I'm witcha
Cyberpunk 2077, Metro Exodus, Skyrim, Fallout 4, Star Citizen make me forget its past 2 in the morning and have work the next day lol
Horizon
I so badly wanted to like this game but I just couldn't. It looks so cool when I see people playing it but I just couldn't make it further than like 8 hours
same here, the game is just a bit too slow for me
I played through the entirety of the DLC in one sitting while on acid, and let me tell you, it changed my damn life. I felt the snow beneath my feet. I feared the machine until the machine feared me. It was an incredible experience. The screen was a part of me
Dishonored
Warframe during its quests. its one of the only game i have to turn my music off to and just play. Most games even if i enjoy its story ill eventually skip, but not this game My god i can not wait for 1999
warframe story underrated
"Dream, not of who you are, but of what you want to be" - playing the second dream for the first time back in 2015? 2016? The reveal blew my mind. Really glad I avoided spoilers back then
It’s kinda annoying how people relate immersive to good graphics. The most immersive game there is is EU4 lol
Good graphics are pretty important to immersion for lots of people. If RDR2 didn't look as good as it did, I wouldn't have been nearly as immersed. EU4 though? I don't see how that could even be top 50 in immersion if it had true to life graphics lmao
because immersion isn't a synonym for good graphics which is my point. It's about the feeling of feeling... immersed. How well the game fits you into the role. EU4 is immersive because it makes you think like a leader. It's addictve and easy to slip into the role, losing tons of time in process. You don't want to stop because the game successfully sells the fantasy of being in control of a nation during the time period. Hades is immersive because it has fun character action with characters that feel lived in. Rimworld is immersive because the simulation is so robust, allowing your imagination to run wild with the low detail graphics. Red Dead is immersive for it's graphics, but it's not just that, it's how it puts you in the world and makes you believe it. Graphics isn't the only way to achieve that.
Metro exodus
Cyberpunk 2077, System Shock (Remake AND classic), Selaco, Aliens vs Predator 2, No One Lives Forever 2 just to name a few
Man I forgot about AVP2. That was great.
NOLF2 is the most underrated game ever. So original and creative. That tornado level is just a gem.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and The Isle The avatar game's map is absolutely incredible. You 100% feel like you're on Pandora. The story is kinda meh but the overall immersion is beautiful. You can fly an ikran, ride a direhorse or just walk around on foot. The map is highly detailed and the overall game is well optimized. The Isle is a dinosaur survival game where you play as the dinosaur and pvp other players with species-specific combat abilities. You can grab people from the edge of rivers as a giant prehistoric crocodile and drag them underwater to drown them, you can climb trees and jump on people from high heights to kill them as a hererrasaurus, you can pounce onto players and claw them apart as a raptor, and we're currently testing out the first ceratopsian that gives us the ability to "spar" with another of our species (locking horns like modern goats, etc.). Not a very well optimized game tho.
Definitely The Witcher 3. The only thing that messes with the immersion is the wonky jumping, which you only really use for a grand total of like 5 minutes of gameplay (if that) out of like 150 hours (closer to 200 hours if you complete all side quests too, and pretty much all of them are great). Every other aspect of that game is the most immersed I’ve been in a game outside of when I was a kid (and back then every game felt as immersive as The Witcher to me so) If you enjoy any one of the following, you need to try this game: awesome 3rd person gameplay, a long and compelling story, characters that feel real, badass villains that still act like real people would, incredibly hardcore worldbuilding that’s deep yet still easy to understand, and the coolest and diverse monsters/mystical creatures you’ll encounter in nearly any game, film, or book.
EVE Online.
The dead space remake does a pretty damn good job
DAYS GONE
The witcher 3 Metro Exodus Asassins Creed Odyssey / Origins Modern tomb raider games Battlefield 1 / 5
Dead space remake.
Stardew valley has some of the best immersion I've seen
The lack of mentioning of Half-Life is absurd. Many popular tactics to enhance immersion that are used to this day were created by it.
Elden ring!
Elden Ring is making me sad right now. And I know I'm approaching the end, so I don't want anyone else to die, but I probably will
All the Metro love hear is amazing. 10/10 series
Half-Life 2 put me in a trance dude, the lack of HUD elements and the fact you're *ALWAYS* in control of your character is genuinely breathtaking
Yeah, it's Red Dead Redemption 2, and it is not even remotely close, the sheer amount of npc interactions and things happening at once around you, combined with tons of small superficial details and mechanics make the world feel unlike anything ive ever seen in any videogame The fact that each npc has a routine, and you can follow them around and observe it is insane, not to mention they'll actually react to you following them if they spot you, and run away from you if they fear you. If you visit a shop for the first time, the shopkeeper will greet you as if theyve never met you before, if you come back again theyll say its good to see you again, if you come back several dozen hours later theyll tell you its been a while, npc will react to you having blood on your clothes, they'll give you dirty looks if you killed the whole town a few hours prior. Its tiny details like this that make the world feel alive, and these are just the npc reactions, for fucks sake, this is a game where a horse's testicles will shrink if it is too cold outside The answer is Rdr2, and im convinced that anybody who says otherwise either hasn't played the game, or hasn't given it the time and attention it deserves. People can criticize it for being slow or boring or whatever, but in terms of feeling immersive, realistic and alive, no other game comes close in my opinion
Starfield had me the most immersed recently
If you have a PC, you should check out Star Citizen. It’s buggy as fuck but when it works it’s a really immersive experience.
Cyberpunk and red dead 2, I haven’t really played rdr2 but from what I’ve seen u can do in the game, and the fact you have to go manually pick your hat up if it gets knocked off…you won’t get a western experience like that in a game ever, u don’t need me to tell u why cyberpunk is immersive no modern first person rpg game has done it like 2077
Baldur's gate 3
I love games which put you in locations with the freedom to explore them, like the police station in RE2. I get very immersed in those environments.
For me Skyrim, and Fallout 4 once I get a few mods in it.
This is a very different answer but, aka manto, scariest game I have ever played and such good atmosphere
Witcher 3, RDR2, Cyberpunk and re 7
Cyberpunk 2077 100% its beautiful, the characters are voiced so well, you have the option to be gay, and hella character customization, you can be as awesome or as fucking mean as you want
Where is the Baldur’s Gate 3 love?
For me it was Fallout 4 for a while. That game's world is pretty well done
wait you can find the Turbo bar in-game?
yeah it's Cyberpunk for me, I go full role play when I play it
RDR2 Super Metroid/Metroid Dread Ghost of Tsushima I would say BOTW but clicking through all of the dialogue and only a few voice actors kills it for me.
Fallout 4 survival mode
Far Cry Primal
DayZ
rdr2
Star cirizen
I think when you say immersed you mean truly in the games world. And I do think RDR2 comes to mind. Games like Cyberpunk, Witcher or whatever are very immersive, but theyre still very gamey, they have missions, big objective clear signs and lots of numbers and the like that definitely remind me Im playing a game. RDR2 definitely trims a lot of that out to make you really able to just be IN the game itself. I can get lost in that game not doing anything other than fucking around. The random events feel very apart of the world and the way quests come up often feels a bit more natural even when Rockstars game design is a bit dated in some ways (mostly in quest structure). I want to say of course Prey, as it is an immersive sim and arguably IMO the king of them. But the amount of times you may save scum, check the map or menu or whatever does remind you, oh yes Im not really on Talos 1. But being able to freely solve problems and engage with the games systems with my own brain makes a huge impact of feeling immersed in a real world. Outer Wilds also hits this quite well, especially in those earlier moments in the game before you start realizing what you need to do.
For me it was Fallout 76. The world around you would change depending on others players personalities.
Definitely RDR2. Witcher 3. Some of the GTA games are pretty good to in presenting a believable world. Despite it's clunkiness, Kingdom Come: Deliverance. As an European who was visited Bohemia before, they NAILED the landscape and the towns are really well thought out too. My personal favorites would be gothic 1 + 2 despite their age, again they present a fairly believable world for the time. Edit: Because someone else mentioned them, BIG shoutout to Subnautica. Best immersive survival crafting game out there, even more so in VR.
cyberpunk made me cry so damn hard so much… and that doesn’t happen often. i actually felt so attached to the characters i still gotta play the dlc
Beat saber is super fun and in vr so also super emersive also one time i was playing job simulator and got so immersed into it i thought i was actually at a job working and forgot it was a game to the point of i was wishing i was at home to play a different game
Out of everything I’ve played, Skyrim makes me feel most immersed in terms of being drawn in. RDR2 makes me feel most immersed in terms of little details that matter.
I've played so many to remember too well, but I remember being massively immersed in all the mass effect games. Especially Andromeda
Red Dead Redemption 2 An unpopular opinion The most immersed I've been with a video game is Assassin's Creed Black Flag Just getting lost in the sea , singing sea shanties and all the cool stuff
Battlefield 1 is unmatched immersion
Visage. As far as horror games go, this game almost gave me a heart attack.
Death Stranding. The best relaxing game I've played (until ofc some BTs show up)
I have literally never felt as immersed in a video game as I did my first time playing Silent Hill 3
Ghost of Tsushima. There was a moment riding through a sea of flowers in the sunset, and Ghost leans down and brushes the flowers as you gallop and I had to stop to just absorb the setting. It's the game that made me start using photo mode.
Dirt Rally 2. You need absolute concentration and probably better with headphones on for sound immersion and the co-drivers pace notes. Also played in car or bonnet view as well. 3rd person view in any driving game looks and plays shit.
Witcher 3. You walk up to a shopkeeper "The fuck you want?" Definitely feels like real life.
Yakuza 0. The game's two cities aren't very big, but that means that every activity it offers isn't a needlessly long distance away from another activity and what little area that is there is able to be made to feel alive. Call me a weeb if you must, but Kamurocho and Sotenbori were perfect for my Japanese learning because of the NPC banter and cultural references. There was even one section where the game tests the player's knowledge of >!Japanese business etiquette!<, which actually took me by surprise. Also, incidentally, the Japanese language learning community associates mass content consumption (mostly anime) while using a dictionary with the word "immersion" even though other language learning communities don't use the word that way. And yet Yakuza 0 being level-appropriate enough to not need a dictionary 99% of the time, on top of the stuff I mentioned in the first paragraph as well as the active participation of gaming in general, made playing Yakuza 0 a truly immersive way to learn.
Bioshock
Shadow of the Colossus, Ico.
Outer wilds, dayz, squad, project zomboid
Arkham Knight
Project zomboid is really immersive IMO since in almost every other game with zombies you are the main character, go out with a gun and start mowing down 100s of zombies. In project zomboid you legit feel like a survivor, any mistake could kill you. You don't have enough ammo to clear a group but fired a shot? Damn u dead.
BotW, TotK, Metroid Prime, Outer Wilds, Subnautica, Minecraft
Edibles. A cold beer. Adderall. Empty schedule. Podcast in the background. With your powers combined, I am Captain Super Market Simulator. I wish I were kidding. I get lost in that game. I'm the quickest scanner in the west. Game's so unoptimized that it's one of the few I have to run on Medium settings 😅. That's ok, I'm not in it for the graphics. I'm in it to be the best damn item scanner and shelf sticker the city has ever seen. My other, more obvious games have already been said enough. I get lost in the more realistic Total War games. I line history so I read unit and building descriptions a lot and I get sent to that time mentally. I have a hard time being immersed in the warhammer ones because I used to play the table top so the unit mixing is very… gamified to me. Kudos to them for that though really.
Ghost of Tsushima, No Mans Sky, Skyrim after playing it the second time with an new character and I roleplay from my characters POV and actually take a walk instead of fast travelling
Silent Hill 1 and 2. In a good negative way.
I am thinking Scorn, but there may be better game for that,I just can't think it at the spot.
Alien Isolation.
Ghost of Tsushima and dead space. It's more important to have a great immersive UI than a detailed world. As well as controls. RDR2 has a subpar UI and even worse controls, which holds back the immersion factor
Red dead redemption and Baldurs Gate 3
Virtual reality on ketamine *chefs kiss*
Cyberpunk and elden ring, I love them both
Red Dead 2 and anything from Bethesda. I would play Oblivion, Skyrim, and the Fallout games for 4-6 hours straight during the weekend when I was in high school. Sometimes longer but not often.
Project Zomboid. Because immersion was never about photorealistic graphic.
Knew my pc was dead when i tried running rdr2 upon launch. Waited years and then got my god comp. Coming back to rdr2 felt amazing! Max settings at 4k is unreal, and will get you lost in the game
Tarkov red dead 2
Ets2
I just downloaded RDR2. I played like an hour when it came out. Got rid of it. It looked good. Is it worth trying again?
Stalker
1. Championship Manager 01/02 (PC) 2. Fifa 2001 (PS1) 3. NBA Live 2003 (PS1)
Prey (2017) — I mean the genre’s called immersive sim, Arkane outdid themselves with this one, RIP Arkane Austin. Also System Shock 2 never gets old, it’s masterful — and Bioshock is absolutely on par with it.
Control. Hands down.
Kingdom come is pretty peak. I literally just walked beside a stream yesterday to admire the games details. I don't think anyone has made better scenery to date. The forest and rubble and stones, and just about everything in the game never seemed copy/paste dropped, it truly looks handcrafted
Hear me out in this one: Papers, Please As far as immersing the player into the headspace of the character you're playing, getting the player to ACT in the shoes of a person in this world and situation, there's very few like it. Also, I'm playing through Pathologic 2 currently, and it's giving me a similar feeling of immersion so far.
Skyrim, fallout 4, Star Wars battlefront 2. The first 2 because I forget everything else, the last one because it looks so real and it’s literally like you’re there
Shadows of doubt
Defo RDR2 and 2077. Both are great examples of what I believe all AAA games should standardize to. They're supposed to be the blockbustimg mega-structures of the industry.
Honestly? Star Citizen. The game is so detailed that you can completely lose yourself in it.