Do You Think Cyberpunk 2077 (as of now) is an Immersive Sim game?

+

Do You Think Cyberpunk 2077 (as of now) is an IMMERSIVE SIM game?

  • YES (post your reasons why)

    Votes: 28 17.5%
  • NO (your reasons & maybe how to improve it)

    Votes: 83 51.9%
  • It's complicated (post your reasons why & maybe how to improve it)

    Votes: 25 15.6%
  • Huh... What's even immersive sim?

    Votes: 24 15.0%

  • Total voters
    160
-snip-

Is Far Cry 5 immersive sim?

No because your only option to succeed is to be a combatant while in Cyberpunk and by extension Deus Ex or Thief and System Shock combat can be avoided all together through other gameplay systems, including but not exclusively through dialogue choices and player character skills.

But you fail to mention how many of those required elements are present in games like Thief, Bioshock, System Shock etc.

An immersive sim game has an ecosystem of gameplay mechanics that allow the player to immerse themselves in the emergent scenarios created by said systems, now I'm not saying that everything works well or is explained or extrapolated upon in a manner that manages to guide the new players towards such an emergent gameplay experimentation, but they exist and facilitates such an experience to me personally.

I ended up feeling like I was V in such scenarios, I wish the aforementioned set piece scenarios had as much openness in their designs as the side quests and gigs which end up at odds with the way the game encourages the player to experiment with it's systems.

This is where CDPR fails, it seems like most of it's systems are still in their experimental phases where balance was not yet achieved due to their lack of experience creating such systems and gameplay loops.

But like I said, I am experiencing Cyberpunk akin to an immersive sim game, a limited one, but the experience itself is palpable enough for me to suspend my disbelief.

And I fail to see why Far Cry and GTA are the games that end up being compared to Cyberpunk instead of games like Deus Ex, Invisible War, Human Revolution, Mankind Divided or games like Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, System Shock, Bioshock or Thief as they have much more in common with Cyberpunk from where I stand.

Either way, I'm enjoying our back and forth, cheers :D.
 

Guest 3847602

Guest
Again the argument is not about whether there are Immersive Sim genre elements in the Cyberpunk 2077 but whether the game overall can be classified as Immersive Sim as a whole game like Deus EX Revolution is for example.
As a whole? No, it's not a pure immersive sim. All of the gigs in the game and some of the main and side quests? Yes.
Is that enough for the game to be called "immersive sim"? It's up to you to decide. It is sufficient for me.
By the same logic Far Cry 5 is Immersive Sim game.
Haven't played FC5, but if it is as @exxxed said it is, then it's not immersive sim.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Nope, the only "Bethesda games" that are immersive sims are Dishonored 1 and 2 and Prey. Nothing else.
Making the game in accordance with these principles would not make Cyberpunk one inch closer to being an immersive sim.

Oh, I did not know that a personal opinion could be wrong .. :LOL:

Well considering many people feel that NC is empty with little to do, I'll stand by my opinion, and feel free to come up with your own suggestions (y)
 

Guest 3847602

Guest
Oh, I did not know that a personal opinion could be wrong .. :LOL:

Well considering many people feel that NC is empty with little to do, I'll stand by my opinion, and feel free to come up with your own suggestions (y)
No offense, but my only suggestion is for you to look into what "immersive sim" means instead of trying to define it for yourself or redefine it. It's an established genre of video games and it's a matter of quest design and level design, not about freeroaming and side activities. I've already posted a video about history of immersive sims on the 2nd page of this very thread.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
No offense, but my only suggestion is for you to look into what "immersive sim" means instead of trying to define it for yourself or redefine it. It's an established genre of video games and it's a matter of quest design and level design, not about freeroaming and side activities. I've already posted a video about history of immersive sims on the 2nd page of this very thread.
1) I never said that I wanted the game to be an immersive sim, I just want it to be more immersive that it already is. (y)
2) Immersion is subjective. ;)
3) Game's are ever developing, there is hardly a set in stone definitive rule set that devs need to work to to make a game more immersive or an immersive sim type game. Therefore, the mould can be broken :LOL:
 
With V I am playing now I'm playing without a minimap and a mod that makes V walk as default (without pressing a key) and I do notice things where V walks around.
I cannot sit on benches, on steps and cannot lay down on the beach or a park. In The Elders Scrolls IV Oblivion I can do that when prompt and no danger about.
Where V stays in a motel room for a night, cannot use a shower or a bath.
Just about all the street food vendors don't serve V.
Shops that are open for 24 hours and V tries the door, and it is locked.
The car chases are scripted for the story only, no random gangs trying to kill V car chases.
In Nightcity NPCs love walking in the rain. There is a game when it starts to rain, they hide and comments about it. What is that game, oh, The Witcher.
NPCs in Nightcity don't have schedules. The buggers stand behind the counter for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The games like The Witcher and The Elders Scrolls IV Oblivion have work and day schedules.


Nightcity is being controlled by V instead Nightcity controlling V.

The city itself is well done but the mechanics of the city not so great.
 
Last edited:
Reason why Witcher 3 was such a huge hit is simple-Great story backed up by immersive atmosphere and detailed nature.

Cyberpunk build up hype about CDPR being great company worth of consumer trust then proceeded to destroyed itself with greed and all was done.

City of Cyberpunk is empty, when I started the game for the first time- I ended up on the garbage dump site and spent there 2 hours in just watching the garbage and night sky, listening to the nature and sound of small animals.

Then I got into the city....
I hated cars, I hated people, I hated emptiness and sheer lack of content.

I loved the story, not so much the ending. Actually ending was the final blow for the game for me.
Garbage ending that has no sense.

This game is just like FIFA or NFL games- all graphic with no content.
Same tier as any EA title.

Shame.

Witcher 3 came out full of bugs, still I played it on lowest graphic possible just to play it- and it was great because game had start, middle and end.

This?

Pile of dog shlt.
 
when I started the game for the first time- I ended up on the garbage dump site and spent there 2 hours in just watching the garbage and night sky, listening to the nature and sound of small animals.

errrr, huh!?
"listening to the nature and sound of small animals."

Where is this in the game other than the mental wellness public park (green house) were the NC government has bird sound effects on recordings?
I am sure there are no feral animals (not pets or farm) in this game (per the lore), or were you only joking about that to make a point?
 
My first ever Ultima game was Ultima Underworld. At the time it wasn't called an immersive sim but later came to be known as a precursor to the genre. Its not even appropriate to call it a genre either because its really a design philosophy centred around witholding information from the player so they end up doing their own thing and seeing if it works.

The way I like to explain Ultima Underworld is like this:

Imagine you are dropped into a Labyrinth. You have no idea where to go or what you should be doing and the game doesn't tell you.

You walk around and try to find a weapon because you think you need one to fight the creatures that stalk the maze. But when you encounter some of them you realize most of them don't want to fight you. You can talk to them or barter with them but some of the creatures like the lizardmen speak a lizard language you don't understand. The game doesn't tell you can learn their language.

Ultima Underworld is like being invited to play a board game but nobody told you the rules. You have to figure out the game's internal logic by playing it, watching other players make moves, identifying patterns of play and writing things down that you think might be important later. 9/10 times the things you write down will be stupid ideas that wont work. 1/10 times your bright idea will work as expected or even better, in a delightful way you didn't anticipate or plan for.

Ultima Underworld involves a lot of trial and error and can be incredibly frustrating, which is a big part of the reason you don't see games like it anymore. Deus Ex and to some extent also Dishonoured still have a part of this "figure out the rules of the game first, then trial solutions" school of design, but with a lot less of the frustration. They are less labyrinthine. There is more of a story/narrative throughline to keep you motivated when things aren't working. Using the story/narrative, they are able to subtly hint at things that might work without abandoning you in full blown trial and error mode.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution has a very different design philosophy to the original Deus Ex so I think that throws some people. Human Revolution ends up being a lot more of what Cyberpunk 2077 is (which is not an immersive sim imo). Its a narrative driven game where the chapters can have scripted variations depending on the choices made and the order you make them in. In subsequent chapters, the game takes account of some of these variations.

Cyberpunk has very little of the Ultima Underworld design philosophy in it. There is no point in Cyberpunk where I don't know where to go or what I need to do. The game gives you a list of objectives that you tick off. All points of interest are sign posted on the map. You never need to take mental or written notes of things that might be important. Important things are highlighted so you don't have to do this.

There is very little procedural generation/behaviour that you need to learn or exploit. Potential for emergent gameplay is limited but the trade off is that with such tight scripting, they can make spectacularly choreographed story set pieces and take you on a narrative journey. This is the main reason I play games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher 3. I like these games because they punch me in the feels and make me get all emotional. Both games made me tear up at various points.

Cyberpunk has an internal logic that is very clear however. Outside of the narrative, you solve all problems by killing them. In rare scripted cases you can talk your way out of fights but that often feels like shortening the story. I want the story to be longer not to skip parts of it! You can stealth past them but doing this gives up exp or loot so really, you should just kill everything and then put all the bodies in trash bins to level up Stealth/Ninjutsu.

If anyone remembers the mid 90s point and click adventures like Day of the Tentacle, Discworld, Toonstruck and Ripper, those games have more in common with immersive sims than Cyberpunk 2077 does. They have a hidden internal logic that you must discover, without being told what the rules of the game are, where you need to be or why you need to be there. You pick up and carry around a bunch of items that you don't understand the importance of or where they can be used or how they can be combined. The main difference here is these games have 1 correct solution to progress. Immersive sims have multiple viable solutions to progress that occur emergently. The discovery of emergent possibilities is the point of the immersive sim, not the choice.

A game that gives you multiple choice solutions with stat checks (and tells you if you don't have the required stats) is not using an immersive sim mechanic. An immersive sim doesn't tell you that you have a choice in the first place. You discover you have a choice by trying and failing/succeeding to do something you think might work.
 
Last edited:
Cyberpunk has an internal logic that is very clear however. Outside of the narrative, you solve all problems by killing them. In rare scripted cases you can talk your way out of fights but that often feels like shortening the story. I want the story to be longer not to skip parts of it! You can stealth past them but doing this gives up exp or loot so really, you should just kill everything and then put all the bodies in trash bins to level up Stealth/Ninjutsu.
I was on board with everything you said until this part.

I woefully disagree.

That is one of the ways you can interact with the game, there are many, many others.

All of the quests and side quests have alternate solutions to them which are not at all signposted as you suggest, you have a goal, the way you achieve it is up to you.

That is one of the staples of the immersive sim genre, even if not fully an immersive sim, Cyberpunk dances with the philosophy quite closely.
 
I congratulate CD Projekt RED's teams for working hard to improve Cyberpunk 2077, but despite months and months of waiting, the game is still not what it should be. There are still far too many missing elements that have been mentioned repeatedly in various presentations and interviews. I expect more life and interaction in Night City. I'm a big fan of RP and I think it's a pity that we don't have more and various things to do outside of the missions and scripted features with our love and friendship relationships.
 
There are just way too many things that break immersion for it to come even close to qualifying, even if it wanted to, which I'm not sure it does anyway.
Post automatically merged:

I was on board with everything you said until this part.

I woefully disagree.

That is one of the ways you can interact with the game, there are many, many others.

All of the quests and side quests have alternate solutions to them which are not at all signposted as you suggest, you have a goal, the way you achieve it is up to you.

That is one of the staples of the immersive sim genre, even if not fully an immersive sim, Cyberpunk dances with the philosophy quite closely.
The two of you are saying entirely different things.

First, I'd love some examples of where you can solve sidequests / gigs / etc in a manner other than choosing between "kill everyone" or "stealth past everyone." If there aren't more than 25% of such content where there are other options, then I'm sorry but "many, many others" is not accurate at all. And 25% is a super generous low bar to set for that really.

However, Hoyte did not say you CAN'T avoid killing everyone - what they actually said is that you SHOULDN'T. They are talking about realizing that while a job may be presented to you as a stealth op, and the opposing force might be a group you have had prior contact with - in truth there are zero consequences or effects from just killing everyone in the building, taking all their stuff, and minmaxing "stealth" xp on top of that by throwing your victims' corpses into boxes. That doing the job as it's presented to you, "infiltrate blah location," actually causes you to lose more than you gain in terms of loot and cash, and most forms of xp, not to mention it's more often than not, far faster just to shoot everyone in the head and call it a day. Then rob/hack the place blind in peace and safety once all hostiles are dead.

At the same time there are zero lasting effects or consequences no matter how you go about it, there is no mechanism for group dynamics or V's relationship with any of them outside scripted hardcoded story events, which themselves have almost no effect out in the game world.

And for the record, I burned Deus Ex's "immersive" license the moment it threw everything i'd done out the window and gave me three buttons to press.
 
Last edited:
I think thats why its important to think of immersive sim as a design philosophy instead of a genre because modern games borrow and expand upon many different design elements from previous games. So there is classic roleplaying elements, first person shooter elements, stealth, cinematic story telling all in Cyberpunk.

The non sign posted stuff like being able to rat Panam out to Saul, being able to skip finding the XBD dealer in Disasterpiece (because you know who it is from Jotaru's network) - that stuff is immersive sim-esque. But overall I just don't think immersive sim design is particularly prevalent in Cyberpunk and thats not a bad thing. I play this game because I like to focus on the story and I don't feel like walking around confused and face smashing walls trying out things that don't and can't work.

I sometimes like having a checklist of achievable goals I can do in 30 minute chunks when I have limited playtime. I like that when I do have limited playtime, I can finish up my 30 minutes and feel satisfied that I made incremental progress towards a clear goal.

Heavy immersive sim game design is just a really different thing. I think there is more appetite for it now than there has been over the past 10 years but there is a reason this design philosophy fell out of favour in the first place - it can be really frustrating when you don't understand the rules of the game you are playing or you misinterprete the rules causing you to employ strategies that always fail. If you don't have the time to go through that discovery process, you can finish up your 30 minute gaming session feeling like you didn't learn anything or get anywhere. And whats the point of a game if you can't find a way to enjoy it?

I was cleaning up gigs for Wakako yesterday and did "A Shrine Defiled" again. This is ostensibly a stealth op in the sense that if you go in and out without alerting any enemies, Wakako will be happy and will give you twice as much money. So you should definitely do this. You should then go back into the shrine after hanging up the phone, massacre all the Tyger Claws, loot everything that isn't bolted down, breach all the access points for cash, quickhack drops and quickhack crafting materials and dispose of all the bodies in trash cans for the Ninjutsu exp. Rather conveniently there are exactly just enough trash cans to dispose of every body.

Ultima Underworld doesn't work like this and explicitly avoids situations where something like this can occur. You don't get to free Murgo, get Wine of Compassion and stay friendly with the Lizardmen all at the same time. To free Murgo you need to give him loads of food, which means you have to be carrying it, which means you had to have made the conscious decision to sacrifice precious inventory space to hold it, not knowing if or when it would be useful.
 
Last edited:
it can be really frustrating when you don't understand the rules of the game you are playing or you misinterprete the rules causing you to employ strategies that always fail. If you don't have the time to go through that discovery process, you can finish up your 30 minute gaming session feeling like you didn't learn anything or get anywhere.
I am pretty sure a term exists for this aspect of gaming, no i could be wrong but i believe its called

Get Good

I hate games that hold your hand and have to lead you every step of the way. Failing is a part of life and a part of video games. You need to find out what works or doesn't work. Over coming obstacles is rewarding
 
Last edited:
And thats fine. Souls games are popular now but games don't all have to all be like that, otherwise it would be a very narrowminded art.

You like this aspect of game design now but that doesn't mean you will still like it 5 or 10 years from now. Between now and then, your whole life may change and with it, how you think about and play games.

I grew up with games like Ultima Underworld but 25 years later, I'm not playing Ultima Underworld or any other games like it. Why is that? Because it was fun when I had summer holidays and easter breaks to break my brain over Richard Garriott's moon logic. Now I work 50 hours a week and I have to spend annual leave to play games that demand a lot of me.

I used to play competitive online shooters. I don't anymore because I got tired of getting beat up at work to come home only to realize I suck at competitive online shooters so I need to beat myself up some more to climb to gold in Overwatch. And I've seen what people have to do to be significantly and consistently better than the average - you have to make the game a very significant part of your life and undergo a brutally honest self transformation, not unlike body building but mentally rather than physically. Maybe I will go back to that one day but right now its just something I can't focus on.

Overcoming obstacles is rewarding yes but by definition the obstacle must be sufficient to block progress if you don't do what the game wants you to do or you can't figure out a way to break its internal logic. Which means that for every person that does feel elation at solving the puzzle or overcoming the challenge, there are two that fall short.

Some people have the time and patience to prevail, others don't and they don't even have to be separate people. They can be the same person at different stages of their life where games fulfill a different purpose. Its great that there are games like Dark Souls and Ultima Underworld. But its better that different games can exist along side them if you ever get tired or bored or just want something lighter.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom