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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 .