Some games excel at delivering an all-thrills experience, while others are the key to unwinding after a stressful day. But only one genre seeks to pull players out of their reality and drop them in another: the immersive sim. Despite being notoriously difficult to pin down with labels, these games are characterized by their unwavering emphasis on realism and immersion above all else.
Despite having the power to make players feel like they are behind someone else's eyes from another time or place, immersive sims are a rare type of game. They are difficult to market to mass audiences, and the amount of passion, expertise, and funding to get one out of the gate cannot be overstated. But despite their rarity, immersive sims tend to be the brightest jewels in the crown of video games.
10 Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
Ultima: Underworld might be considered a proto-immersive sim, but the genre would likely have never gotten its start without it. The game wowed the audiences of 1992 with its (then) extravagant graphical fidelity, player freedom, fluid animations, and first-person perspective.
The game sets the player on a dungeon-delving adventure through the ruins of a lost civilization. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss offers a surprising variety of options for tackling traversal. The game may be considered clunky and outdated now, but its influence on the gaming industry cannot be understated.
9 Thief 2
In Thief 2, sentries not only use their eyes and ears to detect the player but will investigate careless clues to their whereabouts, such as a trail of blood or unclosed doors. Conversely, the player is able to find soft footing (such as mossy ground) to mask their footsteps, traverse hidden passages, and lock guards out of their patrol routes with a little pick-pocketing finesse.
While the structure is more linear than other immersive sims, there are many options available to the player between missions to help them meet their objectives. The 2000 sequel to Thief improved on everything from the original, utilizing shadow and light, noise and silence, and atmospheric tension like few others have since.
8 Arx Fatalis
In 2002, the newly formed Arkane Studios got ready to ship what was the ultimate immersive dungeon-crawling experience, drawing on a decade of technological innovations since the release of Ultima Underworld, the game that got the immersive sim ball rolling.
Everything in Arx Fatalis, from the sound design (creeping footsteps, eerie cries, and echoes) to the inventory system and even the innovative magic system (in which the player must "cast" spells in their air with glyphic symbols), entices the player to buy into the fantasy that they are treading among the remnants of civilization as they struggle to survive and cooperate deep beneath the doomed and frozen surface.
7 Deus Ex: Human Revolution
The director's cut of this 2011 classic manages to resolve a long-standing complaint (the boss battles) that tarnished the game's reputation for its dedication to player choice. Each level, small, but compact and rich with detail, can be approached in a multitude of ways: stealth, action, or tech hacking are all viable and satisfying.
While the story may not have landed perfectly for some (considering the legendary status of this IP), Deus Ex: Human Revolution still manages to capture the essence of the immersive sim experience: a tight but deep cyberpunk world practically sticky with atmosphere and thick with philosophical musings.
6 Bioshock
Few games shape the landscape of video games quite like Bioshock. Unrelenting, visceral, and fascinating, 2K managed to make a game that transports the player to the nightmarish fallen city of Rapture. The underwater metropolis manages to feel simultaneously expansive and claustrophobic and lays down some gruesomely fascinating world-building throughout.
While most immersive sims focus on offering a variety of play styles and unscripted moments, 2007's Bioshock lands on this list for its sublime subversion of expectations. That being said, the player is able to make a few choices throughout the experience with a plethora of power-ups and weapon types.
5 Dishonored
Immersive sims have an unfortunate reputation for being both highly popular and largely responsible sinking studios, but this 2012 game is an exception. While Arkane's games had their fans thanks to their previous offerings, Dishonored managed to catapult the studio into gaming stardom thanks to its high standard of polished, beautifully crafted, and brilliantly (or darkly) realized world-building.
As well as being given the ability to complete a game explicitly about taking revenge without turning into a bloodthirsty monster with a ridiculous body count in tow, players get a variety of powers that make them feel like they're "hacking" the game and doing all kinds of things they assume they shouldn't be to overcome the boundaries of the level. But Arkane proves that they did their homework each time, rewarding Dishonored players for solving problems with out-of-the-box thinking.
4 Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Having gained experience from their first Deus Ex prequel, Eidos-Montréal set out with higher standards and even higher ambitions for its sequel. The result was Mankind Divided, an immersive-sim masterpiece: an even greater focus on player agency, better upgrades, character customization, and an even better small-but-dense open world.
Unfortunately, it isn't only mankind that's divided in the 2016 sequel. The game itself was seemingly split into multiple parts, and, unfortunately, was shipped with only the first part intact, resulting in what feels like an incomplete experience: a tragedy considering the top-notch level of work that was put into the parts of the game that players were able to play.
3 Prey
Talos 1, the space station featured in 2017's Prey, is emblematic of what an immersive sim should be: large enough for the player to get lost in, but not so large that the world feels empty. The player is able to explore every inch inside (and even outside, if they can stand the vacuum of space) of the station, using the game's physics and the player's abilities in creative, near-game-breaking ways.
As is typical for an Arkane production, the excellent environment is supplemented by a compelling storyline, great writing, and mind-warping, player-empowering mechanics. Which other games out there besides Prey let the player transform themselves into a coffee mug to escape from danger?
2 Deus Ex
Most immersive sim games opt for a tight map with a large amount of options to go for. Or, in other words, as deep as an ocean, as large as a pond. The original Deus Ex went hard and deep with its gameplay and mechanics but also threw a huge world for players to explore and get lost in.
It's almost overwhelming how vast the world is and how many options there are, but once the player becomes accustomed to the game's (only slightly aged) design, Deus Ex blows other games out of the water in terms of choice, story, and customization, regardless of if they're games from the same era or modern releases. Not bad for a game from the year 2000.
1 System Shock 2
While the original (which now has an incredibly faithful and expertly made remake) probably also deserves a spot on this list, its sequel, System Shock 2, was foundational to the immersive sim genre and gaming as a whole. Not only was it an immersive sim (giving players an enormous amount of creative freedom while they roam around the Von Braun), and a bona fide RPG, but it was a tight first-person shooter as well.
This led the way for more studios to mix and match genres. It also pioneered environmental storytelling through the use of clever environmental design, audio logs, and emails. While it still absolutely stands up today, here's hoping there's a remaster of System Shock 2 that can match the quality of the first!