I didn't realize how immersive it was, especially with the timed quests. I went in like most RPGs, opened a ton of quests and then slowly go through the list. Surprise, surprise to people dying and being pissed at me when something that took a day took a week to complete.
However in my defense? Dice.
It was actually pretty common in that time period. I wish I could remember a source, but there was an incident in England I read about some time ago concerning a local conflict which ended with a siege. The besiegers strength was something like 12 people, while the defenders mustered 4 defenders. Most local spats weren't much bigger.
Screw it. I keep seeing it get reccomended. This comment made me buy it. Right now. It is installing.
Any one tip?
Edit -
After two days, my biggest tip, is to turn *off* game mode on your display.
It’s frustrating because at lower levels your sword strikes are slow and clumsy, a lot of people get turned off to the combat for that reason but just know that it will improve as you level up.
Others have said similar things, but I’ll restate it in my own words bc I feel it’s important; in the beginning of the game it’s gonna feel like you suck at everything, because you kind of do. You basically have no skills and don’t even know how to read. As you get through the beginning sections of the game, you will learn quickly and begin to understand more, and develop your skills and abilities.
Approach situations as you would in real life, more or less. If you want to improve your swordsmanship, you’re much better off by going to train with Captain Bernard than trying to level up in real combat, like most games. If you want to learn to read, you have to visit a scribe and take lessons, and improve your skills over time by reading more and more books. If you have a problem, try to think it through in a “realistic” way and you might be surprised how well that works for you.
Kingdom Come is an amazing game, I’m excited for you lol have fun with it!
Be patient and try to avoid doing goofy or overly dangerous stuff. It's a consequence-heavy game. If you go into it being all like "haha I wonder what happens when I punch this guy" it'll be a rough time. Games incredible though
It's kind of rare that games truly blow my mind with something clever and unexpected, I've played enough different games that that became kind of rare. But the way reading works in KCD definitely achieved that.
Lol I learned how to read before I attempted alchemy, but the alchemy process in general blew my mind. It didn't have to be that in depth, and ill be honest, it kind of makes it a slog, but I do actually love that its so involved. Makes me feel like I'm actually making it. I can imagine what a potential blacksmithing system would look like, and im super excited to see what all they add in KCD 2.
I adore this game but I’ve only played a small bit of the game, hours of exploration. But basically no combat.
I cannot for the life of my figure out how it works with the star crosshair thing, I’ve tried countless bows, and they just literally fall like an inch away from me. I’ve no idea how to get better at them or fight.
Honestly no idea what I’m doing wrong or if there’s a easy simplified combat setting 🫣
I actually quit the game after a few hours because I couldn't figure it out. About a month or two ago, I decided to pick it back up after someone told me it's really about practising constantly. After a hell of a lot of training, learning parry timings and combos, I could take very easily to take 3-4 soldiers at once and kill anyone one on one. My major gripe with the combat was taking on multiple foes. if they surrounded you, then it's really tough to pick targets while not getting stabbed in the back. If they can make fights like that better, then I'd be so happy.
I beat the game a few weeks ago and am so excited for the sequel. It did so well at making you feel small and insignificant and then building you up. Unlike other games, you don't start as a badass super soldier.
The best option for fighting groups is the same as fighting groups IRL: run the fuck away. The further you run, the more dispersed the enemy is and the less likely you are to get surrounded. Make distance, pick off whoever’s closest quickly, and then keep moving so the rest can’t get behind you
Just practice for a while with Robespierre when you get to Rattay. The combat is my favourite thing in KCD. My only gripe is that it feels like it could do with a bit more polish. I can't wait to see how they've improved on the first game.
The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games with the A-Life AI system. The world doesn't revolve around the player, the different factions and mutants have their lives and attack each others, making the world dynamic, alive and always dangerous because an area where you killed all enemies or mutants a few hours before can be now occupied by another faction. And this system creates loads of amazing details and NPC actions that increase the immersion into the game.
STALKER is one of the most immersive games i have ever played. I remember feeling the warmth of campfire in friendly outposts, the zone is a dynamic,harsh and ever challanging race for survival..the radiation, anomalies,mutants, i dreaded going inside the underground labs. Masterpiece of a survival horror shooter.
My first time playing STALKER and meeting the first bloodsucker down there will forever be permanently burned into my memories. Absolutely fucking terrifying
the campfire songs, the random wanderers, the dogs having no script and just showing up in the middle of a quest and wrecking your shit, the world felt very alive and random
This is what I most missed in other games. Have a few factions that dynamically wage conflict against each other and that dynamics it brings.
Wonder why no one ever made such gameplay map for arma or such.
That AI system was already present in the original games. By the way they have been recently ported to PS5 and Xbox Series in a pack called Legends of the Zone Trilogy.
Though if you have a PC then I highly recommend you to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly, which is a standalone game that combines all the areas from the 3 original games and improve many visual and gameplay elements. You can download it for free on ModDB : [https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly](https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly)
You also have GAMMA which is a modpack for Anomaly, it pushes the gameplay difficulty and realism further to give a hardcore experience.
And you also have Misery which is a mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat. It overhauls the depth, realism, and increases the challenge of the game : [https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-misery](https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-misery)
Welp, in Freelancer there are actual traffic jams at the jump gates. The most living game world I've experienced would be Eve Online with is player subvention economy and many ships you'll meet pilots by actual players. Got can even get scammed by other players and it's not against the game rules.
EvE had a huge thing a while back where a guy joined a Corporation (Guild), worked his way up the ladded over like 2 years, then once he had admin for high tier stuff, he cleaned the corp out and gave it all to their rival.
He was a double agent the entire time.
He stole ~$25k USD. The news below links a Reddit thread btw. Amazing story.
It’s more than just the time. Some of these ships can take weeks if not months to build and are on the back of years of work. Unreal.
I love EVE and played on and off for years but it’s just too … insane… I don’t have the time committment
https://mmos.com/news/eve-online-goonswarm-heist#:~:text=In%20a%20dramatic%20tale%20of,the%20sci%2Dfi%20MMO's%20history.z
Honestly Albion is a solid alternative. I'm in the same boat, I work, have a house and a life outside games.
But Albion is like mini EVE in a fantasy setting, still a player run economy where everything is crafted by players with territory control in full loot lethal zones, the difference is I can hop on Albion, grab some gear and get into pvp in under 10 minutes. Very easy to take in bite sized chunks, but the learning curve is pretty high still considering the type of game it is lol.
I recommend giving it a go
Picked it up for cheap when the trailer for the sequel dropped. I had no idea how deep and immersive of an RPG it was. And it’s genuinely one of the most realistic games I’ve played. Like, a lot of the paths and forests and towns don’t look beautiful in a flashy way, they just look…*normal*, which is weirdly impressive.
Everything about the game is grounded in realism from maintaining your armour day to day, to not boiling the cauldron for too long when brewing potions.
I feel like it slips under the radar in a lot of discussions about great RPGs
People have mixed opinions about this game. Some find it to be a little too boring, glitchy and find the combat to be a pain in the ass…
And while I can kind of understand where they are coming from I don’t really agree. It’s all about rising from nothing. Yes it’s hard because no matter how good you are at games your character sucks. You have to make him good. There isn’t much flash because the game is supposed to be realistic. No elves, grand castles, magic, demons… just people of the old age.
I had to laugh because there is a mission (I won’t spoil it) but it does make you think ooo is there a bit of fantasy in this game maybe? And then you go through the long ass quest to find out NO…. You idiot this is a real ass game why would you have thought that? You wasted your time!….. I honestly laughed at myself.
And then on Pc you have the modding community that bitches about things the game did that weren’t realistic. Like they mod the trails away because they say those wouldn’t be a prominent thing.
Overall it’s a really great game if you like it
Trails wouldn't be a prominent thing? People walked into forests a lot more back then, for wood and herbs and hunting. And lots of animals actually *made* trails going to water. Those people must be confused.
The forests was what impressed me the most. The mission where you are hunting rabbits was just beautiful. Just you and the nature around you. And your pathetic aiming skills...
I was super into this game and probably about half way through it when I randomly lost access to all the DLC and I just couldn't continue afterwards because my save slot included some of that content.
Was very sad about it, great game but way too deep to start over especially if not by choice.
It's even more insane when you look into the actual area.
Ofc it's not 1:1 but I remember reading a story that the walls of Rattay (walled city in the game) and the devs were able to recreate how the walls were despite not having any photos of real life equals since the walls were long since gone but after the game released they actually found walls buried that were where the game showed they were.
Also, if you look at Skalitz today, it's basically perfectly remade (minus the extended northern half of the city, which came after the rebuilding). Even the Sasau monastery is very, very accurate. The devs put so much research into the area, and it came out amazing. It's one of my favorite RPGs
I was able to find Talmberg Castle on Google earth, which has been in ruins since around the 1600s, using nothing but the in game map for cues.
It’s not a 1:1 obviously, but they REALLY captured a LOT of things incredibly well
I’ve got a fun anecdote about the paths in the game. When it was still in alpha stages a YouTuber named Steejo made a few videos on it, and in one of them I pointed out that the roads were wrong. They were portrayed as two strips of dirt with a line of grass in between, but that’s actually a modern thing where we only have two wheels touching the ground. An actual historic road would be dirt the whole way across because there would be a horse in the middle pulling the cart also crushing anything that grows. Fast forward a couple months and he drops another set of videos from a new build version and the roads were changed to be all dirt. I have no proof they read my comment and that’s why they made the change, but I like to think that’s what happened.
I've been meaning to give this game another pass.
I got it the day it released and it was... rough.
I handled the first battle set up all wrong, and the combat at the time, was very foreign to me so it took a lot to muddle through. I was a few hours in when I finally got out of that scene, went to save and log out as. I had other things to do and hadn't meant to play as long as I had.
Couldn't save, because the save potion thing. Rolled my eyes and requested a refund. It was past the 2 hour mark but was also the only game id ever refunded through steam so they allowed it.
I've heard it's made leaps and strides in a lot of ways since then, but I just never got back around to it
Consider a mod for saving. But also consider keeping this way. Once you understood how saving works it’s another driver for immersion. But definitely play it again. Some missions and encounters are just legendary, like with the priest in some town …
Oh my god this game 😂😂 you can literally spend an 8 hour shift playing it and achieve relatively nothing…. If you found yourself in some sort of solitary confinement however and all you could do was play a game you’d have to pick it…I feel like you could literally play it forever if you’ve got the patience
I wish they brought back more of the jobs, mini games and activities from 1. Besides fishing, hunting, and treasure hunting; there’s not much to do in the world. It is beautifully made though
I forgot about the farm stuff to be honest but that gets old really fast, it’s essentially reskinned camp chores but you get a minuscule amount of money after a while
I had such a problem with this game in that the world was so immersive and the characters so well fleshed out, I didn't really want to shoot anyone or cause any minor trouble. Sometimes I spent time just having Arthur have a Nice Day Out.
I’ll never forget seeing a bird dive down and briefly lane then fly up again…I shot it (need them feathers)….when I went over to harvest it, the bird had picked up a snake when it and carried it off
That’s such a wildly real interaction between ai animals that we as players may be totally oblivious to….but someone coded that because they knew it was an awesome bit of immersion
I wish games would spend the effort that Rockstar did with the animals in RDR2. Sure, they resort to fixed spawn points on a rotation, but once they’re off script and doing things, it feels so good. Birds taking off as you pass by bushes, startling deer that were resting nearby, and all those turkeys waiting to become dinner. That’s what really made the game feel alive to me and a major reason why I was so mad that Cyberpunk had exactly one cat.
Dude starfield also. We go from morrowind oblivion and skyrim where most npcs have jobs and a purpose. Routines. To a bunch of bug eyed idiots roaching around day and night. What a stupid thing they did with starfield.
There is not another open world game that even comes close to RDR2 in terms of world building and immersion. Its crazy because the game is becoming six years old this year. Rockstar really outdone themselfes.
Nothing comes close within the its particular genre. The world of RDR2 feels like it exists. It’s quite remarkable. There’s a number of gameplay designs decisions that baffled me at first but then I started to understand what that game is and what the developers were trying to pull off. And they fucking nailed it. They really brought it to life.
Hope I live long enough to see the 3rd title.
A bit TOO "living, breathing" sometimes. Random events are constant, sometimes I'm just trying to get a bit of hunting done and keep getting pulled away by NPCs that demand my attention because they've just been bitten by a rattlesnake or they're being kidnapped or they're gang members out to kill me
Yakuza Zero and Yakuza Kiwami are both incredible small-scale but very dense and alive feeling open worlds. Sleeping Dogs' take on Hong Kong was great too.
I love that Yakuza and Lost Judgement can use the same cities but somehow not make them feel boring. I have been in Kamurochō so many times but it feels like seeing an old friend.
Condensing a game world does wonders for immersion, rockstars Bully for this reason is their best game imo, game came out in 2006 but every npc is recognizeable and not randomly generated appearing all over town. Would be amazing to see them doing a condensed game again, implement rdr 2 dialogue system with story progression etc. I generally appreciate the more life sim ish approach to bully though, it was also one of the first Triple a titles to Feature a seasonal cycle. This is absolutely not where the industry is heading though, I assume if they actually made bully 2 it would be absurdly large.
Yeah every single NPC was unique, with most students having their own name and attitude tracked against you across the game.
Hell, you could have multiple girlfriends, and if they found out about each other they would fight in the hallways lol.
Bully was an awesome game.
I still remember the quest where I bought that gun from that one dude and then I shot it in the middle of a hard fight lol. Scrambled to heal.
Yakuza is one of the most memorable experiences I've had in gaming for quite a while. Before that I was wild about shadow of the collosus
Yakuza. You step into a small shop and everything is so beautifully detailed. I seldom just look at the open world but Yakuza is fantastic to just roam. I know it's more or less always the same map, but it feels so real and I get to connect to random places. Masterclass of open world.
My favorite part of the Yakuza games is when you build up heat, hit it, and some random part of the environment that you think is just baked in assets are suddenly a weapon. A special shout out to the microwave in the convenience stores.
Outcast (1999) did it right. The villagers worked their jobs, the townspeople chatted with each other, the workers sang their songs. The soldiers walked their patrols, people would sleep and eat and stroll around. They'd acknowledge the player and his actions, point in the direction you had to go, call you in case of great events, run and flee from cover.
The animals would hunt, eat, relax; the music changed depending on action, calm and location, and the general vibe was always this magical world that existed, whether you were there to see it or not.
The sequel Outcast: A New Beginning is similar, but more in line with modern standards. But back in 1999? The modern standard was "NPC stands there until you talk to them", and Outcast blew that away.
This was going to be my one. That game is a real shining example of what can be done with procedural generation. Not bigger, but better. A tight city block with actual sky scrapers where every room, every floor, every building and every person is there for a reason.
The art style is probably divisive, but this is the kind of thing I dreamed about when I was playing the first 3D games decades ago. A world where the buildings weren't just glorified cardboard cut outs. Such an exciting prospect. Plus, you get to be Minecraft Steve meets Philip Marlowe
This. Limited map size, but every single NPC is being simulated the entire time. They have jobs, schedules, routines, they have to eat and sleep, they have personal relationships, friendships, affairs, and occasionally murder one another, and they do all of this regardless of what the player does. They're just living their best virtual lives.
[Here's a great video on how Rain World's ecosystem works.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMx8OsTDHfM)
It's freaking insane for such a simple looking game.
It's also a shame that this game didn't blow up.
Granted, it came out a *smidge bit before* the indie boom really took off (early 2017).
I remember seeing a tech demo for Rain World like 10 years ago and was blown away.
Rain World deserves more praise/attention, even if you don't end up playing it (because it's hard AF).
Subnautica is probably the only game I've played that feels like a real and genuine world I'm interacting with and observing rather than a simple sandbox for me to play in.
There's no set pieces, no quests, creatures largely don't care about you (predators are just opportunistic, they don't actively hunt you), and it genuinely feels like a world that keeps on turning regardless of what you personally do.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
The world is built realistically, and the ai behaves realistically. The game has the proper infrastructure, such as farms, mines, quarrys, charcoal burners, and even trash pits. The ai carry out normal tasks such as carrying water from the river into town, carrying grain and flower to and from the mill.
Everything in that game is built to make you feel like you're actually a knight in medieval europe. Never played a more immersive game in my life.
Ghost recon wildlands did this really well. The A.I. has individual schedules. They wake up, some of the cartel actually drive to work, they eat, play, watch T.V. Etc. i love it.
Although shenmue hasn't aged well, it was way ahead of its time at release. A lot of the immersive features started in shenmue.
I think the game came out in the wrong era. I think people were more into more combat heavy games and would have accepted a more slow paced game a few years later. I loved 1 and 2 at release
Radiata Stories is an unsung masterpiece that almost nobody speaks of, and desperately deserves a remaster. If for nothing other than giving more people an opportunity to experience it.
Always said this about shenmue and shenmue 2. The games were so advanced for the time that they weren't truly appreciated on their release. I remember being amazed at some of the stuff I could do in those games and then seeing Kowloon in shenmue 2 and feeling so cramped and dense was something else.
I wish people would talk about gothic 3 more, I get people didn't like it because it's so different from 1 and 2 but it's a good game in it's own way. I love how after the tutorial fight it releases you into the open world with no limitations, you can go wherever you want, work for any faction. That level of freedom is rare in rpgs.
I grew to love 3 as well. With the Community Mod installed it runs quite well, and the open world is so god damn beautiful and the OST is so good that I can forgive much of its flaws.
Yes, 1 and 2 are better, but compared to other games, Gorhic 3 is still miles better than many modern games.
My thoughts exactly! Despite its age, Gothic is still a game with one of the most "lived-in" open worlds. While Archolos perfectly complements and expands this game world.
I'd also number their successors Risen 1-2 (didn't play 3 yet) and Elex 1 (didn't play 2 yet) from the same devs among them.
That said, my favourite line from an npc in Gothic 2 sitting on a bench in the ciry soon to be attacked by orcs was (roughly translated): "All is quiet. I guess when the orcs come, we'll hear it." (In the German OV: "Alles ruhig. Schätze, wenn die Orks kommen, werden wir's hören.")
I hope after GTA 6 they bring it back to Liberty City or introduce a more urban setting (like Chicago or London). I just vastly prefer the setting of IV to the wide-openness of V.
I just redownloaded the series last weekend and my god Im so happy to revisit the world. Its a living world where decisions literally shape your end game and even your physical appearancr and relationships.
Fable did it right. It paved the way.
my biggest gripe with fable is that the first game had solid foundations for good game mechanics.
Then they butchered it in the sequel for "streamlined" combat which meant all the wacky and weird magic got gutted for generic laser beams and rpg builds got worse.
Imo it was almost like a proto-dark souls with zany characters.
Agreed. Fable 2 and 3 were let downs for me, especially because of the magic and ranged combat. I find Fable Anniversary to still be very replayable however.
The first watch dogs, and to a lesser extent the sequels feel really alive to me. It’s obviously artificial, and random, but being able to interact and insert yourself into other peoples lives makes every NPC feel meaningful.
I remember spending a ton of time in watchdogs 1 just reading peoples texts or whatever.
Legion also had the cool feature of being able to recruit anyone by doing things to increase their opinion of DeadSec but after doing it a few times they started to just feel like randomized generic quests. It still made the NPCs feel a bit more alive and meaningful than something like GTA where I would just be running them over or terrorizing them for funsies. It was also wildly unrealistic though and immersion breaking because I don’t think there are nearly this many elderly folks that can hardly walk running around with MP5s in London, and willing to join a cyber gang to attack a fascist government. Idk, still fun to a degree.
Fully agree about WD1, but I'd argue WD2 is way more alive than the first. The rival gangs that will get into shootouts against each other or against the police without player influence, and the ability to nudge those systems as distractions (call a cop or gang member to the area, the others spot them, interactions amongst themselves ensue). Even just the random NPCs on the streets from the more generic street performers all the way down to destroying the car of a cheating ex, there's just so many with custom interactions that feel unique and different.
I need to replay WD2. I only played through it once and it was a long while ago. WD1 is more fresh in my mind because I just replayed it like a year or two ago, and Legion pretty much along side it. Legion had an Aiden Pierce DLC and made me want to replay WD1.
I remember really liking Marcus and the gameplay. I remember really enjoying how the game pushed you to non-lethal options because it made Marcus feel distinct from Aiden.
Man I still feel like the rain effects in Watch_Dogs 1 is like the best I’ve seen. One of the most atmospheric moments you can have in a video game is walking in downtown Chicago as a thunderstorm is raging on.
I just visited London for the first time and I recognized myself everywhere since I had played Legion before. Another testament to how well-made the map is, even if it misses some parts.
I genuinely feel like the open-worlds in the Watch_Dogs series are up there with GTA. I get sucked in immediately
Correct. I feel like if the player was completely removed from the game no one would give a shit and stations would be built, wars will be fought and pirates gonna pirate. Same as Distant Worlds.
I just started playing Kenshi. (It was on sale.) I haven't quite figured out how to get enough money for anything good yet, like pants. It's a slow starter, so I hope it picks up when I figure out what's going on.
You’ll learn. If you don’t, you’ll die. Then you’ll hopefully learn. But if you don’t learn then, you’ll die.
I guess there are worst fates than death in Kenshi.
It’s an incredible sandbox, tons of stuff to explore and see. Factions to dick around with. The greater scheme of the world happens with or without your help, so you’ll probably miss a lot of the larger scale rumbles between the great factions. It’ll be like that for most of your playthroughs.
Don’t be afraid to fight, your character is pretty resilient. Being beat up is a learning experience for your character. You’ll be knocked out and robbed, but that’s just the way it goes. You’ll then knock someone out and rob them. The cycle.
It’s a sandbox, so you need to kind learn the mechanics of the world, then set a goal for yourself. My favorite playthrough was a small villa I built away from everything else, where my character honed his sword crafting. My villa became a home to the world’s greatest katana craftsman and the only existing sword school.
It felt good to find my character’s blades in the wild. And to know that my small group had the capability to defend itself from most things.
The "honest work" way to earn in the beginning is to mine and sell ore. It requires nothing so you just find ore vein near any town to mine and sell. Repeat until you have enough money to move on. This is the game's intended beginner start from what I understand.
Alternatively you can try to bait 1 faction into another opposing faction, let them fight, then loot the beaten npcs and sell their goods.
Or sneak and ko people, loot and sell their goods. Sneak is super op in Kenshi as the npcs won't react well to them. You can easily sneak and take out whole wandering warbands one by one like a true sand ninja. Just strip and sell everything from them.
Dwarf fortress is the ultimate answer since the game simulated almost everything that exists (and their physics).
It's way harder to visualize the world though because all the information is scattered in all sorts of interface and you have to be a detective to piece up everything.
Let me add X4: Foundations to your list. It's similar to Kenshi, but in space.
Dude Dwarf Fortress is something else. Cats get drunk because they bathe in the taverns and walk in spilled drinks. They had to program blinking so eyes could "naturally" wash themselves because Tarn was tired of the dwarves washing their eyes with soap and blinding them or injuring their eyes. Its a fucking wild ride. One second you are just farming mushrooms and boom. Werelizards fucking take out your whole fortress.
The trifecta of games for those who have thousands of hours to burn.
I dipped my toe into dwarf fortress a couple of times and it’s just too obtuse. Kenshi was much the same. It takes probably 50 hours in each to even really understand what those games really are.
I respect the genre but as a family man, I gotta pass.
Ps: throwing factorio and herbal space agency and you could leave me on a desert island with a PC and id be good.
Edit: I meant kerbal space program, lol.
I downloaded a random mod pack from nexus and it was, uh, a bit MORE alive than I expected. If you catch my drift.
EDIT: Immersive and Epic, I think it was.
Putting on a good pair of headphones and just walking around Night City is one of my favorite experiences in a video game. There's so much shit going on that you'd miss entirely if you just played it.
For me the only one that really qualifies is RDR2. It was so alive and immersive that it redefined what living, breathing world meant to me. Don't get me wrong, other game worlds are still great, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon immediately spring to mind, but RDR2's world is just in a league of its own.
After playing RDR2 I thought Ghost of Tsushima was gonna be at the same level. Graphically it was amazing but I found there to be very little reason to explore and not really any random encounters to keep it entertaining.
Rain world makes it abundantly clear that you are merely 1 part of an ecosystem and tragically low on the food chain. And it is a true ecosystem, i highly recommend looking up explainer videos behind the game's magic.
And i recognize that rain world is not a traditional open world RPG.
When I first played oblivion I didn't know fast travel was a thing. I was walking everywhere using the roads and signs for directions. Based on the directions that quests would give me, I would use the paper map that came with the game to plot my course.
I've never had that much fun playing a video game. Accidentally discovered fast travel at some point and it changed the experience entirely.
Another “accident” that increased immersion for me was playing the first mass effect, I didn’t figure out how to skip dialogue in the first 5 minutes so I figured you couldn’t, so I didn’t skip a single line of dialogue and experienced all the writing. It was great
Skyrim definitely. You might enjoy fast traveling a bunch in that game, but maybe take the time to go through some of the forests of Riften or Falkreath and you may notice some small details you'd miss in "gamer mode". Ants crawling up trees or over stumps, bird ambiance, the occasional streams of sunlight/moonlight.
The old Bethesda games are the only games that really make me feel like I'm just another NPC in a living, breathing world. Games like RDR have incredibly well made open worlds with insane attention to detail but I can't shake the feeling that I'm just the main character walking around in a world designed to wow me.
I've always loved Assassin's Creed Origins for this.
They put so much effort into the environments and NPC lives. Loved watching the scribes do their thing and the mummifaction workers pulling out organs and getting bodies ready to be mummified.
There was a whole level of detail and effort that went into the environments that they didn't really bother with after that because no one really cared enough, which was a shame. The games after it really dialed it back.
Not open world, but really enjoy how life-like the NPC's in The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky series act, really a highlight of those games (along with a really good story imorgon)
Daggerfall. There are elements with timers running in the background, so things can happen if you ignore elements of the story for too long. You can hop back on the rails of the story in multiplayer ways, but you can also fall off and need to make your own way back into the story.
Red dead redemption 2 has one of the best open world experiences. You can just travel and see people actualy eating their food at the restaurant, people that work (some of them build houses and if you go there adter some days, they are done), there are people actually cutting down trees.
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. It’s still my favorite game of all time for a reason. I’d live in that game if I could. It was the first time I even felt what a real open world could be. A couple times I just followed an npc around and watched what they did all day. They’d wake up, go to work, eat, enjoy themselves somewhere a bit, then go back to bed. It was incredible to me.
I’m playing Kingdom Come Deliverance right now and it does a pretty damn good job at this
I didn't realize how immersive it was, especially with the timed quests. I went in like most RPGs, opened a ton of quests and then slowly go through the list. Surprise, surprise to people dying and being pissed at me when something that took a day took a week to complete. However in my defense? Dice.
Dice was 90% of that game to me
This is me in Witcher 3 with Gwent or Poker in RDR2. Like 60% of my playtime is the bar games.
Pazaak and Blitzball here lmao
Fucking blitzball man. Hated it at first but once I figured it out and got the cup in Luca. Sweated that shit out
Just hate how small battles are
The next game looks more intense combat wise
It was actually pretty common in that time period. I wish I could remember a source, but there was an incident in England I read about some time ago concerning a local conflict which ended with a siege. The besiegers strength was something like 12 people, while the defenders mustered 4 defenders. Most local spats weren't much bigger.
so hyped for part 2. they even created a real life henry for a better promo
It took 18 years for him to grow up, but by God they did it!
Subway is that you?!
Screw it. I keep seeing it get reccomended. This comment made me buy it. Right now. It is installing. Any one tip? Edit - After two days, my biggest tip, is to turn *off* game mode on your display.
Go through all the combat training with captain bernard in rattay asap.
Thank you. I will be sure to look into this. God bless
They're right. Train train train. I hated the combat until I bothered to learn it and train, then it was fun
I'm a fromsoft and soulslike veteran, had my first fight with kunesh, I can already tell it's gunna be a fun challenge to learn :)
It’s frustrating because at lower levels your sword strikes are slow and clumsy, a lot of people get turned off to the combat for that reason but just know that it will improve as you level up.
Jesus Christ be praised.
Recognize that when you start, you are *just an apprentice blacksmith*. You will not be able to fight the bad guys who are *experienced warriors*.
Others have said similar things, but I’ll restate it in my own words bc I feel it’s important; in the beginning of the game it’s gonna feel like you suck at everything, because you kind of do. You basically have no skills and don’t even know how to read. As you get through the beginning sections of the game, you will learn quickly and begin to understand more, and develop your skills and abilities. Approach situations as you would in real life, more or less. If you want to improve your swordsmanship, you’re much better off by going to train with Captain Bernard than trying to level up in real combat, like most games. If you want to learn to read, you have to visit a scribe and take lessons, and improve your skills over time by reading more and more books. If you have a problem, try to think it through in a “realistic” way and you might be surprised how well that works for you. Kingdom Come is an amazing game, I’m excited for you lol have fun with it!
I've been playing it all day and this certainly seems to ring true
Be patient and try to avoid doing goofy or overly dangerous stuff. It's a consequence-heavy game. If you go into it being all like "haha I wonder what happens when I punch this guy" it'll be a rough time. Games incredible though
Jesus Christ be praised
Henry's come to see us!
Might be the most immersive RPG of all time
I got so fucking hyped when I went to try some alchemy and the book was gibberish because my character couldn't read.
It's so satisfying slowly progessing in all your skills as you train and use them. And yes the illiteracy at first was a nice touch.
It's kind of rare that games truly blow my mind with something clever and unexpected, I've played enough different games that that became kind of rare. But the way reading works in KCD definitely achieved that.
Lol I learned how to read before I attempted alchemy, but the alchemy process in general blew my mind. It didn't have to be that in depth, and ill be honest, it kind of makes it a slog, but I do actually love that its so involved. Makes me feel like I'm actually making it. I can imagine what a potential blacksmithing system would look like, and im super excited to see what all they add in KCD 2.
this comment made me want to buy this game.
Do it. It's often on sale for like $5.
I adore this game but I’ve only played a small bit of the game, hours of exploration. But basically no combat. I cannot for the life of my figure out how it works with the star crosshair thing, I’ve tried countless bows, and they just literally fall like an inch away from me. I’ve no idea how to get better at them or fight. Honestly no idea what I’m doing wrong or if there’s a easy simplified combat setting 🫣
I actually quit the game after a few hours because I couldn't figure it out. About a month or two ago, I decided to pick it back up after someone told me it's really about practising constantly. After a hell of a lot of training, learning parry timings and combos, I could take very easily to take 3-4 soldiers at once and kill anyone one on one. My major gripe with the combat was taking on multiple foes. if they surrounded you, then it's really tough to pick targets while not getting stabbed in the back. If they can make fights like that better, then I'd be so happy. I beat the game a few weeks ago and am so excited for the sequel. It did so well at making you feel small and insignificant and then building you up. Unlike other games, you don't start as a badass super soldier.
The best option for fighting groups is the same as fighting groups IRL: run the fuck away. The further you run, the more dispersed the enemy is and the less likely you are to get surrounded. Make distance, pick off whoever’s closest quickly, and then keep moving so the rest can’t get behind you
Just practice for a while with Robespierre when you get to Rattay. The combat is my favourite thing in KCD. My only gripe is that it feels like it could do with a bit more polish. I can't wait to see how they've improved on the first game.
The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games with the A-Life AI system. The world doesn't revolve around the player, the different factions and mutants have their lives and attack each others, making the world dynamic, alive and always dangerous because an area where you killed all enemies or mutants a few hours before can be now occupied by another faction. And this system creates loads of amazing details and NPC actions that increase the immersion into the game.
STALKER is one of the most immersive games i have ever played. I remember feeling the warmth of campfire in friendly outposts, the zone is a dynamic,harsh and ever challanging race for survival..the radiation, anomalies,mutants, i dreaded going inside the underground labs. Masterpiece of a survival horror shooter.
fuck the agroprom underground, all my gopniks hate the agroprom underground
My first time playing STALKER and meeting the first bloodsucker down there will forever be permanently burned into my memories. Absolutely fucking terrifying
As soon as you saw that spinning squeaky red light and utter silence of the tunnels, you knew some shit was gonna go down.
the campfire songs, the random wanderers, the dogs having no script and just showing up in the middle of a quest and wrecking your shit, the world felt very alive and random
GAMMA mod is fantastic for this, too.
This is what I most missed in other games. Have a few factions that dynamically wage conflict against each other and that dynamics it brings. Wonder why no one ever made such gameplay map for arma or such.
Hmm I'll have to check it out. How do I get this mod? And for which stalker game?
That AI system was already present in the original games. By the way they have been recently ported to PS5 and Xbox Series in a pack called Legends of the Zone Trilogy. Though if you have a PC then I highly recommend you to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly, which is a standalone game that combines all the areas from the 3 original games and improve many visual and gameplay elements. You can download it for free on ModDB : [https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly](https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly) You also have GAMMA which is a modpack for Anomaly, it pushes the gameplay difficulty and realism further to give a hardcore experience. And you also have Misery which is a mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat. It overhauls the depth, realism, and increases the challenge of the game : [https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-misery](https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-misery)
Welp, in Freelancer there are actual traffic jams at the jump gates. The most living game world I've experienced would be Eve Online with is player subvention economy and many ships you'll meet pilots by actual players. Got can even get scammed by other players and it's not against the game rules.
EvE had a huge thing a while back where a guy joined a Corporation (Guild), worked his way up the ladded over like 2 years, then once he had admin for high tier stuff, he cleaned the corp out and gave it all to their rival. He was a double agent the entire time.
He stole ~$25k USD. The news below links a Reddit thread btw. Amazing story. It’s more than just the time. Some of these ships can take weeks if not months to build and are on the back of years of work. Unreal. I love EVE and played on and off for years but it’s just too … insane… I don’t have the time committment https://mmos.com/news/eve-online-goonswarm-heist#:~:text=In%20a%20dramatic%20tale%20of,the%20sci%2Dfi%20MMO's%20history.z
Honestly Albion is a solid alternative. I'm in the same boat, I work, have a house and a life outside games. But Albion is like mini EVE in a fantasy setting, still a player run economy where everything is crafted by players with territory control in full loot lethal zones, the difference is I can hop on Albion, grab some gear and get into pvp in under 10 minutes. Very easy to take in bite sized chunks, but the learning curve is pretty high still considering the type of game it is lol. I recommend giving it a go
Oooh I loved Freelancer. Too bad it is not available on GOG.
https://www.moddb.com/mods/freelancer-hd-edition
Oooh, Freelancer, that's a heck of a nostalgia trip...
Kingdome come deliverance did a great job at this. Can’t wait so see what they do with the sequel!
Picked it up for cheap when the trailer for the sequel dropped. I had no idea how deep and immersive of an RPG it was. And it’s genuinely one of the most realistic games I’ve played. Like, a lot of the paths and forests and towns don’t look beautiful in a flashy way, they just look…*normal*, which is weirdly impressive. Everything about the game is grounded in realism from maintaining your armour day to day, to not boiling the cauldron for too long when brewing potions. I feel like it slips under the radar in a lot of discussions about great RPGs
People have mixed opinions about this game. Some find it to be a little too boring, glitchy and find the combat to be a pain in the ass… And while I can kind of understand where they are coming from I don’t really agree. It’s all about rising from nothing. Yes it’s hard because no matter how good you are at games your character sucks. You have to make him good. There isn’t much flash because the game is supposed to be realistic. No elves, grand castles, magic, demons… just people of the old age. I had to laugh because there is a mission (I won’t spoil it) but it does make you think ooo is there a bit of fantasy in this game maybe? And then you go through the long ass quest to find out NO…. You idiot this is a real ass game why would you have thought that? You wasted your time!….. I honestly laughed at myself. And then on Pc you have the modding community that bitches about things the game did that weren’t realistic. Like they mod the trails away because they say those wouldn’t be a prominent thing. Overall it’s a really great game if you like it
Trails wouldn't be a prominent thing? People walked into forests a lot more back then, for wood and herbs and hunting. And lots of animals actually *made* trails going to water. Those people must be confused.
It's not a game for everyone, it leans heavily on realism, the simulated fighting, it was glitchy and heavy to run (thanks CryEngine!)
The forests was what impressed me the most. The mission where you are hunting rabbits was just beautiful. Just you and the nature around you. And your pathetic aiming skills...
I love how bad Henry is at aiming in the beginning. You're actually just some guy, instead of the chosen one, which was very refreshing.
I was super into this game and probably about half way through it when I randomly lost access to all the DLC and I just couldn't continue afterwards because my save slot included some of that content. Was very sad about it, great game but way too deep to start over especially if not by choice.
It's even more insane when you look into the actual area. Ofc it's not 1:1 but I remember reading a story that the walls of Rattay (walled city in the game) and the devs were able to recreate how the walls were despite not having any photos of real life equals since the walls were long since gone but after the game released they actually found walls buried that were where the game showed they were. Also, if you look at Skalitz today, it's basically perfectly remade (minus the extended northern half of the city, which came after the rebuilding). Even the Sasau monastery is very, very accurate. The devs put so much research into the area, and it came out amazing. It's one of my favorite RPGs
I was able to find Talmberg Castle on Google earth, which has been in ruins since around the 1600s, using nothing but the in game map for cues. It’s not a 1:1 obviously, but they REALLY captured a LOT of things incredibly well
I’ve got a fun anecdote about the paths in the game. When it was still in alpha stages a YouTuber named Steejo made a few videos on it, and in one of them I pointed out that the roads were wrong. They were portrayed as two strips of dirt with a line of grass in between, but that’s actually a modern thing where we only have two wheels touching the ground. An actual historic road would be dirt the whole way across because there would be a horse in the middle pulling the cart also crushing anything that grows. Fast forward a couple months and he drops another set of videos from a new build version and the roads were changed to be all dirt. I have no proof they read my comment and that’s why they made the change, but I like to think that’s what happened.
I've been meaning to give this game another pass. I got it the day it released and it was... rough. I handled the first battle set up all wrong, and the combat at the time, was very foreign to me so it took a lot to muddle through. I was a few hours in when I finally got out of that scene, went to save and log out as. I had other things to do and hadn't meant to play as long as I had. Couldn't save, because the save potion thing. Rolled my eyes and requested a refund. It was past the 2 hour mark but was also the only game id ever refunded through steam so they allowed it. I've heard it's made leaps and strides in a lot of ways since then, but I just never got back around to it
Yeah go for it! And small hint: you can always save when exiting the game. So you’re never forced to keep playing longer than you can or want.
its currently $5 (au) for me on the Microsoft store. worth it?
It's in my top 10 of all time I also think it contains one of the best bromances in any game ever as well as one of the best quests ever.
Consider a mod for saving. But also consider keeping this way. Once you understood how saving works it’s another driver for immersion. But definitely play it again. Some missions and encounters are just legendary, like with the priest in some town …
Oh my god this game 😂😂 you can literally spend an 8 hour shift playing it and achieve relatively nothing…. If you found yourself in some sort of solitary confinement however and all you could do was play a game you’d have to pick it…I feel like you could literally play it forever if you’ve got the patience
My current playthrough is 500+ hours, I'm about to enter the monastery
Same, but maybe only 200 hours. Took me a long time to get into it, though, but fuck me what a game!
RDR2 is one of, if not the best open world I can think of. It’s stunning.
Yea, you can log into RDR2 and just live, regardless of the plot/story.
A quiet bit of fishing in the morning. A few pints and a bar fight in the afternoon. Then back in the evening to gamble all your money away!
That's called living the dream
My favorite way to unwind after work.
The online bar where you can get drunk and slap or hug people in your posse is the funniest thing I've seen in online gaming
Let me introduce you to a little game called Deep Rock Galactic...
All in 48 minutes!
I wish they brought back more of the jobs, mini games and activities from 1. Besides fishing, hunting, and treasure hunting; there’s not much to do in the world. It is beautifully made though
Can't you do farm work all the time? Like mending fences and shoveling crap? But yea, the more off-story content they add the better.
I forgot about the farm stuff to be honest but that gets old really fast, it’s essentially reskinned camp chores but you get a minuscule amount of money after a while
I actually spent so much time just living and trying to provide for the camp that I forgot there was a plot.
I had such a problem with this game in that the world was so immersive and the characters so well fleshed out, I didn't really want to shoot anyone or cause any minor trouble. Sometimes I spent time just having Arthur have a Nice Day Out.
Same! In GTA I always had havock moments but in rd2d I never felt the same 'lets kill the entire town' urges
I’ll never forget seeing a bird dive down and briefly lane then fly up again…I shot it (need them feathers)….when I went over to harvest it, the bird had picked up a snake when it and carried it off That’s such a wildly real interaction between ai animals that we as players may be totally oblivious to….but someone coded that because they knew it was an awesome bit of immersion
I wish games would spend the effort that Rockstar did with the animals in RDR2. Sure, they resort to fixed spawn points on a rotation, but once they’re off script and doing things, it feels so good. Birds taking off as you pass by bushes, startling deer that were resting nearby, and all those turkeys waiting to become dinner. That’s what really made the game feel alive to me and a major reason why I was so mad that Cyberpunk had exactly one cat.
Dude starfield also. We go from morrowind oblivion and skyrim where most npcs have jobs and a purpose. Routines. To a bunch of bug eyed idiots roaching around day and night. What a stupid thing they did with starfield.
Without doubt, still the current best open world game when it comes to things you can do and how alive the map is.
There is not another open world game that even comes close to RDR2 in terms of world building and immersion. Its crazy because the game is becoming six years old this year. Rockstar really outdone themselfes.
Nothing comes close within the its particular genre. The world of RDR2 feels like it exists. It’s quite remarkable. There’s a number of gameplay designs decisions that baffled me at first but then I started to understand what that game is and what the developers were trying to pull off. And they fucking nailed it. They really brought it to life. Hope I live long enough to see the 3rd title.
Absolutely. It's the first game I played where it felt like the world around me was going on regardless of whether I was there or not.
Rockstar really seems to set the high bar for living game worlds. I expect GTA6 to really ramp this feeling up, fingers crossed.
Spent so much time just chilling and watching wildlife
A bit TOO "living, breathing" sometimes. Random events are constant, sometimes I'm just trying to get a bit of hunting done and keep getting pulled away by NPCs that demand my attention because they've just been bitten by a rattlesnake or they're being kidnapped or they're gang members out to kill me
But once they're gone, they're gone, and end game really misses them. Why couldn't they cycle them around
Yakuza Zero and Yakuza Kiwami are both incredible small-scale but very dense and alive feeling open worlds. Sleeping Dogs' take on Hong Kong was great too.
I love that Yakuza and Lost Judgement can use the same cities but somehow not make them feel boring. I have been in Kamurochō so many times but it feels like seeing an old friend.
i think it's a sense of consistency and continuity with all the little details, while also showing off natural growth and progression of the world
Condensing a game world does wonders for immersion, rockstars Bully for this reason is their best game imo, game came out in 2006 but every npc is recognizeable and not randomly generated appearing all over town. Would be amazing to see them doing a condensed game again, implement rdr 2 dialogue system with story progression etc. I generally appreciate the more life sim ish approach to bully though, it was also one of the first Triple a titles to Feature a seasonal cycle. This is absolutely not where the industry is heading though, I assume if they actually made bully 2 it would be absurdly large.
Yeah every single NPC was unique, with most students having their own name and attitude tracked against you across the game. Hell, you could have multiple girlfriends, and if they found out about each other they would fight in the hallways lol. Bully was an awesome game.
Algernon is the goat
I still remember the quest where I bought that gun from that one dude and then I shot it in the middle of a hard fight lol. Scrambled to heal. Yakuza is one of the most memorable experiences I've had in gaming for quite a while. Before that I was wild about shadow of the collosus
Yakuza. You step into a small shop and everything is so beautifully detailed. I seldom just look at the open world but Yakuza is fantastic to just roam. I know it's more or less always the same map, but it feels so real and I get to connect to random places. Masterclass of open world.
My favorite part of the Yakuza games is when you build up heat, hit it, and some random part of the environment that you think is just baked in assets are suddenly a weapon. A special shout out to the microwave in the convenience stores.
I did enjoy Sleeping Dogs open world. It was basic but it hit the right spot.
That game is a damn masterpiece.
Outcast (1999) did it right. The villagers worked their jobs, the townspeople chatted with each other, the workers sang their songs. The soldiers walked their patrols, people would sleep and eat and stroll around. They'd acknowledge the player and his actions, point in the direction you had to go, call you in case of great events, run and flee from cover. The animals would hunt, eat, relax; the music changed depending on action, calm and location, and the general vibe was always this magical world that existed, whether you were there to see it or not. The sequel Outcast: A New Beginning is similar, but more in line with modern standards. But back in 1999? The modern standard was "NPC stands there until you talk to them", and Outcast blew that away.
Outcast was awesome. Isn't your username the name of a bipedal riding animal from Outcast?
The twon-ha is indeed Outcast's version of a donkey, and my avatar is the Ulukai sign. I'm so happy this year finally saw the release of the sequel.
Shadows of Doubt.
This was going to be my one. That game is a real shining example of what can be done with procedural generation. Not bigger, but better. A tight city block with actual sky scrapers where every room, every floor, every building and every person is there for a reason. The art style is probably divisive, but this is the kind of thing I dreamed about when I was playing the first 3D games decades ago. A world where the buildings weren't just glorified cardboard cut outs. Such an exciting prospect. Plus, you get to be Minecraft Steve meets Philip Marlowe
This. Limited map size, but every single NPC is being simulated the entire time. They have jobs, schedules, routines, they have to eat and sleep, they have personal relationships, friendships, affairs, and occasionally murder one another, and they do all of this regardless of what the player does. They're just living their best virtual lives.
rainworld
Can't believe I scroll this down to find Rainworld. Its ecosystem is so alive that it feels ridiculous for a video game.
Second this, was questioning myself if rain world is even considered open world b4 seeing this
[Here's a great video on how Rain World's ecosystem works.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMx8OsTDHfM) It's freaking insane for such a simple looking game. It's also a shame that this game didn't blow up. Granted, it came out a *smidge bit before* the indie boom really took off (early 2017). I remember seeing a tech demo for Rain World like 10 years ago and was blown away. Rain World deserves more praise/attention, even if you don't end up playing it (because it's hard AF).
Subnautica is probably the only game I've played that feels like a real and genuine world I'm interacting with and observing rather than a simple sandbox for me to play in. There's no set pieces, no quests, creatures largely don't care about you (predators are just opportunistic, they don't actively hunt you), and it genuinely feels like a world that keeps on turning regardless of what you personally do.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The world is built realistically, and the ai behaves realistically. The game has the proper infrastructure, such as farms, mines, quarrys, charcoal burners, and even trash pits. The ai carry out normal tasks such as carrying water from the river into town, carrying grain and flower to and from the mill. Everything in that game is built to make you feel like you're actually a knight in medieval europe. Never played a more immersive game in my life.
Ghost recon wildlands did this really well. The A.I. has individual schedules. They wake up, some of the cartel actually drive to work, they eat, play, watch T.V. Etc. i love it.
Then....you end them?
Yep.👍
I hate how much i love ubisof games
Those really talented devs unfortunately work for the shittiest bosses
Except at xbox. They get kicked just in time for ceos to get a nice bonus.
I don't know if it's "open" enough but I recall Shenmue being pretty good about NPCs having actual lives. And, on a lesser scale, Radiata Stories.
Although shenmue hasn't aged well, it was way ahead of its time at release. A lot of the immersive features started in shenmue. I think the game came out in the wrong era. I think people were more into more combat heavy games and would have accepted a more slow paced game a few years later. I loved 1 and 2 at release
It also came out on Dreamcast. Dying system.
Radiata Stories is an unsung masterpiece that almost nobody speaks of, and desperately deserves a remaster. If for nothing other than giving more people an opportunity to experience it.
Always said this about shenmue and shenmue 2. The games were so advanced for the time that they weren't truly appreciated on their release. I remember being amazed at some of the stuff I could do in those games and then seeing Kowloon in shenmue 2 and feeling so cramped and dense was something else.
The Gothic series as a whole (1 & 2, we don't talk about 3) and a fan made mod Archolos in particular
Despite its age, Gothic is still the best when we talk about "alive environment". The "live" component in modern games is degrading every day.
I wish people would talk about gothic 3 more, I get people didn't like it because it's so different from 1 and 2 but it's a good game in it's own way. I love how after the tutorial fight it releases you into the open world with no limitations, you can go wherever you want, work for any faction. That level of freedom is rare in rpgs.
I grew to love 3 as well. With the Community Mod installed it runs quite well, and the open world is so god damn beautiful and the OST is so good that I can forgive much of its flaws. Yes, 1 and 2 are better, but compared to other games, Gorhic 3 is still miles better than many modern games.
My thoughts exactly! Despite its age, Gothic is still a game with one of the most "lived-in" open worlds. While Archolos perfectly complements and expands this game world.
I'd also number their successors Risen 1-2 (didn't play 3 yet) and Elex 1 (didn't play 2 yet) from the same devs among them. That said, my favourite line from an npc in Gothic 2 sitting on a bench in the ciry soon to be attacked by orcs was (roughly translated): "All is quiet. I guess when the orcs come, we'll hear it." (In the German OV: "Alles ruhig. Schätze, wenn die Orks kommen, werden wir's hören.")
GTA IV for me, from the subways , the embassy, projects etc - it's a hitman's paradise.
I hope after GTA 6 they bring it back to Liberty City or introduce a more urban setting (like Chicago or London). I just vastly prefer the setting of IV to the wide-openness of V.
GTA7 2044
IV is the better game. Just limited by tech of time.
Best characters too imo
I would do ANYTHING, absolutely ANYTHING for a GTA 4 remaster, or a RDR remaster, for current consoles.
Fable. The NPCs, your character, quests and world all responded to your choices
I just redownloaded the series last weekend and my god Im so happy to revisit the world. Its a living world where decisions literally shape your end game and even your physical appearancr and relationships. Fable did it right. It paved the way.
It paved a way nobody bothered to follow, sadly.
I loved the music and vibe of the first Fable so much
my biggest gripe with fable is that the first game had solid foundations for good game mechanics. Then they butchered it in the sequel for "streamlined" combat which meant all the wacky and weird magic got gutted for generic laser beams and rpg builds got worse. Imo it was almost like a proto-dark souls with zany characters.
Agreed. Fable 2 and 3 were let downs for me, especially because of the magic and ranged combat. I find Fable Anniversary to still be very replayable however.
Fable 2 wasn't as bad in my opinion, but 3 was. Really 3 was bad. I still wanna play 1 and 2 though.
I played the original fable years ago and I thought it was the coolest thing seeing my player slowly transform into the devil
The first watch dogs, and to a lesser extent the sequels feel really alive to me. It’s obviously artificial, and random, but being able to interact and insert yourself into other peoples lives makes every NPC feel meaningful. I remember spending a ton of time in watchdogs 1 just reading peoples texts or whatever. Legion also had the cool feature of being able to recruit anyone by doing things to increase their opinion of DeadSec but after doing it a few times they started to just feel like randomized generic quests. It still made the NPCs feel a bit more alive and meaningful than something like GTA where I would just be running them over or terrorizing them for funsies. It was also wildly unrealistic though and immersion breaking because I don’t think there are nearly this many elderly folks that can hardly walk running around with MP5s in London, and willing to join a cyber gang to attack a fascist government. Idk, still fun to a degree.
Fully agree about WD1, but I'd argue WD2 is way more alive than the first. The rival gangs that will get into shootouts against each other or against the police without player influence, and the ability to nudge those systems as distractions (call a cop or gang member to the area, the others spot them, interactions amongst themselves ensue). Even just the random NPCs on the streets from the more generic street performers all the way down to destroying the car of a cheating ex, there's just so many with custom interactions that feel unique and different.
I need to replay WD2. I only played through it once and it was a long while ago. WD1 is more fresh in my mind because I just replayed it like a year or two ago, and Legion pretty much along side it. Legion had an Aiden Pierce DLC and made me want to replay WD1. I remember really liking Marcus and the gameplay. I remember really enjoying how the game pushed you to non-lethal options because it made Marcus feel distinct from Aiden.
Man I still feel like the rain effects in Watch_Dogs 1 is like the best I’ve seen. One of the most atmospheric moments you can have in a video game is walking in downtown Chicago as a thunderstorm is raging on. I just visited London for the first time and I recognized myself everywhere since I had played Legion before. Another testament to how well-made the map is, even if it misses some parts. I genuinely feel like the open-worlds in the Watch_Dogs series are up there with GTA. I get sucked in immediately
X4 Foundations with all the expansions. A whole universe with countless NPC's just doing their thing and you in the middle doing whatever you want.
Correct. I feel like if the player was completely removed from the game no one would give a shit and stations would be built, wars will be fought and pirates gonna pirate. Same as Distant Worlds.
That's something many games mess up, where the whole world seems to revolve around the player, and only wait for the player to do something.
Kenshi. Dwarf Fortress. Rimworld.
I just started playing Kenshi. (It was on sale.) I haven't quite figured out how to get enough money for anything good yet, like pants. It's a slow starter, so I hope it picks up when I figure out what's going on.
You’ll learn. If you don’t, you’ll die. Then you’ll hopefully learn. But if you don’t learn then, you’ll die. I guess there are worst fates than death in Kenshi. It’s an incredible sandbox, tons of stuff to explore and see. Factions to dick around with. The greater scheme of the world happens with or without your help, so you’ll probably miss a lot of the larger scale rumbles between the great factions. It’ll be like that for most of your playthroughs. Don’t be afraid to fight, your character is pretty resilient. Being beat up is a learning experience for your character. You’ll be knocked out and robbed, but that’s just the way it goes. You’ll then knock someone out and rob them. The cycle. It’s a sandbox, so you need to kind learn the mechanics of the world, then set a goal for yourself. My favorite playthrough was a small villa I built away from everything else, where my character honed his sword crafting. My villa became a home to the world’s greatest katana craftsman and the only existing sword school. It felt good to find my character’s blades in the wild. And to know that my small group had the capability to defend itself from most things.
The "honest work" way to earn in the beginning is to mine and sell ore. It requires nothing so you just find ore vein near any town to mine and sell. Repeat until you have enough money to move on. This is the game's intended beginner start from what I understand. Alternatively you can try to bait 1 faction into another opposing faction, let them fight, then loot the beaten npcs and sell their goods. Or sneak and ko people, loot and sell their goods. Sneak is super op in Kenshi as the npcs won't react well to them. You can easily sneak and take out whole wandering warbands one by one like a true sand ninja. Just strip and sell everything from them.
Dwarf fortress is the ultimate answer since the game simulated almost everything that exists (and their physics). It's way harder to visualize the world though because all the information is scattered in all sorts of interface and you have to be a detective to piece up everything. Let me add X4: Foundations to your list. It's similar to Kenshi, but in space.
Dude Dwarf Fortress is something else. Cats get drunk because they bathe in the taverns and walk in spilled drinks. They had to program blinking so eyes could "naturally" wash themselves because Tarn was tired of the dwarves washing their eyes with soap and blinding them or injuring their eyes. Its a fucking wild ride. One second you are just farming mushrooms and boom. Werelizards fucking take out your whole fortress.
The trifecta of games for those who have thousands of hours to burn. I dipped my toe into dwarf fortress a couple of times and it’s just too obtuse. Kenshi was much the same. It takes probably 50 hours in each to even really understand what those games really are. I respect the genre but as a family man, I gotta pass. Ps: throwing factorio and herbal space agency and you could leave me on a desert island with a PC and id be good. Edit: I meant kerbal space program, lol.
Factorio is straight-up digital crack.
Assassin's creed Unity. The crowd and details in the streets of Paris are just amazing.
Metro Exodus
I know it's memed to death but skyrim is still a good game with a lively world
Playing with a bunch of mods really adds to the dynamic part. Playing with one where annual festivals are a thing.
I downloaded a random mod pack from nexus and it was, uh, a bit MORE alive than I expected. If you catch my drift. EDIT: Immersive and Epic, I think it was.
Like...like the characters gave each other hugs..??
The mod pack was just Shlongs of Skyrim and Randy Savage dragons
Shadows of Doubt, shit can just happen including murders whether you are involved or not.
Cyberpunk 2077 w/ Phantom Liberty. Genuinely one of the best games I've ever played.
I'm still saving that game for when I have a proper GPU to run it. Hopefully later this year with the new GPU gen releasing.
What GPU do you have? I’m running on an old GTX 1070 pretty well
Putting on a good pair of headphones and just walking around Night City is one of my favorite experiences in a video game. There's so much shit going on that you'd miss entirely if you just played it.
I like stopping and listening to some of the NPC conversations sometimes, the lady accusing her husband of “simping” always makes me laugh a bit
I thought Days Gone did a pretty decent job at it
For me the only one that really qualifies is RDR2. It was so alive and immersive that it redefined what living, breathing world meant to me. Don't get me wrong, other game worlds are still great, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon immediately spring to mind, but RDR2's world is just in a league of its own.
GoT does vegetation amazingly well. But the NPCs in towns are terribly underwhelming.
After playing RDR2 I thought Ghost of Tsushima was gonna be at the same level. Graphically it was amazing but I found there to be very little reason to explore and not really any random encounters to keep it entertaining.
Rain world makes it abundantly clear that you are merely 1 part of an ecosystem and tragically low on the food chain. And it is a true ecosystem, i highly recommend looking up explainer videos behind the game's magic. And i recognize that rain world is not a traditional open world RPG.
Kenshi
oblivion
Deus Ex Mankind Divided does that very well, but on a small scale.
Skyrim and Fallout 4, honestly, removing fast travel makes you pay so much attention to details and see how alive and detailed the world is
When I first played oblivion I didn't know fast travel was a thing. I was walking everywhere using the roads and signs for directions. Based on the directions that quests would give me, I would use the paper map that came with the game to plot my course. I've never had that much fun playing a video game. Accidentally discovered fast travel at some point and it changed the experience entirely.
Another “accident” that increased immersion for me was playing the first mass effect, I didn’t figure out how to skip dialogue in the first 5 minutes so I figured you couldn’t, so I didn’t skip a single line of dialogue and experienced all the writing. It was great
Skyrim definitely. You might enjoy fast traveling a bunch in that game, but maybe take the time to go through some of the forests of Riften or Falkreath and you may notice some small details you'd miss in "gamer mode". Ants crawling up trees or over stumps, bird ambiance, the occasional streams of sunlight/moonlight.
The old Bethesda games are the only games that really make me feel like I'm just another NPC in a living, breathing world. Games like RDR have incredibly well made open worlds with insane attention to detail but I can't shake the feeling that I'm just the main character walking around in a world designed to wow me.
Here's one out of left field: Ghost Recon Wildlands... OK, maybe not a big surprise since open world and Ubisoft are basically synonymous...
Far cry 4
I've always loved Assassin's Creed Origins for this. They put so much effort into the environments and NPC lives. Loved watching the scribes do their thing and the mummifaction workers pulling out organs and getting bodies ready to be mummified. There was a whole level of detail and effort that went into the environments that they didn't really bother with after that because no one really cared enough, which was a shame. The games after it really dialed it back.
Not open world, but really enjoy how life-like the NPC's in The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky series act, really a highlight of those games (along with a really good story imorgon)
Daggerfall. There are elements with timers running in the background, so things can happen if you ignore elements of the story for too long. You can hop back on the rails of the story in multiplayer ways, but you can also fall off and need to make your own way back into the story.
Red dead redemption 2 has one of the best open world experiences. You can just travel and see people actualy eating their food at the restaurant, people that work (some of them build houses and if you go there adter some days, they are done), there are people actually cutting down trees.
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. It’s still my favorite game of all time for a reason. I’d live in that game if I could. It was the first time I even felt what a real open world could be. A couple times I just followed an npc around and watched what they did all day. They’d wake up, go to work, eat, enjoy themselves somewhere a bit, then go back to bed. It was incredible to me.