How can you tell which games are immersive simulators and which aren’t? RPGs like The Elder Scrolls or The Legend of Zelda give players plenty of freedom, but no one usually calls them “immersive sims.”
I understand that immersive sim isn’t so much a genre as a genre characteristic, but where exactly is the line drawn? As a fan of Arkane games, I’ve always wondered about this.
My personal line in the sand is, “do I feel like the developers wanted me to use the solution that I used?”
In my opinion, developers can design multiple solutions to a problem and it still may not count as an immersive sim. Because the key characteristic of an immersive sim is that there must be sufficiently complex interacting systems and mechanics that you can come up with your own solutions, independent of what the developers intended