Ask Lemmy

Civ II

SOMA. Downright existential horror in all the right ways.

DayZ. No game makes you value your characters life as much as this game. Every adventure is different.

Space station 13

Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Felt like I was fighting for my actual life in that game.

Dwarf Fortress, followed by Doki Doki Literature Club

Stray

For single player fantasy, Outward is my favorite game to get immersed in. It has a bit of a steep learning curve, but the survival mechanics and lack of a leveling system really aid in the feeling that you're getting better at playing the game as your gear gets better. The combat encourages patience and preparation rather than jumping into the fray and swinging wildly. And the magic system, good lord. There are several vague categories, but the best way to describe it would be 'ritualistic.' There are spells with fairly benign effects on their own that, when used in conjunction with other spells or effects, produce deviating or beneficial results. And the NG+ mechanics are fair and balanced while offering a boost to follow-on playthroughs.

The most significant barrier to entry is the learning curve, mostly learning about combat, patience, and the stability system. But it's my personal favorite.

Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition

looks nice and i feel like I'm actually there

Prey.

They really put the immersive and sim in immersive sim. So much player agency over the world and everything you do in it just makes sense. The computers you use are physically interactable, no UI as dressing. Your menus are just you accessing your handheld smart device (inventory, logs, map).

Every object on the map is persistent. You want to fortify your office to fend off Typhon on your return? Gather the turrets around the map and have them guard the staircase leading to your little paradise. Want to decorate it? Drop items from your inventory and drag them around. Have some trophies of your accomplishments.

I could go on and on about other mechanics like the fantastic gloo gun or how the maps are filled with little secrets/shortcuts, but then I'd be here all day.

Control. Not the entire game but one very specific sequence with a hard rock tune stitched throughout. If you know, you know.

Red Dead Redemption 2, by far.

Honorable mention to Elite: Dangerous while playing with a HOTAS

Mostly anything I play in VR. I have a basic sim rig I use for Euro Truck 2 and American Truck Simulators, and some DiRT Rally 2 ever so often. Outside of upgrading to a rig with hydraulics and a buttkicker, it's pretty immersive. For non-vehicular VR, I'm running around in Skyrim with a hefty modlist (1100 mods), and just the baseline mods like HIGGS, PLANCK, and the Community Shaders set of mods adds a huge amount of immersion with the ability to directly interact in the world.

Flat screen gaming, otoh, I would say Project Zomboid. Despite its simple appearance, the amount of mods available really amp up "realism", in that you can add so much living to the world. The lifestyle mod alone adds a bunch of Sims-like layers to the gameplay.

Oblivion.

The Long Dark with headphones in a dark room. Really makes you feel cold.

Elite Dangerous as well. My ship auto-docking while I look at my side screens and hear various radio chatter is awesome.

Factorio. Really makes me feel like time doesn't exist

I'm a big fan of open world for immersion. Oblivion when it came out, GTA SA and 5, RDR2.

But something that surprised me about immersion was Cataclysm DDA (with good tile and sound packs). It takes a long time to get into the groove of the game as a first timer, but once you do, the emergent stories that come out of it are incredibly immersive.

Hard to beat Alyx, but there was a time when it felt like Elite Dangerous mining was my real job and irl work felt like the side hustle

kingdom come deliverance

The Mass Effect Trilogy. Just can't stop playing that game haha

Football Manager. I'm a simple man. I don't like starting off as a top team, it's always more fun for me to download one of the extended databases and take an amateur Sunday League team to the highest heights. I've been managing my current side, Wakefield AFC, for almost 20 years. I've led them up the ladder from the Northern Counties East League Division One to the Championship.

I remember the first time we averaged more than 100 fans in attendance per season. I remember the first player we sold for cash (veteran midfielder Jack Sang, for a whopping $2,400) instead of letting go on a free. I remember our first ever televised match in 2030 during our Cinderella run in the FA Cup. It was a respectable 2-1 loss to a team 3 divisions above us, but the $250k share of the gate receipts saved us from bankruptcy. I can picture the statue they'll build someday of Seb Bolton, who scored 116 goals in 223 appearances between 2026-2032 and led us to back-to-back promotions. I'm currently trying to shepherd the development of youth player Tony Okonkwo, a 6'5" center forward who very well could become our first homegrown million dollar man.

I know there are much more immersive games, but the most immersive I've played is The Witcher 3, I don't play many realistic games. Stardew Valley and Minecraft for the win.

VR is going to win this for me multiple times over. Half Life: Alyx; Resident Evils 7, 8, and 4; Pavlov; The Exorcist: Legion, A Chair in a Room: Greenwater; Batman: Arkham VR; the list goes on.