The "Comeback" of the Immersive Sim

i had the same thoughts
it's pretty much dead, ss3 is probably the last game in the genre we'll get for a long while

i'm still hoping ken levins next game will be singleplayer focused and also 2k marin might work on a new bioshock but who knows if those games will even be in that genre

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What about the "dream game" being made by Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain?

Square Enix just greenlit THI5F

>>376658740
>Prey flopped even worse
Did it? That's a shame because it's pretty damn good.

>>376659375
Bethesda forgot to send out review copies so no one knew if the game was good or not.

The fuck did they expect.

At least PewDiePie got a copy, I'm sure that helped get sales.

Only Mankind Divided actually flopped out of those. Dishonored 2 did not do great, but it did not do too badly, probably just about enough to break even.
It's way too early to judge how Prey turns out commercially. It has a slow start and bad luck, but things can pan out differently. It is a damn good game though.


It is a shame though. I had not played Dishonored 2, but Mankind Divided was not bad, and Prey is seriously one of the best AAA titles I've played in a very long time, at least judging by the first eight hours or so.
Seems like MD was mired by some seriously bad production decisions: aiming for more episodic format (without informing the customers or reflecting it in a price), terrible pre-order strategies, cutting the development short... all of that hurt the game bad.

Prey sadly also seems to struggle with more production related shit, which is even worse, because unlike MD, which did suffer mechanically and gameplay-wise from bad production, Prey does not have the same problem. It's just getting shit because Bethesda needlesly slapped on an IP mark and more importantly, because Human Head are absolute cunts and public is stupid enough to side with them.

Though just scrolling through some opinions, here and in other forums, about Prey - there might be a simple problem of people also just being way too dumb for games like this in this gamer generation.

>>376659375
It's been out for a week. It has not flopped yet. But it did not have the best start, it would seem.

>>376659047
>Square Enix just greenlit THI5F
That's only from a site that is hiring writers for a Thief movie that isn't even close to being in production.

>>376659464
>Bethesda forgot to send out review copies so no one knew if the game was good or not.
Yeah, and the same happened with new Doom, which was also generally anticipated to be awful. And it panned out OK.

So far it's really too early to say. But there is a lot of undeserved negativity around it and the first-week numbers apparently weren't great.

>>376659047
>implying that game will even consider approaching this dead-in-the-water genre when the last game was much more casualized and linear

>>376659485
>Prey is seriously one of the best AAA titles I've played in a very long time, at least judging by the first eight hours or so.
Agreed. I was pleasantly surprised too. I liked the original Prey and wasn't even going to buy this until a friend said it was like SS2.

>>376658740

>Immersive Sim
I'm sorry what?
When you say "immersive sim" I'm thinking of sim games, where you garden or build comfy.
Are you talking about action RPGs?

>>376659485
>Human Head are absolute cunts and public is stupid enough to side with them.
Don't tell me you're taking Zenimax's side, anon?

That'd be foolish to allow themselves to get bought out and then thrown away when things don't go the publishers' way in terms of seeing mad green.

>>376659912
watch the video

>>376658740
The new Underworld could be interesting. We're not going to see anything for SS3 until that's done and dusted, so silence on that front isn't really a surprise. The playable SS remake thing seemed good as a dinky prototype apart from the instability, and I'm giving the benefit of the doubt on the claim that the latest stuff is completely nonrepresentative placeholder while they get running in UE4. Night Dive are fucking dogshit at communicating though which makes everything worrying as fuck when it probably doesn't need to be.

Dishonored 2 was badly hurt by the utterly fucked PC performance at launch and the awful word of mouth around that, but did OK despite things so it'll probably get a free pass.

Prey is getting railed by the lack of review codes meaning it didn't get the typical AAA hype train, and didn't have anything like the advertising campaign of DOOM to compensate.

What even happened with Mankind Divided? I totally missed its launch somehow and only realized it was out when it appeared in a sale.

>>376659485
>Dishonored 2 did not do great, but it did not do too badly, probably just about enough to break even
Dont discount how heavily they marketed it, the actual games budget isnt the problem

Well for starters, other than P2EY (according to /v/, I'm pretty skeptical) the "immersive sim" genre has been hot garbage for a decade or more.

>>376660006

How about no

>>376659978
>Don't tell me you're taking Zenimax's side, anon?
I'm not taking anyones side. I'm stating the facts. Human Head are and always have been obsessive liars (ever since fucking Rune) and what they are claiming is clearly entirely dishonest. In fact is insanely self-masturbatory.

The people are incompetent fucking lying pieces of shit, and they are desperately trying to twist the narrative to make themselves purely as a victims which must have been at least as much their fault as Zenimax's. And the result is that they instill hate for a good game by a good developer. And no, it's not just all Zenimax's fault: Zenimax might be complete fucking assholes, but this time, both parties are at fault, or the majority of fault has been on Human Heads side.

Giving their history, I'm completely not surprised they have decided to twist the story to masturbate their own ego.

>>376660239
Human Revolution was solid.
Dishonored was solid.
Mankind Divided was actually decent, though it did fall apart towards the end.
Don't know about Dishonored 2, but from what I've heard it's just more Dishonored, that means solid, but lacks the novelty of the first title.
Prey is legitimately amazing.

Not sure if it counts, but from the looks of it the last Hitman game wasn't terrible either.

So yeah, no. The genre has been giving some pretty decent games. May not be as absolutely mind-breaking as Thief, Deus Ex and System Shock 2 were back in the days, but the games definitely aren't shit.

Maybe the problem lies in unrealistic expectations more than anything else.

>>376660239
Pretty is legitimately a good game that is heavily reminiscent of SS2. It's what Bioshock should have been.

>>376660090

Mankind Divided has a significantly different engine to Human Revolution, but plays and acts like an expansion pack with much less content.
The abilities got even more power creep, the story started becoming directionless, hub exploration got worse as attention to detail mandated that the main city hub be divided by a lengthy loading screen you have to cross about 20 times in one playthrough AT LEAST, because every quest is laid across the loading screen barrier.

They tried to make up for it with DLC but they're even worse, since you basically have a premade character in terms of what you start with is what you get (main story saves are not compatible) and the much shorter length eliminates any interesting branching paths or detail like who you side with.

They also spent clearly quite a large budget of money and manpower on a shitty "PvLeaderboards" SUPERHOT knockoff that has every horrible trait of a mobile phone game.

>>376659650
>And it panned out OK.
Only due to word of mouth, it was a slow burn that got a spike during the Steam summer sale. Bethesda's review policy and marketing isn't working, they've released 4 games in a row that have gotten fewer launch sales than expected, DOOM, Dishonored 2, Elder Scrolls Legends and now Prey. People are only just now releasing Dishonored 2 actually exists.

>>376658740
>Is this the end?
Dunno, but if it means that we won't get more games like the new "Prey" that don't even play like the original, and less "MUH IMMERSIVE MOVIE" games, than I'm all for it.

>Deus Ex Mankind Divided
Trainwreck for every other reason EXCEPT being an immersive sim, more executive meddling simulator than immersive simulator.

>Dishonored 2
It wasn't an "immersive sim", it was a sanitized triple-A "le weapon in one hand and stock magic power in other hand man goes around eating food out of random containers and sneaking around with broken stealth mechanics while navigating a shallow and retarded moral system" simulator like Bioshocks.

>Prey
Game was using a stupid name for brand recognition when the brand was literally who,
Cuckshed-a had no marketing and forgot to pay bribes.

>>376658740
Borderlands, Fallout, and Skyrim :^)

>>376660661
That last bit sounds like the usual Squeenix interference bullshit, which is a shame.

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>>376658740
>Deus Ex Mankind Divided flopped, the series got shelved.
>Dishonored 2 flopped
>Prey flopped even worse

All three used DENUVO. Hmmm....

>>376659485
>there might be a simple problem of people also just being way too dumb for games like this in this gamer generation.

This right here. If HL2 came out 10 years later people would be monkeys with typewriters trying to exit the train station, complain about lack of guidance, then proceed to shit on it through an entire review because they happened to come across a bug 40 hours in, instead of reviewing the rest of the game on it's own merit.
>IGN

>>376660661
Actually, most of this isn't true. The powercreep is arguable, the statement that the story lost direction is 100% true, but the hub exploration is a drastic improvement over the previous game, attention to detail is the same, and level design is absolutely top-notch. I have no idea what the fuck are you talking about with loading screens, since you go only through one between the two sides of the hub (one of which is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than the other, and you only need to visit is about twice through the game, and then for individual missions, which are mostly pretty damn lenghty.

The problem clearly was that Squeenix wanted to push a more episodic format on the series, which cut the lenght of the game and completely fucked up the already lackluster story and resulted in a really bitter aftertaste. Everything else was actually fine. It was short for a DX game (though it was still solid 20 hours of content), but those 20 hours were better than virtually anything in HR.

what? they never really went away?

why do I need an 11 minute video to tell me linear games with lots of choice in moment to moment gameplay are "making a comeback"? Call of duty wasnt every game from 2007-2015 you know?

Underworld Ascendant is the only hope for the genre.

>>376660245
suit yourself

>>376661343
The videos about them trying to make the traps have proper mechanical simulations that let you gum the mechanism up and modelling fire propagation so you can burn wooden shit down alongside talk of faction interactions bodes well, even if only a tenth of the new ideas they're playing with make it in in some form.

>>376661169
I don't think the people who are too incompetent to figure out how to play Prey, or that weird incident with IGN which is CLEARLY some kind of political or personal message and has nothing to do with gaming journalism are the real problem.

The real problem are people declaring the game is shit on principle. People who shit on it because of Human Heads fuckery, people who shit on it because that is what you do these days, people who shit on it because other people praise it, people who shit on it because saying anything good would be a sacriledge towards the idols they had made out of older games.

In the other Prey specific thread, you'll find several dozens of people shitting on the game for "bad level design", for "being too short", for "being uninventive and too dull".
Those are people that really worry me.

THE COMEBACK OF A GENRE I MADE UP
FOR A SELECTIVE LIST OF GAMES THAT HAVE SIMILAR TRAITS TO GAMES THAT NEVER REALLY STOPPED BEING MADE

Basically, the genre is just owned by sequels and reboots I guess.

There's also Get Even by the Painkiller reboot devs, System Shock 3 with Warren Specter, and >Observer which is some post-apocalyptic cyberpunk game.

>>376659978
after what they did with Minimum, fuck them

>Immersive Sim

kek, stop with this meymey

>>376661143
sales weren't only on PC

>>376658740
Everyone's gonna keep huffin those farts

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>Prey flopped even worse
Source?

Are you that faggot who said it hasn't once been on the top sellers list despite never leaving it?

And no, I'm not saying it's doing well, I'm asking for a fucking source on how it's flopping so horribly.

>>376662482
It doesn't need to sell bad for it to flop. Prey isn't bad by a long shot it's just really mediocre. Uninspired gameplay at its finest.

>>376663216
>Uninspired gameplay at its finest.
If you thought it was Call of Duty I guess. Easily has some of the best level design of the last decade, fact.

>>376663216
>Uninspired gameplay at its finest.
Now I know you didn't play it.

>>376663216
>Uninspired gameplay at its finest.
How did we get into a situation where one of the most playful and inspired and creative and non-conventional AAA games of a decade is being called "Uninspired and mediocre".

What fucking process as hotten us here.
Damn, I'm starting to want the normies and casual bros back. They were dumb, but they were at least not completely dishonest and completely delusionate.

>people still refuse to believe Prey was a flop

>>376663216
ive noticed that pretty much everyone who shits on prey has never even heard of system shock

its not as good but it still has a lot of the same elements

>>376661143
>Human Head
Many people argue that piracy improves sales. I don't say I support that but if you think about it if you're gonna pirate a game you don't care enough to actually pay for it.

>>376664097
There's literally no data on European or American console sales. We have Steamspy which you're not supposed to care about until 2 weeks anyway, and UK retail sales.

I don't know, but I'm enjoying Prey in the first hour or so I've played

>Need to get into the guys office
>Obvious way in goes past a bunch of monsters (probably)
>Instead just make a bridge from some stairs to the office window with that glue gun and smash my way in

It's the first time in a long time where I've been able to think laterally in a game.

>>376658740
video essays are the worst trend in video games

normie invasion started with 'games are art' bullshit and now these faggots are running rampant with their shit tier writing and contrived diction.

>>376664097
>People still insisting that it is a flop despite not having nearly sufficient data to make such a judgement..
Why? What the fuck is wrong with you people? Why you do you actually NEED the game to flop?

It's not well off as of the moment. Whenever it was a flop or not will not be decided sooner than in a couple of months - when the later sales add in, and when the suits start passing judgement.

>>376664729
>use gloo gun to make a path
>use recycler grenades to reduce large boxes, that are in the way, into material for crafting
>throw an oxygen tank next crates blocking doorways and shoot the tank, causing it to explode and move the crates out of the way
>can eventually get skills to mimc yourself into small passage ways
>can get telekinesis to grab things
>can use the huntress boltcaster to hit buttons on the back of doors through windows
>can get skills to just lift huge as fuck boxes

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>>376658740
Concept art's nothing to get excited about but I think it's pretty interesting that the recent SS3 art actually resembles the original game. It's not at all what I expected and I hope they stick with it. Plus pic related reminds me of some of the art from that Jodorowsky Dune documentary.

>>376663456
>>376663765
>>376663890
You guys fell for the fucking gloo/dart/poo gun bullshit. The game just isn't isn't super linear and has a couple of planned uses you know what planned uses means? quriks prey is fucking quirky it isn't innovative gameplay it's just quirky. I am not saying it's a bad game but it isn't worth any real praise. RPG elements are a fucking joke. Skill tree is retarded and limiting. It literally has some slapped in recycling-crafting system just like aaaaaaaaaany retarded Bethesda game ever. I dont know why you people keep defending it but I put my money on buyer's remorse

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>>376658740
This maybe my favorite vidya series on youtube. Anymore like this?

>>376665364
Is not conceivable that people honestly enjoy the game and that you haven't even played it?

>>376659978
>>376660275
Pardon my ignorance since I wasn't following Prey but what the fuck's going on?

Gee, it's almost like these games weren't actually all that good and banking on PC gamers to buy their shitty games wasn't such a good idea.

>tfw no matter how hard you try you can be as smart as Mark Brown when it comes to vidya

>>376665538
It may be enjoyable yes but I value my money more than what that's game's worth. I have a huge enough backlog that I cba with mediocre stuff. I am eventually gonna buy it I never once said it's bad but it's not worth full price.

>>376659912
>>376660006
I watched the video and have been playing and enjoying these games for years, and "immersive sim" has always been a stupid fucking term. It's popular because it makes the games sound cooler. Yes, it's cool when a game has systems to play around with and discover surprising solutions. But the vast majority to games have that to some degree and it's dumb as hell to try to pretend it's a codified genre. We have much better, more specific terms to describe the stuff we actually like about those games, especially since it's always a matter of degree and not binary.

>>376665931
who gives a fuck?

>>376659375
I'd say Bioshock and Dishonored were both better games than Prey and I've finished all of them. People comparing it to System Shock 2 is like what

>>376665364
This is a good example of people caring more about random negative words than anything else, and justifying such arrogance by utterly mentally deranged expectations that have literally no grounding in reality.

It's just words that have no meaning, no actual connection to the games, words that exist so that they could make some jadded smug cunt feel superior to others on no basis.

And yes, it's the prevailence of people like this that I think are the real problem. And if the immersive sim genre is failing to come back, its precisely because most "gamers" today are like this.

>>376665591
Prey 2, created by Human Head was a development nightmare that stetched on and on and on for half a decade, until Zenimax just cut the project entirely and decided to give it to a completely new developer instead.

The developer Human Head then came forward (pretty much as the new Arkane Prey was rumored) in which he told a massive sob story about how terribly they were bullied by Zenimax, and how their game was already finished and how amazing it was, and how they were not allowed to release it because Zenimax was angry at them because they refused to become an in-house studio, and basically how they were so amazing that bethesda sacrificed 10+ million dollars just to be able to hire them, and when it did not work out, they axed the remaining 15 millions already spent too and decided to can the game just out of sheer spite.

It's a completely bullshit story made by one of the most unreliable developers of all time, filled with holes and obvious misleading claims, but everyone listened only to the one side of it and because hating Zenimax was already popular, it created a huge amount of rage and ill will that turned agaist Arkane and their new take on Prey.

>>376665364
You are so full of shit, it's amazing.

>>376666180
>>376666285
Nice arguments really shows your intellect.

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>>376666000
People that care about analyzing games and understanding things instead of slapping trendy labels on stuff and posting shitty youtube videos. TVTropes-style "I put a label on it, therefore I've analyzed it!" is anti-thought.

>>376666103
>I'd say Bioshock and Dishonored were both better games than Prey and I've finished all of them. People comparing it to System Shock 2 is like what
Better than the original Prey? Absolutely. I'd say the new Prey is better than Bioshock and on par with Dishonored and it absolutely is like SS2.

>>376658740
Its not real surprise. Its a niche genre being given big budgets pushing it to a console-first mentality and thus missing its audience.
Of those games only Deus Ex Mankind Divided was released on PC without the Denuvo malware, and that was for the GNU/Linux release only. Even then the fact that it was an incomplete game rushed out before it was ready surely hurt sales.

This is really a genre where an indie dev focusing on Linux, MacOS, and Windows would fare better. I guess we'll see how the System Shock remake goes.

>>376666463
You finished it yet?

I've finished new Prey twice and I definitely enjoyed the Bioshocks and Dishonored more.

>>376665814
So you didn't play it?

>>376666735
>I definitely enjoyed the Bioshocks and Dishonored more.
>enjoying Bioshock beyond the first one
>And even then it was mediocre

>>376658740
>Prey
>flopped
How to spot a shitposter.

>>376666735
>>376666919
But seriously, I haven't finished it yet and I'm enjoying it was more than Bioshock.

>>376664908
>shit tier writing and contrived diction

This has always existed in video game discussion though.

>>376666830
I don't play mediocre games on launch and that's because I don't owe them 60 bucks and they in fact owe to release a game worth 60 bucks before I have to consider buying it. Have you even seen how bad the reviews are turning out? Even shills can't sell the game hard enough. I'm sorry that you are crying day and night for your 60 lost hard earned dollars but think about how many times you can try to convince people that Prey is actually good on /v/ with all that crying power that buying Prey giveth to you.

>>376667606
>Have you even seen how bad the reviews are turning out?
One bad review and it was because the a bug... I am legitimately enjoying this game fagatron, stay mad.

>>376658740
Good video but I think at the end of it he looked at the wrong upcoming games to signal their comeback just because they were sequels or "spiritual successors."

Deus Ex HR was a good game but it was still mediocre compared to the first. The devs behind it are just mediocre. So this should have indicated how MD would be. Dishonored and Prey... eh. Looking Glass games overall were never THAT special in this regard and it's clear that those new games look at those old games pretty closely.

I agree that I want to see more with VR though. RE7 was already great, now we need something more like Deus Ex with it.

>>376666735
You being retarded doesn't change reality.

>>376658740
Stop making up buzzwords.
They are FPS RPGs.

>>376666919
Prey's a lot easier than Bioshock honestly, for one. I really enjoy mechanical depth and difficulty. System Shock is also much harder.
Prey's AI isn't really good at all (Bioshock's isn't either but I guess I'm holding Prey to a higher standard because it advertised a feeling of being hunted and it came out a decade later)
Prey's kind of lacking in interesting scenarios from area to area. I didn't really feel like there was a 'sander cohen' moment in Prey where you get something different from what you'd been experiencing up to that point save for Dahl, which was... Alright. I appreciated that it shook things up, but it doesn't inconvenience you that much in practice. You can go right to Dahl and knock him out almost immediately after he shows up, if you want.
Didn't really care all that much about most of the characters.
Ending is awfully paced for the kind of twist it is. I can go into more detail point by point, if you have any questions.

As far as the other Bioshocks, Bioshock 2 has much less depth and it suffers in some story areas but it's a very fun shooter in pure mechanics. Infinite is Infinite, but the non-combat portion in the beginning is amazing worldbuilding and design and the shootery bits are decent even though you can't really call it an immersive sim anymore and the story is stupid

>>376661258
This basically.

>>376659912
>>376661903
The label is disingenuous and is no longer relevant, but people meant well back when it was used a lot. When games like Deus Ex emerged as such a powerful step forward in terms of immersing the player, immersion and simulation became what people were focusing on the most, so they came up with that label. But most games now qualify for it and are designed under this philosophy so it doesn't really mean anything.

>>376667606
>I didn't play the game
>it's mediocre
Fucking /v/ in a nutshell

>>376668723
>implying you can't judge a game without playing it on obvious stuff

I don't think Mankind Divided or Dishonored come close to how well Thief, System Shock, and Deus Ex tackled the immersive sim genre. I don't know what's wrong with them, but something just feels off about them.

>>376664389
I pirated DOOM to try it out and ended up buying it. Up yours my sodomite.

>>376669036
It usually takes good writing to make a immersive sim truly great.

With the newer releases they try to juggle everything together, gameplay, writing, rpg mechanics, and they have less excuses now since they have better technology than 20 years ago.

>>376668441
I just remember being kind of underwhelmed when I played Bioshock, which was right when it came out.

>>376666443
So people with autism basically.

Sounds about right.

>>376669540
Maybe you overhyped it

>>376669621
It's completely possible whereas I had zero hype for Prey and it has been a pleasant surprise.

>>376661258
>me linear games with lots of choice in moment to moment gameplay are "making a comeback"?
I'm pretty sure the definition used by the fag in the video isn't that simplistic.

>>376669693
I was hyped for Prey, and it's pretty disappointing to me.

>>376669540
Probably because it's not actually as good as people make it out to be.

>>376669762
Bioshock's pretty damn good though, honestly. It's hard to hold anything up to a mythical standard but it's tense and well-paced, didn't age that badly.

>>376670056
Outside of gameplay it's very well done, yes. But as an FPS it's very mediocre.

>>376670056
It was pretty meh for me in terms of gameplay, I think I have at least one gripe with every mechanic.

>>376670169
Could be worse, as someone that played it recently.

Weird to say, but I think it kind of works to the game's favor that shooting isn't amazing. It means your solutions are plasmids as opposed to being a twitch shooter-king and hitting everyone in the head with antipersonnel revolver rounds.

>>376670349
>Could be worse, as someone that played it recently.
It could, especially considering where the series went, but that doesn't make it anything special.

>Weird to say, but I think it kind of works to the game's favor that shooting isn't amazing. It means your solutions are plasmids as opposed to being a twitch shooter-king and hitting everyone in the head with antipersonnel revolver rounds.
That's a different matter. I'm talking about the general quality of the gameplay, not how viable certain approaches are.

>>376670783
Ah. Well, I don't mind it. It does a good job at maintaining the atmosphere. Roaming drug addicts, you can take them any way you please.