What Does "Immersion" Actually Mean?

Prey 2017

Immersion is typically defined by how reminiscent it is of the game system shock. Now that system shock is super old and there are games that aren't immersive sims that are enormously more realistic enormously more detailed and gives players slightly more autonomy meanihg this definition shows its inadequacy. It should be noted people's memories of the original system shock will be much more immersive than the game actually is. They will need to actually replay it to realize how just regular rpg it is

Immersion is a state of mind. People that can't put effort in won't get any out. And those are people that complain.

Death Stranding is the only game with realistic durability. Weapons lasting forever is more realistic than whatever is happening in Dark Souls 2

Immersion can simply be boiled down to "consistent illusion of appropriate tone and atmosphere". Applicable to any part of a game, or any type of artwork really. If the mechanics has a consistent illusion within the setting, it's immersive. If the tone and atmosphere is consistent and fusing together with every other part, it's immersive. When something isn't immersive, it's simply when they break this internal consistency. A puzzle game that breaks its art design or puzzle design breaks immersion, but a puzzle game like Portal that breaks its puzzle art direction and style mid-game that is narratively consistent instead expands the narrative tone and atmosphere.

All it takes is for developers to decide on a specific tone and atmosphere of a game and carefully plan the illusion around it. In mechanics, in narrative, in art direction etc. While being aware of how to be tonally and atmospherically consistent if abruptly changing anything.

The ones that break immersion is mostly when the dev team has been fractured into different groups that don't work together or under a singular vision. That's when tone and atmosphere shifts and are all over the place. That's when clunky HUD elements get in the way or controls feel unresponsive. This usually happens when the creative director isn't very good at their job or there's suits from the top dictating game design out of current gaming trends or monetization methods rather than the decided vision guidelines.

This is why indie games usually nails immersion better than triple-A games. Because a smaller team has it easier to keep the consistency and at the same time does not care to follow gaming trends (except awful NFT-mobile-trash games)

What the absolute fuck? Where do people get this bizarre and frankly idiotic idea that Metroid is in any way supposed to have a horror feel? Dude, you are literally a super soldier in an iron-man suit with Power rangers colors. The literal only way to make it less horror is to add circus music and cartoon sound effects.

I'm sorry, but you broke my immersion with that metroid bit.

rgad i waz.immersed in water

Gta V fivem rp servers are probably the closest i can think of to immersion in a video game.

Immersion to me means:

-The graphics or art style is INSANE!

-The customization is at a higher level than saints row the third, cyberpunk 2077, Destiny 2, & Modern Warfare 2 & MGS V TPP combined!

-RPG is Fallout 3, Pokemon Black 2, Mario & Luigis superstar saga, Animal Crossing, LEVEL

-Open world is as immersive as grand theft auto 4, grand theft auto 5, cyberpunk 2077 w/ mods, star citizen, batman arkham knight, basically i should be able to do everything you could think of in real life, various modes of transportation, access to various buildings and rooms, various activities to do, just alot of shit.

-Mmo capabilities should be out of this world.

I can go on and on. We should be at this level of gaming by now especially since these games are being kept running for years with countless DLCs. There shouldnt be halo 6,7,8 destiny 1,2,3 etc there should just be universe building and world building and community building in each place to the most minute level.

It blows my mind NO ONE has been able to do this yet. Which is why older gamers a sticking with their old games and playing for fun than to buy into the Bs Thats being sold today that young gamers will throw money at regardless of quality.

Maybe one day when im 90 years old ill finally get to experience such a gaming experience. Until then im stuck modding different games to get better replayability of a game or emulating old games i hold dear to my heart i can replay until the end of time.

All and all at the end of the day destiny is like cyberpunk 2077 to me or what i though Halo Reach was gonna be, what i thought Destiny 1 & 2 were gonna be and what I thought Cyberpunk 2077 was gonna be. Theres no level of immersion in these games that i thought it was gonna have when revealed. Now that doesnt say it fails in the multiplayer aspect excluding cyberpunk or that it fails in the DLC, Mods, and patches made to the game aspect.

Hopefully starfield gives me what im looking for otherwise i can safely say we just havent reached that level of developing yet. Which sucks for a gamer my age dreaming about what tech today can handle back in 1995.

This bugs you like 'sanity meters' bug me. It's an easy way to describe it that fits with the theme in horror games, but it's not a sanity meter, it's an 'agency meter.' Whether messing with your senses or your ability to interact with the game, it interrupts your character's agency, it has nothing to do with a clinically definable insanity, because it's not clinically definable - they're being messed with by things that shouldn't happen. If they put a 'ptsd meter' in Call of Duty, maybe they'd approach something closer to what 'sanity meter' should mean (you know, if it were actually a fleshed out mechanic and not just a mandatory cooldown.) The only outcome of someone going insane in a horror game is their agency is given over to the evil - so they're not insane, they're just another limb or whatever being has taken them over.

The only type of game that can truly be immersive is vr.

Wolfenstein New Order and Spec Ops The Line have to be my 2 favorite narrative immersion games.

for me no other game is more immersive than Skyrim, It has a lot of problems and it's not even my favorite game but I cannot deny that when I play that game I actually feel like I am in there. I don't even fast travel in that game. I installed a mod called touring carriages which takes you to one place to other and for most people it will be boring as hell but for me its so peaceful.

It all ties back to just making a fun game. A game may not be replayable, but people will replay it if it's fun. It may not be very immersive, but it will have all your attention because it's fun.

ultra realistic horse ballz

Immersion to me is realizing after 70 hours that you can fast travel in red dead redemption 2....and then STILL choosing to ride your horse everywhere instead anyways.

Adam: starts the video complaining on how the label "immersive" is being stuck onto everything
Also Adam: spends the next 20 minutes explaining how any good feature of any good game can be seen as immersive

Yeah well the subjective part really hits hard because Shadow of War is one of the most immersive games to me still with how the Nemesis System works.

I'm 5 minutes in so far and all you've done is cement my love of Arkane. They're my favorite studio for a reason. Dishonored (1 and 2) and Prey are all FANTASTIC.

I'd say getting a dangerously high pulse while fighting a Dark Souls boss counts as immersive XD

Surprised you didn't cover Duskers in this, probably one of the most immersive games ive ever experienced

More than often AAA studios seem to try to sell "realism" as immersion; this however in most cases leads to a sort of uncanny valley, where the slight imperfections cause the illusion of realism to fail. (more than often this also seems to boil down to making pretty graphics the ONLY realistic part of the game).

IMHO what works FAR better is games trying to seem "believable" as in: they set their own rules for how the game/world work and then stick to it. This way, even cartoony games can be incredibly immersive, like The Outer Wilds for an example.

Another thing is making the game world seem dynamic and have it react to the player in a believable way. Like when a grenade goes off inside a building, I expect the shrapnell to visibly tear apart the stuff inside it and not just go off with a puff of smoke. Cryis 1 for an example did this, you could even cut down trees with guns, which (despite being unrealistic) made the world seem "real".

250 strong crew HAH yeah right, most of them dead aint 250 strong XD

great video but clearly designed to trigger as much motion sickness as possible on those susceptible

"No ones ever actually felt like they were inside a videogame". Hey man, that's not true. I thought I was inside the video game once, back in my younger years. I mean, I had to do some very naughty things to end up in that state of mind, but I'm sure I'm not alone, lol.

you ever get so immersed you fucking lean irl to see enemies

For me any game can be immersive if it makes me feel like I am not controlling a character but I am the character. I even felt that a not so good looking game in roblox about sword fighting and one about ww1 were immersive as it felt as a cool samurai or a highly energetic soldier.

Me while waiting to mention Metro Exodus 🤓 I only played Metro on ranger hardcore and no UI and it is amazingly immersive. The story carries the immersion. Cheers.

Monster Hunter World

I'm a sucker for interface-driven immersion. I enjoyed In Other Waters, which I discovered through the Steam forum for another game called Duskers. Duskers is a rogue-like where you're, apparently, the last remaining human in the universe. You set about trying to figure out what happened to everyone by exploring derelict space ships with a fleet of remote-control worker drones. You can control them directly but by far the best way to manage the fleet efficiently is through a command line interface and writing macros. But the game occurs in real time, so you might steer a drone into a room, encounter a hazard and then frantically start typing to get it out of there or to activate countermeasures.

What I want from an immersive game:
●The game world doesn't wait for you. Sorry Skyrim but the Civil War should not be on hold until you pick a side.
●Npc's need homes and they should actually LIVE there. Shopkeepers that stay open 24/7 just standing there are not immersive.
●Guards should not solely react to YOUR actions, they should deal with actual threats and failing that therr should be consequences.
●No criminal like a snitch but come on Skyrim, you should not get in trouble with the law just because a chicken saw you do it.
●Do you really want me to save your community from those monsters? Maybe charging me an arm and a leg for the equipment I need to use to do that isn't such a good idea?
●I hate restrictive crafting systems. I should be able to make SOMETHING. If the materials I have are low quality then let the product be low quality as well. If I have the plans for a mithral sword buy only steel bars avalible then let me make a steel sword with those plans. Do not be so picky about the exact ingredients. Elderscrolls got this right with their alchemy, not so much with their other crafting.
●I love character customization of my apperance but if I am the only one doing it then it breaks immersion. Npc's should should get into the fun as well. Most of them should break the norm somehow. Like, that noble down on his luck noble wearing out of fashion clothes with slight signs of wear. That guard with a clearly freshly painted shield lacking the dilapidated appearance to the shields his colleagues carry. You do not want guards looking like an army of clones like the World of Warcraft's Silvermoon's City guards looked like for YEARS. I actually weaved this into a roleplaying conversation pointing this out suggesting that they actually WHERE magically created clones. Considering that most of the population had been mercilessly massacred by the Scourge recently it actually made sense.

Lesgoo rimworld got a mention

Immersion doesn't mean you're drawn in to the world of the game, it just means the game is an effective distraction from reality.

It honestly amazes me every single time that I watch one of your videos. You're insightful, deep, analytical and engaging. I give your infinite props. Keep up the legendary work! Cheers.

Games that broke immersion for me that everyone else seems to love: Eternal Darkness. I can't take the sanity system seriously when it resorts to trying to adjusting the volume or 'crashing' the game. If I wanted that kind of technological horror, I'd rather play Undertale. It just never felt like it fit.

I think one of the most immersive things a game can do is for a single player linear game to give you the freedom to play as other characters relevant to the story in some capacity. My best example of this is actual Asura's Wrath as it has you play as another character at times when it makes less sense that you'd be controlling Asura himself.

In addition to this, Asura's Wrath also does the second most immersive thing I've ever experienced in a game, which is making every time I pressed a button feel like it mattered. I was given instant gratification every time I pressed a button or moved a control stick by the characters om screen reacting accordingly. I found that immersive.

For me immersion is mostly on a Gameplay level. How a world looks or the story and characters aren't really relevant to whether I feel a game is immersive or not most of the time(There are always exceptions in anything though*Looking at Persona and Fire Emblem*) Essentially, if a games mechanics and playstyle work for me that means more than anything else on whether I'll feel compelled to keep going with it. DMC3 is actually a game that a lot of people enjoyed that I just can't because I find the brightly colorer Style meter so distracting and relevant to rewards you get from playing that I find myself focusing more on it than enjoying the game itself and that's not immersive to me. DMC1 and 2 did a good job of not doing that, as much as it pains me to say DMC2 did something right. I haven't played 4 or 5 yet so it remains to be seen how I feel about those in that regard.

Edit: I also hate when gameplay tries to become too realistic because that's not what I'm here for. I'd prefer a game to be enjoyable vs being realistic.

Immersion is when the little things were done correctly. Doors don't open in both directions. Bathrooms have mirrors that show your character moving in them. You don't even notice it half the time when it's there, but you do when it isn't.

It’s what you paint on walls

Am I invested into the game mechanics and am I transported into their world?

It is almost easier to point out immersion breakers than super immersive.

i think military sims like squad are pretty immersive too

this is why I never liked Red Dead 2, it felt far too clunky and the excuse every action takes time cause it's "tealistic" and meant to help immerse you but it didn't really make sense to me, cause it's like they made it to the point it wasn't even realistic, no person takes that long to pick something up, but then it's conflicted with stuff that's just way too fast like reloading or skining an animal, like there is no realism cause everything that should be quick and precise like picking something up or just bloody walking is slow and clunky but everything that would should take time like reloading or skining an animal is done insanely quick, super human when it comes to the reloads, the story seemed great but I couldn't immerse myself and everything felt like a chore but there was no getting the hang of it, it was more so every time I had to go to camp or pick a single item up I felt like I was just having my time wasted, I'm fine with having to rude long distances and go cross map without fast travelling, I love just going on foot or horse back so I'm a pretty patient person and like to stop and smell the flowers every chance I can get but that was my choice, in RD2 I felt like I had no say, funny considering all the quests I RD2 are practically on rails, the whole game seems to have this facade of deep and immersive gameplay but it's more pretentious than anything

It is so hard to create a great and immersive experience in Arma 3, but when you succeed it's great!

These are all elements that contribute to immersion. In addition to this, I believe the lack of control, social dynamic, and permanent consequences are very convincing, which can bring in-game stress/challenge into the real world.

Credit to the old Assassin's Creed games for placing most of gameplay in the Animus, making it so that the UI you're looking at for 90% of the game is actually canon and part of Desmond's pov.

Immersion and no mention of STALKER