The Comeback of the Immersive Sim | Game Maker's Toolkit

2016 has been an interesting year, all things
considered, but nothing has caught me by surprise

quite like the comeback of the "immersive
sim".

Deus Ex is getting a fourth game later this
month, and Harvey Smith is making another

Thief-like stealth game at Arkane Studios.
Which is also making a new Prey game which

is said to be a spiritual successor to System
Shock 2.

Which is getting an actual successor courtesy
of Warren Spector, who is also helping Paul

Neurath make an unofficial sequel to Ultima
Underworld. And the first System Shock is

getting a remake, too.

But if you haven't heard of those games, or
haven't heard of those names, or you're wondering

what the hell an immersive sim is and want
to know why should we care that it's getting

a huge revival, then... this is Game Maker's
Toolkit, I'm Mark Brown, and in this episode

we're looking at the rise, fall and return
of a truly fascinating game design philosophy.

You can't talk about immersive sims without
first talking about 1992's Ultima Underworld:

The Stygian Abyss. A.k.a the most influential
game you've never played. Its 3D engine prompted

John Carmack to write a better one and make
Wolfenstein 3D, and putting an RPG into that

3D world inspired Bethesda to do the same
with the first Elder Scrolls game.

But Underworld's standout feature was using
clever systems, artificial intelligence, and

even rudimentary physics to try and simulate
a believable space that wasn't completely

predetermined by the developer.

The overarching design goal was to give players
unique stories, and then let them come up with

personal solutions to quests, much like in
a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Only, replace

the human dungeon master with a complex nest
of intertwining systems.

The game's developer, Looking Glass Studios,
would explore this idea of simulated spaces

and player agency in all of its major games.

System Shock took Ultima into outer space,
and killed off all the humans to avoid those

immersion-breaking conversations. Thief used
advanced artificial intelligence and open-plan

design to forge one of the first proper stealth
games. And at Ion Storm Austin, ex-Looking

Glass staffers mixed System Shock's shooting
with Thief's sneaking for the incredible Deus Ex.

Or Dooz Ex, as you called it in the year 2000.
Don't lie. You totally did.

So what is an immersive sim? What ties all
these games together, and makes them different

from the other first person games being made
around the same time? Well here are my, personal,

tenets of what makes these games special.

Immersive sims, for one, offer high levels
of agency.

Which means you can achieve goals in multiple
ways, and pick your own routes, tactics, and

gameplay style. The designers tell you what
to do - like, break into Lord Bafford's Manor

and swipe his sceptre in Thief - but doesn't
tell you how to do it.

The designers provide a large open space,
perhaps a handful of predetermined routes

that support different playstyles, and often
some suggestions for how you can finish your

mission. But the rest is up to you.

To avoid overwhelming the player with choices,
your options are sometimes limited by decisions

you made earlier. In System Shock 2 you can
only carry so many items, and you can only

use the powers you've installed and the skills
you've developed, so sometimes it's about

finding the path that matches the playstyle
you're developing, rather than randomly picking

new ones for every moment.

Immersive sims are also highly systemic.

Most games are heavily scripted. Crazy stuff
happens when you stand on invisible triggers,

characters play one-off animations at specific
bits, and obstacles in the game world just

do exactly what they need to do in that moment,
and nothing more.

Immersive sims, however, are built from systems.
So elements have globally defined characteristics

which means every alarm post works the same
way, every torch can be extinguished, and

while different doors might have different
properties, they're all based off the same

generic door mould.

There are also endless rules that the world
follows. Enemies can find you based on sight

and sound, and will then run off and trigger
an alarm. Footsteps sound louder on tiled

floors, turrets shoot who you tell them to
shoot, and objects fall when pushed. Remember:

physics were still novel back then.

For a neat example of scripting versus systems,
note how in Thief: The Dark Project, you can

attach rope arrows to any wooden surface.
Whereas In Thief 2014, which dropped a lot of

the emergent sim stuff you can only plunge your grapple into beams marked with white rope.

The less prescripted stuff means that immersive
sims can be emergent.

When two systems talk to each other, interesting
new behaviours can emerge.

These interlinking systems
give the player opportunities to come up with

smart, intentional strategies that exploit
the game's rules. Put a gas grenade on an

alarm and then let yourself be spotted, to
create a nasty trap. Coax this self-detonating enemy

near a fragile door, and then kill it, to open a passageway.

Emergent gameplay can also lead to a mad chain
reaction that you could not possibly predict,

and puzzle solutions that the developer simply
didn't foresee. Like using LAM mines - which

the player can safely stand on - as an endless
ladder to clamber up walls.

Immersive sims are consistent. They try to
avoid special cases and one-offs, and there

are rarely any failure states for anything
other than getting killed. You won't find

these games telling you to return to the mission
area, or making you restart the level because

an ally was killed in duty. The simulation
just continues.

There are limits, though. You can shoot any
character you like in Deus Ex, but you can't

just kill plot-relevant characters... until
you're actually allowed to.

And at that point, you'll find that immersive
sims are reactive.

The plot doesn't have to drastically change
to reflect your choices, but characters will

act in different ways and say different things
to reflect on your decisions. Even if you

thought no one would notice...

MANDERLEY: By the way, Denton, stay out of the ladies
restroom.

The games judge your actions during gameplay,
not in clearly designated choice sections.

Clint Hocking, who was inspired by immersive
sims with Far Cry 2, has said "by creating a

chain of influence that cascaded between the
narrative and the WASD keys, Deus Ex allowed

players to experience the repercussions of
their immediate input level actions as they

echoed upward into the very plot of the game".

So these are the tools that Looking Glass
and Ion Storm used to make games that felt

immersive. Not with photorealistic graphics
or by getting rid of the HUD, but by letting

go of the player's hand.

Deus Ex, for example, was "designed, from
the start, as a game about player expression,

not about how clever we were as designers,
programmers, artists, or storytellers" says

director Warren Spector. "The game was conceived
with the idea that we'd accept players as

our collaborators, that we'd put power back
in their hands, ask them to make choices,

and let them deal with the consequences of
those choices".

To those of us who played them, immersive
sims felt like the future. They let us do

what we wanted, they reacted to our decisions,
and they operated in spaces that acted more

like a simulation of a real place than a phoney
video game rollercoaster ride.

But there were, after all, only a few of us.
Deus Ex sold like 500,000 copies while Half

Life - equally brilliant, but for a very different
reason - shifted millions.

Deus Ex was a cult classic, not a landmark
title that would start a revolution.

Immersive sims muddled along with the forgettable
Deus Ex sequel Invisible War, the contentious

third Thief game Deadly Shadows, and the more
well received spiritual successor to Underworld,

Arx Fatalis. But the closure of Looking Glass
in 2000 and Ion Storm Austin in 2005, and

the booming blockbuster success of more linear
and scripted games, meant the design ethos

kinda went away.

It bubbled up here and there, mostly thanks
to new Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, as

well as BioShock from System Shock 2 designer
Ken Levine, and Eastern European efforts like

Pathologic out of Russia and STALKER out of
Ukraine.

But now, the genre seems to be making a triumphant
return as games and names and ideas from Looking

Glass and Ion Storm history have returned.

The new Deus Ex games are made by all new
people but are pretty faithful to the original

game, other than the crappy inconsistent boss
characters (who were mercifully changed in

the director's cut edition), and slightly
less scope for emergent gameplay. You'll get

plenty of that in Dishonored, though, which
comes from Deus Ex lead designer Harvey Smith.

This stealth games lets you juggle loads of
magic powers, and lots of interweaving systems,

to come up with unique ways to assassinate
your targets. It's also highly reactive to

your playstyle, with rats becoming more plentiful
if you choose to murder loads of guards.

And then there are all the upcoming games
I mentioned in the opener, which should be

very interesting. "While I've seen some efforts,
especially from the guys at Arkane, to sort

of extend the design philosophy of Looking
Glass - I'd like to go further with that,"

says Spector. "It's nice to

see more people trying, but I think there's
a ways we could go as well, in terms of empowering

players to tell their own stories. Those are
the directions I'm going to try to go in".

What I'm most excited by, is the opportunity
to update this old philosophy with the tech

and design of today.

Immersive sims really take advantage of, well, sims. Simulations. And games are now much better at

simulating crowds, artificial intelligence,
fire, weather, and physics.

This genre can also learn from other types
of games, and borrow stuff like

stories that
dramatically react to your actions like in

Shadow of Mordor. And yes, they can also benefit
from the photorealistic stuff to make these

worlds even more believable.

And going forward, there's VR: perhaps immersive
sims are the perfect match for virtual reality.

Indeed, even in the earliest days of Looking
Glass, the studio thought about future technology.

Major contributor Marc LeBlanc said "everyone
was hearing about how virtual reality was

coming and most people thought that virtual
reality was a hardware thing. We were kinda

coming at it from the software thing: if there's
going to be a virtual reality that you're

interacting with then it's gonna have to have
rules and a simulation and stuff like that".

But, ultimately, this a design ethos that
just needs to be explored further. Immersive

sims, with their system-driven worlds and
consistent behaviour - are never going to

be as flashy (or as profitable) as crazy,
scripted, rollercoaster rides. But

sims like Fallout and Deus Ex, and games with
similar design goals like Metal Gear Solid

V and Hitman, do something truly unique.

"Simulations allow players to explore not
just a space but a 'possibility space'," says

Warren Spector. "They can make their own fun,
tell their own stories, solve problems the

way they want, and see the consequences of
their choices. That's the thing that games

can do that no other medium in human history
has been able to do".

Thank you so much for watching. If you are
wondering where Boss Keys is, the episode

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