• masterspace@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    edit-2
    25 days ago

    Top contenders:

    • Subnautica
    • Dishonored
    • Prey
    • Bioshock
    • Control
    • Titanfall 2
    • Modern Warfare 2
    • The Outer Wilds
      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        edit-2
        25 days ago

        Yeah, by the end of Subnautica I spent my time

        spoiler

        just going around to my bases and decorating them and fixing them up so they were pleasant places to be in. I built the rocket ship, and I did use it just to see what happened, but canonically in my head I chose to stay on the planet by myself and not leave. Hands down the most immersive game I’ve played.

      • Electric@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        25 days ago

        As much I love those games I cannot get very far into them. Especially Outer Wilds. That ocean planet is something I’ve literally had in my nightmares.

        • Ketram@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          25 days ago

          Yep. As far as I know there isn’t even anything dangerous on it but it’s such nightmare energy for me that I will literally run out of the room like a child.

          Also, I found that space feels eerily like underwater for me mentally. Fucking terrifying

          • Electric@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            25 days ago

            Yeah that’s what made Outer Wilds terrifying, it’s veeeery realistic with handling outer space. Elite Dangerous gave me the same feeling, took a long while to get over the fear. Still gave me the jeebies infiltrating a Titan (large xeno ship that generates hazardous space weather around itself, like a hurricane in a fog).

            The rest of the Outer Wilds just ups that nope factor. Thought I should go to a different planet but my choices were the newborn singularity, planets eating each other, or a planet that defies reality and home to very angry space bees.

            The quantum moon was the only one I could handle, was super fun.

            • Ketram@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              25 days ago

              I can handle everything but dark bramble, giants deep and just…anything with open space. I did almost everything on the sand twins tho! That wasn’t too bad at all.

              • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                25 days ago

                Oh I struggled most of all on the sand twins. I’m mildly claustrophobic and those caves freaked me out (especially as I tend to think poorly under pressure, so running out of time made me panic and get lost more).

                • Ketram@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  25 days ago

                  I can get that. I do get claustrophobic IRL but luckily it doesn’t really equate to games, unlike my thalassophobia. I was just happy it was sand and not water

            • bunchberry@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              25 days ago

              The space mechanics was definitely one of the great things about that game, in my opinion. Most space games when you land you just press a button and it plays an animation. Having to land manually with a landing camera is very satisfying. When you crash and parts of your ship break and you have to float outside to fix it, that was also very fun. I feel like a lot of space games are a bit lazy about the actual space mechanics, this game did it very well.

    • frickineh@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      25 days ago

      Dishonored is the one game I’d love to erase from my memory just to have to joy of playing it for the first time again. It’s easily in my top 10 favorite games of all time. I wish there were more like it - Prey was great, too, but not quite the same, and there hasn’t been anything else that’s really scratched that itch.

  • Volkditty@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    ·
    25 days ago

    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.

  • drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    edit-2
    24 days ago

    The first STALKER game. Near the beginning when I had hardly any ammo.

    I saw a pack of feral dogs in the distance and while they didn’t sound friendly I didn’t know whether they would be hostile or how close I could get before they would aggro. Since I had so little ammo I resolved to not take any shots unless they got close.

    Well, one of them did start running towards me, but before it got that close it cut off and ran away at a 90° angle. Then another, and another did the same thing. “Maybe they’re not hostile?” I thought to myself, “Do they just run around randomly?”.

    Then I realized I was being circled. Which was an extremely unnerving realization. I went from thinking about aggro ranges and AI states to being thrust into a situation that I sometimes have to worry about not falling into in real life.

    • brachypelmasmithi@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      24 days ago

      Then I realized I was being circled. Which was an extremely unnerving realization. I went from thinking about aggro ranges and AI states to being thrust into a situation that I sometimes have to worry about not falling into in real life.

      Makes it that much more sad seeing A-Life getting trashed in STALKER 2. Moments like these were awesome

  • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    25 days ago

    Probably skyrim. The first time I played it, it made me feel like I had a 2nd separate life that I had to pull myself back out of to rejoin the real world.

    • MY_ANUS_IS_BLEEDING@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      25 days ago

      Same. I remember seeing a lot of buzz surrounding it on release day, but I’d never played a TES game before. Decided to download it and play for an hour just to see what it’s about. I remember after what felt like roughly an hour I suddenly had massive hunger pains, checked the time and realised I’d just been playing for about 9 hours straight with no break. I don’t think I’ve ever had another game do that to me before.

  • illi@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    25 days ago

    Red Dead Redemption 2, by far.

    Honorable mention to Elite: Dangerous while playing with a HOTAS

  • emax_gomax@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    25 days ago

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

    • PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      25 days ago

      The ashtray maze was a great sequence and a ton of fun, but immersive? I don’t think so.

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      25 days ago

      Came here to say this. One of the only games I went back to beat several more times. I was sad to finally stop playing, but I definitely got my monies worth. I don’t think I have been that into a game since half-life 2.

  • Electric@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    25 days ago

    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.

    • Xenny@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      24 days ago

      Playing for the first time currently and I can’t put it down. We finally got a good successor to system shock 2 and I am so happy

  • TheTimeKnife@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    24 days ago

    Fallout New Vegas, had me fantasizing for weeks about being a desert cowboy. My wife and I finally went to Vegas and we visited a bunch of spots from the game. We played FNV all week together and then we went up the strat tower to get a birds eye view of the city. It was a really fun experience.

    Game definitely shows its age now, but it really sold the atmosphere and dragged you into it when it came out.

  • 58008@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    25 days ago

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

  • JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    25 days ago

    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.

  • EvilBit@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    25 days ago

    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.

      • papalonian@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        24 days ago

        Haven’t touched it in years, but there was a mod that converted all player dialogue to voice commands. Meaning that when you were talking to an NPC, you actually spoke the words you wanted to say. That, with the verbal dragon shouts, and gesture activated spell casts… Good times.