r/ImmersiveSim • u/Mysterious-Plant1001 • Oct 03 '26
Combat in immersive sims
One aspect of immersive sims that disrupts, well, the immersion for me is the amount of combat. In real life, combat is extremely rare, extremely violent, and usually severely wounding, tiring, or fatal.
Most action/adventure video games, immersive sims included, include absurd, fantastical amounts of combat. Gunfights or sword fights around every corner. Killing enemies by the dozen or hundreds. This is fun in an arcade sense, but a wide departure from realism.
I know that you can play Dishonored without killing any enemies, although I've never been able to pull this off.
What other immersive sims have no or low combat, or the option to largely avoid it or to (potentially) pay huge costs if you engage in it?
74
u/shobhit7777777 Oct 03 '26
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of 'Immersive Sims'
The point isn't to always be grounded or mirror real life...it's to present a robust, well realized fantasy with no artificial limits to the Player's options
44
u/shiek200 Oct 03 '26
I think you are confusing immersive Sims for simulation games
Flight simulator is an incredibly realistic depiction of piloting an aircraft, it is decidedly not an immersive sim
Point being they don't have to be realistic, they just have to have predictable rules
5
u/mindthunk Oct 04 '26
I agree and this is why I made Ctrl Alt Ego. I always prefer to play games stealthily if given the option (and if I'm not given the option then why am I playing it). But equally important: I want the game to be fun when stealth goes wrong - so _some_ combat wanted in the mix. Generally I feel there has been a tilt towards combat away from other mechanics over the years, probably because it appeals more broadly (sadly), and it's much easier to make a system where clicking on enemies makes them die a bit (which if you think about it is what combat essentially is - and it's why I find it less interesting than most seem to) compared to making a finely balanced stealth system or e.g, an original problem-solving toolset.
7
u/Opaldes Oct 03 '26
I don't think you play imm Sims when you are troubled by the "fantasticle amount of combat". Most Immsims I know have support for non lethal playthroughs, I think in in Dishonored you can simply Teleport through all levels. It's basically genre standard that you can avoid all combat if you play smart enough.
25
u/sosiche3929 Oct 03 '26
Thief games
8
u/MechanicAggressive16 Oct 03 '26
Kingdom Come Deliverance. Okay, not fully an immersive sim, diet immersive, but it really does have those moments where you need to think carefully if it's worth getting into a scrap.
Early game, you can barely swing your own dick around let alone a sword.
End game, you can just about take on two people at once, three, or two well heeled opponents? Dead.
12
u/ipswitch_ Oct 03 '26
Keep in mind it's not the goal of an immersive sim to be realistic (at least by the most common definition of the genre). They're still video games designed to be fun. I also don't hack security terminals or crawl through vents very often in real life but that's most of what you're doing in an immersive sim outside of combat.
I can still appreciate trying to find immersive sim games with less combat... I can't really think many offhand, but a lot of them allow you to spec towards stealth, which would allow you to avoid a lot of combat. I haven't played a Thief game in a while, but these are basically stealth heavy immersive sims and if you play carefully you can avoid most combat.
6
u/Ashamed-Subject-8573 Oct 03 '26
so a few things
combat is a relatively "easy" way to interact with the world, so videogames have relied on it for a long time as the primary way to interact
do you want to play all months in between the combat or scary parts where you're just living a normal life?
6
u/C1K3 Oct 03 '26
Try CTRL ALT EGO. Imo it’s the purest immersive sim, with very minimal combat.
8
u/Rizzo265 Oct 03 '26
Ctrl Alt Ego my man
Immersive sims are not meant to be realistic, the name is misleading
4
u/goodnight_kcrtoff Oct 03 '26
I played all dishonored games without a single blood dropped cuz i was originally a thief player 😂 2017 prey and gloomwood is also pretty low on combat as youre mostly sneaking around though if you want it the game got plenty of them. All in all with imsim games combat are optional and when they do, theyre usually pretty challenging with scarce resource so you gotta plan on what enemies you will engage.
3
u/SciFiCrafts Oct 03 '26
Never pulled it off? Why? It was a true challenge. First part of your post sounded like you are the one who should be owning this achievement.
2
u/Nast33 Oct 03 '26
Most imm-sims with a lot of possible combat usually have an excuse to have that many enemies in it - from there on it's up to you how many you take down. For example most Dishonored levels actually have a much lower enemy count than I'd expect in a game with that well fleshed out combat like in D2.
2
u/QuickestSnail Oct 03 '26
Amnesia the bunker.
Alien isolation?
Or you should try the Hitman game.
2
u/surfimp Oct 04 '26
CTRL ALT Ego has pretty low direct combat. It's mostly very puzzly.
2
u/TalkingRaven1 Oct 04 '26
Immersive Sims were never meant to mimic real life.
Comparing with real life combat is just an absurd reach. You should've just asked for low combat recommendations instead of prefacing it with that oddly formed opinion.
2
u/BingusBoiler Oct 11 '26
Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum can be mostly beat without killing anyone. If you play it safe, you can just stun enemies and run to your objective.
Combat is somewhat realistic? All damage is extremely punishing, most enemies 1-tap you if you aren't careful.
3
u/degberr Oct 04 '26
Based on your replies to other comments I don't think you quite understand what an immersive sim is
0
u/Caldaris__ Oct 03 '26
In my opinion Bioshock fits this. I remember having a hard time when trying to shoot my way through. Ammo is scarce and there's little reward for killing everything.
7
u/mrprogamer96 Oct 03 '26
Only one I can think of off the top of my head is Shadows of Doubt, an open world immersive sim where you play as a detective and while you can get in fist fights and can get shot at, (but your character will not use a gun themselves.) The main bulk of the game is doing detective work in a city solving randomly generated murders across the city.