Immersive Sim

A school of game design established by Looking Glass Studios with Thief, Underworld and System Shock, alive today in games like Bioshock and Deus Ex...

• Immersion in an elaborate and believable game world.
• Simulation: physics and AI are used to create believable behavior in objects and characters which the player can freely interact with, resulting in emergent gameplay.
• First person perspective so as to truly look through the eyes of the protagonist (though not all games adhere to this).
• Game design that allows multiple paths and/or multiple solutions in every situation.

Rock Paper Shotgun ran a series of interviews on the past and future of the genre and the GAMBIT Game Lab also interviewed several ex-Looking Glass devs on the subject.