Some games are more immersive than others. For example, a big open-world game like Red Dead Redemption 2 can make players feel like they are in the Old West, or a game like Minecraft can provide endless hours of content that make time pass by in an instant. Then there are some games that pay more attention than most, and in this way, they create a deeper level of immersion.
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Perhaps a narrator is laying out a person’s moves, or NPCs reacting in realistic ways to a player’s actions. Whatever the case may be, for anyone who wants a gaming experience to feel next level, these are some go-to examples of games that will react to everything you do.
Fallout: New Vegas
Remembering Your Dark Deeds
Fallout: New Vegas is a big open-world RPG that tracks what players do and say to NPCs. If they go into a town and slaughter all the NPCs living there, the game will take that bad Karma into account, and the same is true if players help NPCs in the world.
There are Factions to join as well, which can affect alignment and may cause NPCs to say different dialogue lines if players are part of Caesar’s Legion, for example. Overall, what players do will either make their character a savior or a baddie, but it will always have an effect of some kind.
Bastion
An All-Knowing Narrator
Before they were known for Hades, Supergiant Games got their start with Bastion, a top-down action RPG known for its colorful artwork, weapon variety, and how the world created itself in front of players inside of dungeons. Most notably, there was a narrator who narrated everything players did, from attacking with a certain weapon to sitting idly by.
Supergiant Games expanded the idea of the omnipresent narrator in Transistor as well, where the game is narrated by the main character’s sword. Yet it all started in Bastion, and for a game from 2011, it has aged like fine wine.
Stealth-Based Knowledge
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is a remake of a classic stealth game with a bit more going on underneath the hood. Even though Hideo Kojima wasn’t involved in the remake, all of his experimental mechanics were left intact.
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Players can camouflage themselves by wearing various outfits, which will hide them from enemies, but if Snake makes any noise, those enemies will still react. Players can even use the codec system, and any of Naked Snake’s team members may comment on what they are doing, from a recent meal they ate to a certain type of gun they have equipped.
Hitman: World Of Assassination
Eyes On The Barcode
Hitman: World of Assassination is a collection of missions from the three recent Hitman games, acting as a sort of HUB launcher. On missions, players can get close to their targets by wearing various disguises, which will, in turn, affect how NPCs treat the protagonist, Agent 47.
If he looks like a drummer, people may be in awe of a rockstar, but if he is a waiter wandering where he shouldn’t be, guards may get suspicious. Finding the right disguise and route is why fans love this recent trilogy, as it encourages experimentation and creativity.
Undertale
The Game Sees All
Undertale is a turn-based RPG with a little bit of a twist. Players can choose to play it like a normal RPG, or they can spare all the monsters they encounter to get a better, more altruistic ending. The interesting part is that the game internally keeps tabs on their choices.
For example, if players save the game, do something bad to an enemy, and then reload before that decision was made, the game will remember it. Choices will also carry over after completing one playthrough and starting a new one, as the game is constantly looking for ways to break the fourth wall.
Dishonored
Beware Of Rats
Dishonored is a first-person stealth game that takes place in a steampunk fantasy world. Players can choose to incapacitate guards with different powers, or they can kill them outright. While it might be easier to stab a guard in the neck and be done with it, the game will make things much harder if players choose to become Jack the Ripper’s cousin.
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The more enemies that players kill, the more the city will be infested with rats. These pests carry disease, can block pathways from being as accessible, and have an influence on the game’s ending. That’s the major way that Dishonored keeps tabs on players, but like all stealth games, guards will also react to noises or if players appear where they shouldn’t be.
Baba Is You
Change The Meaning
Baba is You is a puzzle game that’s hard to grasp at first until players sort their way through a few levels. Baba is the player character, who looks like a little sheep, and in these levels, there will be a goal and a series of sentences that state what is what.
One could say “Flag is Win,” which means reaching the flag means completing the puzzle, whereas another could say “Water is Wall,” which would make water impassible like a wall. By removing objects or operator words from these sentences, or replacing them with other objects, players can change the properties of the game to make walls passable or to make another object playable besides Baba, like a rock. Sometimes, there is no one way to win a level, and instead, it’s up to the player to create a solution.
Scribblenauts
Word Play
Scribblenauts is another word-based puzzle game, but one that is much older, as the original was released on the Nintendo DS. In each level, players are presented with a problem — or example, a cat stuck in a tree — and by using the keypad on the touch screen, players can write in objects that would then appear as objects in the level.
To rescue the cat, players could summon a ladder or perhaps even a firefighter. If players summon the wrong things at the same time, they may choose to fight each other. A cat may chase a mouse or bird, for example. It’s a great all-ages game, as there’s plenty of fun experimentation to be found, and the visuals are very cartoony.
The Stanley Parable
An Annoyed Narrator
The Stanley Parable is another game with an ever-present narrator, like Bastion, but this is a case where the narrator is a bit antagonistic. At first, players will undoubtedly follow the narrator’s instructions, but since this is a time loop, they may start to branch out after several attempts by going through a left door instead of a right door as instructed.
Doing that will rile up the narrator, and he’ll start leading them (or not) down stranger and more absurdist paths, commenting on their actions the whole way. The game itself is a simple walking simulator at its core, but one with tons of humorous content and branching paths that will keep players guessing until the end.
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