(Disclaimer: this is not meant to poke fun or cause arguements, just simple curiosity)


Something I see coming up alot lately is the idea of immersion. People want games to be so lifelike and realistic that they feel like they are actually in the game itself. So the question rises: why are people so obsessed with it?


Whenever I play Fallout 4, I am prepared to enter another world and escape reality, but I understand that it's not real, and I'm still sitting on my couch in the real world. Bugs, fantasy creatures and HUDs constantly pop up to remind this fact to me.


So my question is, why do you want fallout to be so realistic? I believe the charm of Fallout is how goofy fake it is. It does include realistic properties to make everything seem alive and believeable, which I appreciate as its pretty cool , but things like fourth wall breaking, Kids stuck in fridges for hundreds of years and weird happenings constantly remind you that the game doesn't take itself to seriously, and I like that.


But people tend to complain about things like your character talking, the weird happenings, and even how you freakin reload a gun because it breaks this feeling of immersion. I can sort of understand the appeal, but I want to hear from you guys, why is it so appealing to have super realistic role-playing features?

The thing about "immersion" is: it doesn't have to be realistic... just believable in the games setting.

If it was about realism there wouldn't be any SciFi or Fantasy plot possible.

It could be a world where even physics as we know them are abandoned... and still be immersive. It's about how it's presented and drawn out.

"Immersion"=/="Realistic".

Immersion means that you get seriously invested into it- the sort of thing where you turn on the game, start playing... and then realize six hours have flown by without your notice because of how well the game drew you in. The term need not apply to only games, but books, TV, and other entertainment, so long as it draws you in.

For some people- the ones who seem to complain about it the most- they need the game to be realistic to get that kind of draw. If they see something glitch out or goes against what they feel being realistic, that immersion suddenly breaks for them.

Alright, I think I've been stuck in the negative side way to long. This game has kept me invested for hours without my knowledge, so I guess I've been caught in this immersion thing . I was really starting to wonder after the outbreak of immersion based posts what the deal is, but I guess it's just a huge misconception.

Very well put.


People seem to think immersion = realism, when really it = believability.


Two significantly different things. Though, easy to understand the misunderstanding.

I've caught myself thinking how "immersion breaking" this or that was at a certain moment.

Standing there in some kind of armor that wouldn't be practical in any way and bulky as a house. Carrying a weapon that wouldn't even fit on a modern tank.

And all i could think was: "now this abrupt sunset is really immersion breaking...."

One of the problems with that word is that it's so overused by now that it's initial meaning has become distorted. Glad to see people clearing it up on here.

Seriously though - all the mods with "Immersive" in their title really need to stop

But immersive facial animations is hilarious!

I think people tend to complain about things they care about.

I agree, this sums it up best.

That just happens with Fallout anyway, nothing to do with immersion really.

I'm with you OP, never understood the whole immersion thing. I mean, I get into the game, but not in a way where if I don't see the mods of my holstered weapon I can no longer be immersed. Being as it's a game, a pure fantasy thing that I never loose track of; the only "immersion" breaker would be something outside the game world. Like the phone ringing, the doorbell, etc

One of the better answers I read about immersion was this (paraphrased):

So basically, immersion breaking comes from breaking your own world rules, not REAL world rules.

It's about being immersed in escapism. If a game can keep me into it's world without me saying something like "This makes no sense" then I'm immersed.

Sneaking into position and painstakingly lining up a long range headshot, and then -suddenly- seeing nothing but Piper's buckethead in my scope.--Instant rage and goodbye immersion.

Yeah, I don't get the whole "immersion" thing. Luckily, that means that I never really run afoul of the whole "OMG, IMMERSHUNS BROKEN!" thing that some people seem to suffer from.

As others say immersion doesnt always mean realistic. Way I think of it is breaking the flow of the game. Something that makes you go, what the hell? Or some game engine gimmick.

For some folks, finding a survivor in a locked area(after 200 years), that had no access to food or water makes people go what the hell? Bringing back memories of that abomination of the last Indiana Jones movie.

For me, in New vegas, constantly having to open up my inventory and eat/drink/sleep was not immersive. It felt like my character was a narcoleptic diabetic. However, I fixed that by fiddling with the time scale.

edit: Or my personal favorite, during the main quest, when I met up with a certain villain in an old military base, I launched a mini nuke right at his unprotected head. And he didn't die.

If you ever stopped and wondered why your character won't just think of the same "obvious" solution as you, your immersion is broken, and instead of seeing the game world as a "world" in which lateral thinking even stands a chance, you start trying to pin down how the engine's scripts work in your head. Once that happens the world's a complex simulation that runs on easily exploitable rules rather than something natural that feels like it could surprise you at any moment.

Immersion breaking at least for me:

The user interface showing if the target is hostile or not.

The quest map markers.

The crosshair.

Quest markers don't so much break immersion than prevent it entirely. Why even care about the reasons why you're following the magic compass all day every day? Without a good reason to get immersed loads of people won't. It's easier to just lazily play "follow the blip" than actually pay attention to the stuff that happens around it. You aren't engaged if you're "roleplaying" a sleepwalking zombie yes man.

Yeah, except immersion means totally different things to different people. One of my friends isn't jazzed at all by Bethesda's "forge your own story" philosophy, and uses the word to describe games like Wolf Among Us. And the devs aren't asking "how do we make our game more immersive?", they're asking "how do we make our game more entertaining?" - hence why things like legendary enemies exist, why the Brotherhood seems to have an unlimited supply of easily destroyed vertibirds, and why the dungeons in Skyrim feel more like fantasy obstacle courses than places ancient peoples might have lived in. And it's better this way, to me.

actually, I overheard them asking "How do we squeeze a few more dollars out of..."

It is true that immersion means 'belieavability'. But the problem with some of those who want more of this is that they want the game to be more and more like real life with all the ideas that look good on paper, but not in the practice.

It only means "like real life" if the game actually puts effort in to present that impression. Consistancy between what you expect and what you get are all that matters. Isolated cases of realism in otherwise cartoony games can also do this. When you're "programmed" to accept a world that looks or behaves a certain way, anything that conflicts shatters the illusion. You can watch a Disney movie and accept that world is real without question, but if you were to suddenly get a real actor randomly walk on you're reminded that the world is only animated.

Immersion doesn't necessarily mean realism. Fallout takes place in a fantasy world, but there are still ways of making the experience within the scope of the fantasy world more realistic. It's a fantasy world, but people still need to eat, drink, sleep, and still get sick and injured. Incorporating these things into the game makes for a more comprehensive and immersive experience which helps many of us feel more engaged with the game.

It also creates more opportunity for immersion breaking as well.


The more detail you apply the more IMMEDIATELY believeable the world becomes. We can "get used to" not seeing NPCs eat, drink and sleep pretty easily so when properly immersed it's hard to notice. Similarly we just tend to "get used to" seeing eating, drinking and sleeping. Before long it's a common sight, an expectation, and as background events go we end up no better off because the impression when immersed is still a stable coherent world.


But these added events are a main cause of inconsistancy. Immortal kids does this because we know that if we attacked any other random person nearby they'd probably die in one hit. NPCs doing actions like tightening bolts does this if they do it in front of empty wall space.


If no voices are in a game, consistancy is easy to maintain. With voices - particularly with characters we hear regularly like the PC - any slight difference in how lines are recorded or sound, different voice actor at an unexpected time or the occasional unspoken line break the consistancy, and they stand out like a sore thumb. When this happens immersion is broken as you're quickly trying to explain what happened - a glitch, oversight, bit of lazy design or slapdash production? All this means is you're back to seeing yourself as playing a game that someone made, rather than interacting with a living world.


The more realistic something tries to be, the easier it is to see the slightest errors or omissions. That's what the Uncanny Valley is basically about, and there's no reason the principal should only apply to human faces.