Summary
- Atmosphere is crucial for immersion in exploration-heavy games like The Long Dark and Lethal Company.
- Immersive game mechanics and detailed sound design enhance the immersive experience in games like Gloomwood.
- Combining atmospheric exploration with great gameplay in titles such as Outer Wilds elevates player immersion.
Immersion can be a focus of many games across a variety of genres, but it's arguably most important in those that emphasize exploration. Games that task players with hiking through environments for potentially hours are often elevated by their atmosphere, and the more immersive this is the better.
Exploration-Heavy Games With Great Gameplay
These incredible video games not only showcase vast and complicated environments to explore, but they also deliver great gameplay to match.
Atmosphere isn't necessarily the only factor in immersion, however, with immersive game mechanics proving to be valuable in games such as The Long Dark. These games aren't necessarily realistic, either, with games such as ANIMAL WELL providing players with highly stylized but immersive worlds.
8 Lethal Company
Immersive Cooperative Horror
Lethal Company
- Released
- October 23, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
Lethal Company is an immersive horror game that focuses on cooperative exploration of dark and dangerous environments. These abandoned facilities are populated by an ensemble cast of horrifying creatures that each behave in distinctive ways, offering unique and emergent challenges as players explore.
8 Best Horror Games That Are Immediately Immersive
These great horror games pull you in with their incredible atmospheres, immediately immersing you in detailed worlds and dynamic threats.
The hopelessness of contending with these creatures and frequent horror places a clear focus on exploration over combat, and this only works to make Lethal Company a more immersive experience. The sound design, music, and quiet atmosphere all help to make Lethal Company immersive, and this is supported further by the addition of proximity voice chat.
7 Gloomwood
A Survival-Horror Immersive-Sim
Gloomwood
- Released
- September 6, 2022
WHERE TO PLAY
Gloomwood is a modern indie game that takes clear inspiration from old-school titles. This combination of survival-horror and immersive-sim offers plenty of emergent gameplay, packed with dynamic systems and replete with opportunities for player expression.
These systems work effortlessly to provide players with an immersive experience, bolstered by a painstakingly detailed and interconnected world. The dark atmosphere also provides a rich and immersive backdrop, supported by excellent sound design and carefully-crafted ambiance.
6 Resident Evil
Survival-Horror With Immersive Exploration
Resident Evil HD Remaster
- Released
- January 20, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
Resident Evil is an immersive survival-horror game with slow and methodical gameplay. This slow-burning title focuses heavily on the exploration of a manor rife with monstrous creatures, and it's jam-packed with puzzles to solve and items to find.
Resident Evil's slow and methodical gameplay is complemented perfectly by its quiet and often unsettling ambiance, balanced with moments of uncertain reprieve. The save rooms offer particularly rewarding moments, offering a sense of safety and familiarity between long bouts of dangerous exploration.
5 The Outer Wilds
Free-Form Exploration Of A Solar System
Outer Wilds
- Released
- May 28, 2019
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Mobius Digital
- Publisher(s)
- Annapurna Interactive
- Genre(s)
- Adventure
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
Outer Wilds offers an immediately immersive experience, providing players with their own spaceship and the freedom to fly it shortly after starting the game. Venturing out into the minimalist galaxy, players will soon find themselves immersed in a pure sense of discovery as they uncover mysterious environments and soak in the melancholic atmosphere.
8 Best Open-World Maps In Indie Games, Ranked
These excellent indie games offer tons to do and see across their striking open-world maps, allowing players to discover wonders around any corner.
The simple and intuitive gameplay allows players to enjoy the atmosphere without getting caught up in complex systems, and gives the game a tight focus on exploration. With its moving soundtrack, charming characters, and fluid exploration, Outer Wilds is an unforgettable and immersive experience.
4 Pacific Drive
Immersive Supernatural Expeditions
Pacific Drive
- Released
- February 22, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Ironwood Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Kepler Interactive
- Genre(s)
- Survival
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Pacific Drive provides players with atmospheric road-trips through supernatural landscapes, supported by intuitive car maintenance gameplay. The music, sound design, and stylish visuals provide an immersive ambiance, elevated by the relationship that develops between the player and their car.
With its supernatural setting, Pacific Drive features a variety of dangerous anomalies, which provide frequent hazards out on the road. This makes exploration all the more immersive, allowing the game to be engaging and often tense despite its lack of combat.
3 The Long Dark
An Immersive Hardcore Survival Game
The Long Dark
- Released
- August 1, 2017
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Hinterland Studio
- Publisher(s)
- Hinterland Studio
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
The Long Dark is a hardcore survival game that, above all else, excels with its atmosphere. While its simulated systems do help with immersion, it's arguably the detailed sound design and carefully-crafted ambiance that makes The Long Dark so immersive.
Treading through the harsh and hostile environments of The Long Dark is a quiet and often tranquil experience, albeit occasionally interrupted by natural hazards and dangerous wildlife. However, perhaps the most immersive areas of The Long Dark are its myriad interiors, which provide much-needed moments of reprieve from the dangers of the outside world.
2 Hollow Knight
An Immersive Underground World
Hollow Knight
- Released
- February 24, 2017
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Team Cherry
- Publisher(s)
- Team Cherry
- Genre(s)
- Metroidvania
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, macOS, Linux
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
Hollow Knight is a deeply atmospheric Metroidvania with a stunning art-style, supported by a poignant soundtrack and a cast of memorable characters. While this title does feature a finely-tuned combat system, it's an exploration-heavy experience that excels with its diverse variety of immersive environments.
The ruins of Hallownest are painstakingly crafted, packed with secrets and details that add to the immersion. The music, artwork, and environmental storytelling also add a great deal to the experience, but it's the world's interconnected nature that most frequently evokes a sense of discovery.
1 Animal Well
Exploration Of An Immersive & Exotic World
Animal Well
- Released
- May 9, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Shared Memory
- Publisher(s)
- Bigmode
- Genre(s)
- Metroidvania, Puzzle
- Platform(s)
- PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
Animal Well drops players at the deep end from the very start, offering an immediately enigmatic and immersive atmosphere with its exotic and often alien world. The flood of neon pixels and waving vines, a sparse population of elusive creatures, and dense, interconnected environments provide players with a truly unique and immersive place to explore.
Animal Well's gameplay is simple, intuitive, but expressive, with a variety of items that open up the world and allow players to explore in unique ways. This focus on exploration and puzzle-solving allows the immersive atmosphere to shine all the brighter, offering plenty of moments to sit and soak it in.
8 Best Open-World Maps In Indie Games, Ranked
These excellent indie games offer tons to do and see across their striking open-world maps, allowing players to discover wonders around any corner.