So which game has the best "living world" feeling?

>NOO the world is empty!!
There's always a plant to collect from, wild animal to appreciate or harvest for materials, or camp/patrol of hostile(not even all the time) entities everywhere you go. Often times you'll even find different factions going at each other as a result of robust AI interactions. How the fuck can you claim it's not lively, let alone one of the best?

good b8
Elden ring doesn't even attempt to make an open world that feels like a "living world" because it's a rotting world in heavy decline. Almost everyone has lost their mind, there are almost no villages or towns. It feels like a dead and hostile world on purpose.

Come on man

assassins creed unity

mainstream devs have pretty much given up on this stuff. During the mid - late 2000's it was the next big thing but they quickly dropped any attempts and there's been little improvement since then.

It's a lot of work & can be costly in terms of performance, for no commercial gain. 90% of players don't care if something happens in a world just because they entered an area and triggered the event/behavior, instead of happening because the AI themselves made a "decision" based on the situation.

It's only going to be indie dev passion projects that delve into this stuff.

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the absolute state of fromdrones

kingdom come deliverance and ultima 7 and oblivion/skyrim

The Witcher 3's world is probably the one vidya game where the world actually feels pretty realistic and alive.

artificial academy 2

Space rangers and mount and blade

Rainworld is probably the best modern title with a living world/ecosystem feel. It's very specific in its purpose though.

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I played it hoping it would be Anime The Sims, but they just run around mindlessly and didn't feel like a living world much.

Gothic, Oblivion/Skyrim and Witcher 3. Some people say shit like Mount and Blade but I don't personally see it since it's a murder economy instead of seeing farms and infrastructure dotting the land. Yeah I know you can trade but that stuff just "poofs" in out of thin air.

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kek how can you even say that? the npcs do nothng, just repeat literally two lines.
I love the game, the world looks great and everything, it's extremely soulful, but it is just a facade

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>There's always a plant to collect from, wild animal to appreciate or harvest for materials, or camp/patrol of hostile(not even all the time) entities everywhere you go.
Welp, go home everybody. Every single MMO are souls-like now

"Lived in" doesn't just mean elder scrolls NPCs. The cities have a sense of scale to them, there's food production on the outskirts, animal ranches, industries in the cities and roads connecting everything + the NPCs don't just stand around stationary day and night like in Morrowind. That's what he was talking about.

Stalker or todd games, the only games that bother to simulate stuff beyond what the player is looking at

ultima still hasn't been topped in this aspect

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X series.

The world move on without you, wars are raged, stations are build. You're just a cog in the machine. That's what living world means to me.

Is that Chicago? I didn't think it had any trees.

Is Foundations good yet?

Todd games

Indies don't have the budget or manpower for living worlds outside of autistic roguelikes like dorf and unreal

Fable

Kenshi

Top down oblique hurts my brain

Niggers like you would think far cry is a lively game lmao

>kek how can you even say that? the npcs do nothng, just repeat literally two lines.
Sounds pretty realistic.

There's nothing "living" about the witcher 3 world. It has great window dressing with NPC animations etc to make it look like they're doing things, but there's absolutely nothing going on beneath the hood. None of it is AI driven, it's a facade as another user put it.

When people talk about a "living world" in games, they mean the NPCs/creatures being able to make their own sandboxy decisions to an extent which drives their interactions, with potential impact on the world (no matter how small/inconsequential it is). This creates a sense of not knowing exactly what's going to happen as to some degree, the AI has some freedom - leading to a sense of being in a "living" world.

Oblivion, Stalker, Ultima, Rainworld are examples of this in different ways. Witcher 3 is not an example of this.

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Why did they dumb it down in Skyrim?

>Why did they dumb down Skyrim?
ftfy

Fromdrones everyone, fromdrones

>everything is simulated in the universe
>traders trade, miners mine, has an effect on faction's economy which is has an effect on the size of their military
>go to wars on their own, organise attacks, territory changes hand etc

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My point wasn't that these are the defining features of a soulsbourne game, it's that the game is full of living things that you can interact with or interact with each other. MMOs are dependent on other players filling in the space between shit tier respawning enemy placement. It's like saying a twitch chatroom is full of life. Handcrafted vs artificial.

>around orcs
>life's short

I'd personally add Fallout 4 to that list as well but only because I set up countless supply chains with Securitrons and whenever I'd just walk around the map, I'd run into one of them fighting raiders/creatures/gunners. It kind of feels like you really build up a presence in the game and that elsewhere more raiders are suffering due to your robotic might.

RDR2. Depending on where you are in the story, railroads, houses, and towns are built. And it's not just from a timeskip, but an actual progression.

And characters in side missions look different after the time skip.

Weirdly, Cyberpunk 2077 was incredibly immersive, at least when it wasn't glitching out or crashing.

Because creating unique schedules with their own interactions takes time and ultimately no one fucking cares.

If you ask casuals what's wrong with Skyrim theyll say the combat sucks and the world feels small, not that NPC#254 does the same fucking thing every day

RDR2

>ER
>brimming with life
Mr. Zaki and his dying world fetish say no

It really wasn't because any attempt to interact with the world whatsoever revealed how completely static everything is.

ass creed odyssey. The sheer size of the world always kept the illusion that there is life everywhere
its such a shame these talented world designers are wasted on dogshit franchise

I really hope you're false flagging, because despite being a fan of fromsoft games myself, I think the ones calling you a fromdrone are right.

Thriving in spite of adversity is literally the MO of soulsbourne titles. The "dying world" (despite having already outlined the many instances of life) is an important tonal contrast for the player/NPCs and their struggles. It makes it more beautiful to see life.

oh yeah, stumbling upon Ashen Lake and other not-fucked places feels great but I wouldn't exactly call those worlds "brimming with life"

Miyazakis worlds are not even "dying". They are straight up dead and decomposed with all civilization collapsed. A dying world is a world full of poverty, war and disease. His are just full of zombies

Looks interesting. I've never played a space sim, sell me on this one instead of the others that also have dynamic worlds/ai

Last time i played was a lot of patches ago, maybe 3.0 or 4.0 or something. I can say it was in a playable state but optimization was an issue. It's okay, you can feel they are trying to make it into X3 - The sequel. If i had time or a better computer, i would've installed again to see the new patch.

GW2

RAGE 2™

>It's world is brimming with life.
you are literally the only non-hostile non-static character that is actively exploring the world
you will never have another NPC adventurer travel past you on his horse or even see a travelling merchant
there are only enemies, there's no fucking life to it even if there are 'rabbitgaroo' running about
anyway, RDR2 is the best. there's so much effort and detail put into the world it's staggering, will never be topped by anyone but Rockstar themself

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>Thriving
eh, don't know if i'd go that far

>mud seeps into river banks after rain
the type of autist detail only found in a Rockstar game

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>you are literally the only non-hostile non-static character that is actively exploring the world
>what are quest NPCs moving across the land all the fucking time
>you will never have another NPC adventurer travel past you on his horse or even see a travelling merchant
>what are the race of LITERAL NOMADIC merchants
>life can only exist if it's on horseback
I can't tell if you're being disingenuous or not or if it's some of that stupid discord shit I hear about.