The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim has unexpectedly received high praise from Raphael Colantonio, the creator of Prey, Dishonored, and Dark Messiah. The renowned developer of immersive sim games also included Bethesda's projects in this group.
This genre is not officially included in the list, but is actively used to describe games with a highly interactive world. It conventionally includes Deus Ex, the Thief series, System Shock, and many projects from Arkane. Now, its founder himself, in an interview with PC Gamer, added games like Skyrim and Oblivion to this category.
If you really think about it, Bethesda games—or Obsidian games—are very, very immersive sim. The overlap between first-person RPG and immersive sim, it's very blurry. I would say they are less physical than Arkane games, and they're more on the stats, but at the end of the day they totally rely on simulation. Doing things such as fooling a merchant by putting a bucket on its head is definitely an immersive same thing, right?
In his reasoning, the game designer also mentioned Baldur's Gate 3. In his opinion, this project from Larian Studios also has elements of an immersive sim, such as building a «ladder» from boxes to get into a closed location.
Earlier, Raphael Colantonio presented the first images from his new game. He called it a mix of Fallout: New Vegas and Dishonored.