Cozy liveable worlds

Medi

My favorite thing in games — something that can instantly sell me on one that might not actually be really good — is a high level of interactivity with the environment.

Small things, like getting to read books on a shelf, or play minigames via a game console / arcade cab. Yakuza is decent at this, but one huge thing it lacks for me is getting to sit in chairs — so many cozy cafes and bars in Kamurocho where I’d just love to sit down and look out the window, but try and you’ll just knock all the tables and couches over…

Any games that are especially good with this? I find as graphics get more detailed, games haven’t actually gotten much better at this kind of thing.

Somnolence

This is almost the only reason I play Bethesda games, Skyrim and New Vegas in particular. There just isn't a good competitor on the market that can do what they do. Nothing's granular or- dare I say- comfy enough. The fact you can mod them and get literally thousands upon thousands of hours of content does make them feel like an inexhaustible mine too. Really, the problem is that the core gameplay is nothing to write home about.
A few others of note:

STALKER Series
The base games are fantastic for feeling like living and intimate worlds, and the mods are almost all great. I'm partial to Misery mod for Call of Pripyat, but people will argue endlessly how X mod is better than Y. The Anomaly mod and Call of Chernobyl are both great too, depending on what you're looking for, and I've heard good things about Gamma.
Garry's Mod
This is a bit of an odd one, but back in around 2015, I put in a few hundred hours into Garry's Mod - mostly just exploring maps. With the right addons you can get a very unique and cozy vibe. The problem is that unless you like multiplayer, the worlds are almost completely devoid of life (intelligent life, let's say) and that can lead to lonely and sometimes quite disturbing moments.
Harvest Moon knockoffs
You'll struggle to find a modern Harvest Moon, proper, but there is a cottage industry of ripoffs that emulate what made the originals good quite effectively. Some people swear by Stardew Valley or Littlewood, or Traveller's Rest or whatever- but I recently loved the Steam Next Fest demo for "Doloc Town". That one benefits from a unique, cozy, post-apocalyptic setting as well. The one thing a lot of these games suffer from though is that they often want to include combat, and it always feels out of place.
Kingdom Come
I can't speak for it too much, as I've played it only very briefly. However, if you like the historical setting, this seems like an excellent immersive world with a lot to see and do.

I am always looking out for more immersive worlds though, so I'll take whatever anyone's got.

Ross_R

The Elder Scrolls series, obviously... I spent my whole childhood in Morrowind and Oblivion. I can describe for hours my character who lived in a basement near Balmora's thieves guild. Or the one from Oblivion, who lived in that city at the sea, in a formerly-haunted house, drinking fine wine and enjoying sunrises, painting some of them along the way... Mods, of course. The mods that allow you to create your own paintings, decorate your own home, et cetera, et cetera are a must.
Shamefully, I probably remember time I spent in Morrowind and Oblivion better than my actual childhood. And those games probably the reason I'm a loser in the middle of my life. But, boy, were they gorgeous...
And yeah, surely I detest Skyrim. I fought tooth and nail for Morrowing and Empire, and then Skyrim just tells me: well, Morrowind's no more and Empire's fucked. No, Bethesda, you are fucked. And fuck you, while I am at it.

Frankly, I never quite felt the same way in any other game for a long while. Sure, there are nice game where you can spend time doing stuff, but they never really amount to the "liveable world" type of thing. I did stumble on such a game most unexpectedly several years ago though. And the name of the game was - believe me or not...

Watch Dogs. Yes, the very first one that was bashed almost universally at the time of the release. I finally got to play it, and let me tell you, it was way better than I expected.
Once again though, a mod must be used. TES series have thousands of mods, which you gotta browse through and choose ones that suit your experience. It is easier with Watch Dogs: that game has only one mod, but it is an absolute must-have: Living City by TheSilver.
Anyway, I spent the first week of playing this game without even touching the main quest. That's really something for a game that isn't The Elder Scrolls, I'm telling you. I... just cannot name another example. Watch Dogs turned out to be a special cookie.
So, I simply walked around Chicago during nights, visiting vistas and clearing parking lots. See, there's a mechanic in that game that allows you to search the glovebox when you enter the car. I specifically avoided the perk that allowed you to open a car without breaking a window, so Aiden searched for the most unlit and remote parking lots and then proceeded to literally break into and loot every car there was. Come morning, I visited pawn shops to cash in the night's work, and then spent the following night playing poker with lowlifes, getting drunk in various bars and trying out all kinds of digital drugs. The only thing I wish for is that there were more bars to drink in.
I spent one whole real-life night trying to get my 200 bucks back from a bunch of gentlemen of color who were playing poker in some garage. I don't know their names, but I named them The Gangbanger, The Philosopher and The Worker. That was so memorable, I still hold their mugshots on my HDD for whatever reason:

I also spent about a week playing chess with everyone who offered... So yeah, while Watch Dogs do not amount to the sheer amount of activities you can perform in The Elder Scrolls - especially with mods - it was still quite stunning and unexpected.

If I'll think of any other game, I'll give a separate reply, but I really can hardly imagine forgetting about any game that gives you that kind of a feeling.

Couple words regarding Yakuza though... I've thought about starting one these days around... and I quickly decided against it since I found out they started remaking the first games. Boy, do I hate when that happens... They also did a lot of changes to that Majima character, and now I'm locked in eternal conflict of whether I want the original Majima, or the new funny one. I might've rolled with the remakes, but there are only remakes of the first and second game so far, so I do not see the point, unless they remakes of the third and fourth games as well. But starting the original ones when there are, supposedly, much more superior remakes... ugh. I hate when it happens.
Damn japanese and their damn remakes. That's why I can't start playing Persona too: they just can't stop remaking it. How much remakes of P3 is out there? Five?
And I sure as hell do not want to play the same game twice. I have too much games I want to try in this life to add remakes in that list.

Medi

Ross_R Forgot all about Watch Dogs, I’d just keep changing the time of day til it was rainy and night time I think. Loved the way the game looked in those moments, fun to RPwalk in.

And yes, re: Bethesda, it’s the thing that keeps me chained to them as much as I don’t care for most other things in them. Would be great if literally any other dev attempted that level of granular detail — I’ve heard good things about Kingdom Come but really not vibing with the setting.

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