The term immersive sim has existed for decades now. Here's an article from 2000 talking about it: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131523/postmortem_ion_s

The term immersive sim has existed for decades now. Here's an article from 2000 talking about it: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131523/postmortem_ion_storms_deus_ex.php https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131523/postmortem_ion... It is a fairly loose concept though, of course. Plenty of games have "immersive sim" aspects. Even games like Breath of the Wild or the latest Hitman games. But there are open world RPGs that don't match the immersive sim philosophy, and immersive sims that don't have an open world.