What is your favorite immersive sim?
Some time ago it would have been a tie between System Shock or Deus EX, without a doubt.
With few strong contenders like Thief, STALKER, etc.
Among the recent ones very few can match Arkane's Prey.
That would be more or less my list. Blasts from the past that come immediately to mind are: Systemshock2, Deus Ex, Thief1&2. From recent Arcane output Prey is easily my favourite - while I like Dishonored 1&2 a lot, I feel Prey just works better in encouraging taking advantage of the whole kit at player's disposal.
While I wouldn't describe them as Immersive sim, but I think are worthwhile when discussing BG3 would be Fallout1&2, Arcanum, Bloodlines: Mascarade - Tim Cain was very good in building robusts systems and then building worlds/questlines to be solved using those systems. There was a breakdown of one of the earliest quests in Fallout1 (rescue a girl from slavers) and depending on character's skillset there was about 7 ways to complete the missions mostly thanks to systemic nature of the game. My personal difference between Tim Cain's classics and Larian's games is that those options always felt like valid way of progressing - here is objective, and how you do it is up to you. In Larian games I feel like there is scripted, linear way of progressing, and then there are ways to break the progressions - which I just don't find nearly as appealing.
