this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2026
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The benefit is the experience. The difference in experiences comes down to the level design. Are you in a maze or in a field?
The best game designs masks this in both scenarios.
The well designed linear game doesn't always feel like a maze, and has sections that feel like fields between mazes.
The well designed open world game contains mazes that you discover in a field that feels roped off into clearly defined sections that differ from each other and contain large landmarks to orient and draw you in.
Both feel bad if they don't include (at least the illusion of) the other. A linear game is boring without any choice. An open world game is boring without linear moments.
I mean like, compare a ... hub and spokes style immersive sim game, to any given open world game.
With an ImSim, you often get planted into an area, with a single or multiple main quests, and a whole bunch of essentially discoverable sidequests... and, when done well, those optional sidequests significantly affect how the main quests play out, and may give you different options for how to approach or conclude those main quests.
Then, onto the next hub/spoke section.
ImSims are not typically associated with literal huge open spaces... but the spaces they do have tend to be well interwoven.
There are often entirely optional, missable 'sidequests and submazes', basically, even in a typically smaller amount of literal space.
But also, they're not strictly linear in the way of like ... an FPS campaign/single player mode usually is. Sure you can have the literal levels be maze like, but typically/traditionally, theres usually only one entrance and exit, and the specifics of what you did in any given maze don't really impact the next maze beyond your weapon and ammo count and health maybe carrying over.
ImSims open up the conceptual field of a given linear sequence of levels, by allowing totally different play styles to yield signifcantly different experiences, and often the additional mechanics they do this with are more than just combat... social and exploratory play can be rewarded or punished by altering the narrative itself.