> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.hashtagsurvival.net/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # HumanitZ Isn’t an Immersive Sim - But It Shares the Same Spirit - URL: https://www.hashtagsurvival.net/humanitz-isnt-an-immersive-sim/ - Published: 2025-05-07T22:00:29.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-28T00:08:04.000Z - Description: HumanitZ feels better when you treat it like a sandbox of possibilities, instead of a survival to-do list. - Author: Jordan - Tags: Ponderings, Gaming At last count, my RSS feeder was keeping tabs [on over thirty feeds.](https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-does-sausage-136483351?ref=hashtagsurvival.net) That’s not just websites and not just gaming-related (hi, *Outside Magazine*), it's more like a giant-ass bucket of interests and keywords I sort through daily. While I’m pretty on top of culling the daily article flood - thanks to my ToDoist + Grit routine - a ton of articles get shunted into my ‘Saved’ feed. (The digital equivalent of tossing your laundry onto a chair to “fold later.”) --- ### I was reading an article... ...that [linked to another one about *immersive sims*](https://www.pcgamer.com/the-uncertain-future-of-games-like-deus-ex-and-dishonored/?ref=hashtagsurvival.net). At the time, that term meant absolutely *fuck all* to me. I don’t even think it was linked as “blah blah blah immersive sims”, it was describing something else entirely and dropped the link. So I read it top to bottom. Then I got confused and asked a friend for help. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/90/7b901793-9ce9-42df-a98e-002e75d6de84/content/images/2026/09/cleanshot-2025-05-06-at-14-48-30-2x.png) Shut up, I have friends! --- ### Take Two I went back and reread the article, double-checked the ChatGPT breakdown (I should say THAT breakdown, because I also have one explaining Boomer Shooters to me) and then told it that this kinda sounds like survival games. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/90/7b901793-9ce9-42df-a98e-002e75d6de84/content/images/2026/09/cleanshot-2025-05-06-at-14-51-04-2x.png) I didn't call out The Forest, though I wanted to! The convo stuck with me because I had *zero clue* what an immersive sim was. And I’d never played any of the games listed in the article. (Or the sim titles ChatGPT spit out.) But, after giving the bot a list of games I've enjoyed in the past, apparently I’ve always subconsciously **gravitated toward games with player choice, system-driven gameplay, interlocking (impactful) mechanics, and messy, emergent problem-solving**. (I also seem to gravitate toward turn based combat games, which I didn't realize, but maybe that explains why I enjoy *Wartales* so much??) Deep down, I’ve always had a personal litmus test for my games: > **Can I roleplay it? Can I believe I’m in it - like I actually belong there?** > (*Not just pressing buttons and doing video game math, but reacting to a world that reacts back.*) --- ### To the RhyDin Inn If you grew up with AOL, you’ll remember the early internet as a strange and wondrous place. And no place was more strange or wondrous than the RhyDin Inn - an AOL chatroom dedicated to letting budding English majors (\*raises hand\*) and future Dungeons & Dragons shut-ins flex their vocab and toss their flowing locks. (*Which often hid amber orbs.* Sorry! Roleplay joke. You either get it...or you’re blessed.) I won't try and explain it, I'll let ChatGPT give it a whirl. (Man, I had SO MANY roleplay characters **and SO MANY HTML websites built around each character.** Also Deadjournals, Livejournals...hmm. ) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/90/7b901793-9ce9-42df-a98e-002e75d6de84/content/images/2026/09/cleanshot-2025-05-06-at-15-26-43-2x.png) --- ### \*Slowly, he drifts back to the point...\* **HumanitZ has that va-va-voom.** It’s got the magic. It gives me that feeling that the choices I’m making are *mine*, that they have real weight, and aren’t just ticking boxes along some internal checklist. Somewhere between starving to death and saving the life of an NPC,**the good ones stop being survival games and start becoming stories you built yourself.** (Kinda like *DayZ* and their whole "THIS IS YOUR STORY" shtick, except it's really hard to have a story when you log in and are immediately murdered, or when you get shot when you're completely inside a house and laying on the ground not near windows. NOT COMPLAINING but **fix the fucking hacker problem, Bohemia.)** --- Lemme show you two screenshots. *\[Also, excuse the shit quality of my RP, once AOL died I largely abandoned roleplay, beyond a few attempts in WoW (which were terrible) and some half-assed writing with friends. I never got into the Discord-based roleplay, like my sister, and I couldn't stomach heading to forums.\]* --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/90/7b901793-9ce9-42df-a98e-002e75d6de84/content/images/2026/09/humanitz-screenshot-2025-05-01-20-33-55-25_compressed.jpg) > There was barely a moment to wrench the pickaxe from the corpse at my feet before I was lunging forward. > Up, up, up the dented side of the police car, sweaty palms sliding on sun-warmed metal, barely able to keep my grip on the weapon as I threw myself onto the roof and rolled to my back, panting. > Below me, a wolf tore into the teetering corpses with a wet, sucking noise I tried my best to ignore. I stared up at the sky, blue and indifferent, and considered my next move. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/90/7b901793-9ce9-42df-a98e-002e75d6de84/content/images/2026/09/fireborderwhite-15.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/90/7b901793-9ce9-42df-a98e-002e75d6de84/content/images/2026/09/hz22_compressed.jpg) > The needle on the gauge hovers perilously close to E, and I know my window for safe travel is almost up. Weaving along the broken pavement, dodging corpses and derelict vehicles, I spot the reddish flare of a trader’s torch ahead and steer the truck that way. She doesn’t quite make it, sputtering and clunking to a stop roughly thirty feet short of the ramshackle barn and equally ramshackle house. > Still, a win - it’s safety, of a sort. > I barter for permission to sleep in the old barn. The next night, I fall asleep to the crackle of nearby campfires, and the rhythmic crunch of footsteps on gravel lulling me to sleep. > Not much protection against bandits or the undead. > But better than being alone. In the end, *HumanitZ* proves you don’t need a strict genre label to make choices matter, sometimes you just need to stop playing it like a checklist and start thinking like a roleplayer.