New Blood CEO confirms that describing games like Gloomwood and Fallen Aces as immersive simulations is the worst way to sell them.

Background: A 1990s Insider Phrase Meets the Year 2000 Role-Playing Game Frame

Fans of Deus Ex, Dishonored and Gloomwood often reach for the phrase immersive sim when they describe first-person drawer searching, guilt-ridden murder and player-driven solutions. The label began as an insider term for alumni of Looking Glass. In the 1990s, when the vocabulary of game design was not fixed, they used it to codify a shared set of principles. Warren Spector helped spread it through interviews and postmortems. For fans, adopting the phrase felt a little like joining a club.

New Blood Interactive CEO Dave Oshry says he did not know the term until Gloomwood lead Dillon Rogers started work on an open world that riffed on Thief and Resident Evil. Rogers, in Oshry’s retelling, identified what these games were called, and Oshry reacted as though he had never heard the label before. Oshry was not new to the games themselves. He grew up loving Deus Ex and Thief, but remembers calling Thief a stealth game and Deus Ex a first-person shooter role-playing game because it combined shooting with points spent on abilities, similar to Diablo.

By the year 2000, putting points into skills and traits was mostly associated with role-playing games, although that system later spread across mainstream games of all kinds. System Shock and Deus Ex were understood by many people as role-playing games. Deus Ex added dialogue, narrative choices and deadly greasel combat, which made it seem like a natural extension of that category.

Development: Studios Found the Phrase Hard to Sell and Easier to Avoid

The phrase can be read as an inside baseball term that broke containment. The core problem is commercial. Oshry says the phrase is not a good marketing term and calls it awful. Many major publishers treat immersive sims as niche and unworkable, while role-playing games make lots of money and sell lots of copies. New Blood first became known for boomer shooters such as Dusk and Ultrakill, then invested years in two early access immersive sims, the well-regarded Gloomwood and Fallen Aces. Oshry jokes about putting all the money into immersive sims so the company can go broke like earlier great studios such as Looking Glass.

A couple of years ago, Arkane founder Raphael Colantonio said the same thing. He argued that nobody wonders what a role-playing game is. People may debate whether Bethesda role-playing games are immersive sims, but the market understands role-playing game. He said the same applies to Baldur’s Gate. If a studio calls a game an immersive sim, only a tiny percentage of people will know what it means and become excited; the rest will ask what it is.

That confusion had consequences. During the making of Arkane’s Prey, the developer wasted lots of time explaining to its intended audience what an immersive sim was. Oshry’s account suggests that time might have been better spent selling players on the joyous possibilities of the gloo cannon. Bethesda was disappointed by Prey’s sales and set the studio to work on Redfall instead, a route that ultimately led to Arkane Austin’s closure under Xbox.

The definition fight also touches big modern examples. Oshry says that if a game immerses players in a world and lets them build a character, that sounds like a role-playing game. He argues that Baldur’s Gate 3 could be described as an immersive sim because of the way Larian builds games. It is not first-person, but players can stack boxes, use spells to pull objects toward them and solve problems in unique ways. Senior Larian developers have referred to their Forgotten Realms game as an immersive sim, but the phrase does not appear in its trailers or on its Steam page. Oshry believes marketing a game as a role-playing game is likely better than marketing it as an immersive sim.

Oshry also says the term works for people who already know it. They picture a game where they can solve problems by stacking boxes, crawling through vents and stabbing people in the back. For mainstream audiences, however, immersive sim can sound like a simulator. He believes the people who already understand it do not need to be sold on the genre, while people who do not understand it may not respond at all.

Latest Progress: 2026 Bundling Replaces the Term With Stealth and Boomer Shooter Language

New Blood has tried simpler labels. When the company first started promoting Gloomwood, Oshry attempted to sidestep the immersive sim problem. He frames the choice as marketing genius: he used the pitch Thief with guns because it was an easy elevator pitch. He calls that a blessing and a curse. It brought in fans of Thief who expected certain things, but Gloomwood is obviously not just Thief with guns. It also takes from Call of Cthulhu and Resident Evil. Like most New Blood games, it is a mishmash of many genres.

By contrast, boomer shooter has proven straightforwardly useful throughout New Blood’s existence. Oshry notes that some people ask what the term means by saying boomer shooters were not played by baby boomers. He counters that his father was a boomer and played these games. He also says John Romero and John Carmack are Generation X, but Sandy Peterson is definitely a boomer. For him, boomer shooter tells people immediately that a game is like Doom and Quake and stuff.

The clearest current example of label strategy is the way New Blood packages its immersive simulation work on Steam. Gloomwood and Fallen Aces are bundled with Stalker-like Blood West under the name the stealth trilogy. Oshry says that stealth branding draws people in, while an immersive sim trilogy label would not sell the games.

The source also places this discussion in a 2026 games context, pointing to coverage of upcoming games, best PC games, free PC games, best first-person shooter games, best role-playing games and best cooperative games. Image credits in the original material include New Blood, New Blood Interactive, and Trey Powell and Jason Bond. The original page also listed Facebook, X, Reddit, Pinterest, Flipboard and Email as sharing links.

Current Stage: The Genre Label Remains Insider Language While Sales Language Shifts

The argument over immersive sim is not only a definition fight. It is a distribution problem. For players who already know the term, it signals a specific set of systems and possibilities. For publishers and mainstream buyers, it can sound obscure, niche or mistaken for a simulator.

That tension explains why studios tied to the genre often prefer clearer commercial categories. Role-playing game is widely understood. Stealth is a direct hook for players who want sneaking, exploration and player-driven solutions. Boomer shooter works because it immediately points to Doom and Quake-style play. For New Blood, the 2026 stealth trilogy approach shows the current stage of the debate: the mechanics may still be immersive simulation, but the selling language is increasingly built around labels the market can recognize.