You get one pick and give it a rating. You may also choose the worst. I am very curious to see if anyone can give a game in this genre a 10/10 and why. VA is stilted and you get the sense of the actors in a boot. The story has some obvious holes. 

Best - 9/10 - SOMA - A sense of complexity in something very simple and what counts the most, a story that stands with the best of any other medium. Almost perfectly paced and just a tad too long. A great sense of wonder and anticipation with a perfect pay off. Wonderfully done environmental story telling rewarding exploration. Leans a little heavily on adventure game tropes. 

Worst - 3/10 - Still Wakes the Deep - Oddly from the devs who popularised the genre with Dear Esther and another Scotish focused game. Absolutely horrendous game, so linear it might as well be on rails, pointless story, very little is redeemable and what is tends to end up as a problem like the great VA reduced to cussing every other word. Zero exploration or anything that can be considered a game. A ladder climbing, lever pulling simulator with zero anticipation and no pay off for the effort. Overpriced even on sale at €17.

Best Journey, 10/10



Perfect blend of emotion and music. I played through it at least 20 times, always different since you encounter different people along the way.


Worst Very Bad Dreams 2/10. It's supposed to be a horror game, it's just yuck.
https://www.metacritic.com/game/very-bad-dreams-do-not-fall-into-madness/
1 rating lol.

The worst I played was that everyone has gone to the rapture. Fucking hell can you walk any slower? Gone Home was also terrible. The marketing for it originally was selling it as a horror game and to it baited me and all I was was lesbo sister ran away. So fucking what? 

Can swimming count because I liked Abzu? Journey was good. Stanley Parable was enjoyable.

I think the only game I've played in this genre is Oxenfree so that would be both my best and worst by default.
I will say that I quite enjoyed it and I've got the sequel in my backlog.

I never thought of SOMA as a walking simulator, but I suppose it could conform to the general description. That would be my pick as well, if it’s eligible.

To answer the poll, I think there’s a ceiling for walking simulators. They can only be so good, because they are, by definition, not as interactive, challenging, or involved as other genres.

I didn't think Journey was a walking simulator, but it was mentioned here, and I liked it quite a bit. I also don't think Death Stranding counts, but if it does, it's another strong contender. Firewatch is another game that feels too interactive to be a walking simulator in my opinion, and it was pretty good, but I liked both Journey and Death Stranding better.

The only pure walking simulator I think I've played is Dear Esther, and I didn't really like it. It had its redeeming qualities, but I wasn't exactly a fan. It's definitely not something I'd like to call my favourite, although as the only pure walking simulator I've played, it kind of gets that role too.

The definition of walking simulator is

"A genre of adventure games where the primary focus is on movement and exploration"

Death Stranding doesn't cut it, combat rules it out. Journey and Firewatch do fit.

Dear Esther is often said to be the pioneer of walking simulators, yet they go all the way back to The Forest on ZX Spectrum. Dear Esther was first release in 2008 as a source mod for HL2 called Esther at the time. Yume Nikki came before that in 2004.

Esther was great at its time, but imo surpassed by The vanishing of Ethan Carter.

One hidden gem on PSVR is Here They Lie, hampered by low resolution but oddly weird and fantastic.

It must have done something right for it to still be vivid in my memories.

Walking simulators are perfect for VR.

Saying a walking sim can’t be a 10/10 is like saying a movie can’t be a 10/10. It doesn’t have the interactivity of other video games, but that’s not what they are trying to be, they are different experiences.
Journey, The Stanley Parable and What Remains of Edith Finch are all in the 9/10-10/10 territory for me. Despite it’s praise, Gone Home did not impress me all that much, but it was still okay.

Hm, I'd never label Journey or SOMA as walking simulators, since there is plenty of gameplay in them.

That said, I'm not sure if I ever finished any of actual walking sims - they were all so utterly boring to me.

Hmm. Oh idk. I never beat Journey but if it's like Flower it's not a walking sim, Flower definitely had gameplay and traditional levels and aspects of a video game but just set up oddly for ease of gameplay and it is a 10/10. Then again Abzu definetly feels very walking sim but instead of walking it's swimming, didn't finish past the first hour so can't judge. As for SOMA it's in that weird space where it's a walking sim mixed with Adventure elements but definetly a walking sim as with Nobody wants to die which is a more conplex walking sim, they have interactive elements but so does Still Wakes the Deep with pulling levers and Gone Home with it's puzzle but it's all very surface level.
I also think there is a ceiling to walking sims, perhaps they can be a 10/10 but they need way more effort and that effort has yet to come. They should be ahead of normal games by a long shot with graphics, VA, story etc and feel lime a geberation leap and have a story that beats the best of any medium. SOMA lacked the VA and a few other details but definetly could have been a 10/10 with a few tweaks and if it had interactibility and actual choices not like the facade of Nobody wants to die or two ending based on one decision but actual choice like Robocop Rougue city another game which is has walking aim elements. Death Stranding does not count but I can see why people would think it, there are way too many features, gamepkay elements and traditional camera snatching cutscenes. I wanna see the genre evolve into something like Robocop mixed with Detroit Become Human but keep the same general features.