10 Best Sci-Fi RPGs Of All Time
3. Deus Ex
The Immersive Sim is a subgenre of RPG that's infamously difficult to make, and even harder to make right. Being a subgenre where player choice is put at the forefront - more than any other kind of RPG - you essentially have to plan for literally everything the player could possibly think of doing, and either counter it or give them a gameplay path for it. Do it right, and you're guaranteed to sear yourself into the minds of an entire generation of gamers. Do it wrong and you just come off as clumsy and unfocused. Not only does Deus Ex fall into the former category, but it is arguably the greatest immersive sim to ever do it.
What makes Deus Ex the best immersive sim out there is that it is the platonic idea of the subgenre, where every action you could take has been anticipated and planned for by the game. You are given a single task when a mission begins, and it's up to you to figure out how to get in there. And unlike System Shock 2, every skill available to you can get you to that objective. There is no such thing as a dead-end character build, if you cannot get to the objective under the power you have, then that's your own damn fault.
Add onto that one of the most multilayered and politically relevant storylines in gaming history and you get a game for the history books.