Dishonored Director Says Big Budget Immersive Sims Can Still Work

Harvey Smith, best known for his work on Dishonored and Deus Ex, believes large budget immersive sims can still succeed, provided their scope, systems and financial expectations are handled carefully.

Smith recently left Arkane and formed a new studio, Black Pony Immersive. He argues that immersive sims do not need to be restricted to smaller projects, even though rising development costs have made publishers more cautious about funding games aimed at narrower audiences.

His view differs slightly from that of longtime immersive sim designer Randy Smith Evergreen, who has argued that the genre may be better suited to smaller AA or independent productions.

Topic	Harvey Smith’s view
Ideal project size	Can work at small or large scale
Main concern	Budget must match realistic expectations
Big budget potential	Can produce games like Deus Ex, Dishonored or BioShock
Main risk	Expensive projects becoming too conservative
Key design strength	Emergent systems and player freedom
New studio	Black Pony Immersive

Budget alone does not determine whether an immersive sim works

Smith agrees that developers need to control spending, but he does not think smaller budgets are automatically better for the genre.

An immersive sim could be a short two hour experience built around a small environment, or it could be a much larger production supported by a major team and substantial funding.

The important issue is whether the scope matches the available resources.

When larger budgets are used effectively, Smith points to games such as Deus Ex, Dishonored and BioShock as examples of what becomes possible. Bigger teams can build more complex AI, physics systems, environments and player tools.

However, large budgets also create pressure.

Publishers expecting large commercial returns may push developers toward safer mechanics and broader appeal. That can be particularly damaging for immersive sims, which depend heavily on experimentation, systemic interactions and player freedom.

Emergent systems remain central to the genre

Smith argues that the strongest immersive sims give players tools and systems that can interact in ways the developers may not have predicted.

He recalled an example from Deus Ex in which players discovered they could use magnetic mines as temporary climbing tools. By placing a mine on a wall, jumping onto it and then repositioning another mine higher up, players could reach areas in unintended ways.

That type of behavior was not specifically designed as a climbing mechanic. It emerged because the game's physics and tools were flexible enough to allow experimentation.

For Smith, this is one of the defining qualities of an immersive sim.

Complex AI, physical systems and open ended tools create combinations that designers cannot always predict. Players can observe situations, experiment and find solutions that are different from the intended path.

Small projects face different limitations

Lower budget immersive sims avoid some of the financial pressure associated with AAA development, but Smith says smaller teams face their own problems.

Limited time, staffing and money can make it difficult to build systems with enough depth and range.

A project may have strong art direction, atmosphere and environmental storytelling but still feel incomplete if its mechanics do not interact deeply enough.

Smith therefore sees risks at both extremes.

A very expensive game may become too conservative because publishers want to protect the investment. A very small project may lack the resources required to create sufficiently complex systems.

His view is that successful immersive sims usually need to find a suitable middle ground between ambition, resources and commercial expectations.

Black Pony Immersive has not announced its first game yet, but Smith's comments suggest the studio will continue exploring the systemic design philosophy that shaped Deus Ex and Dishonored.