Summary
There’s a special kind of thrill in discovering that everything surrounding a character—the world, the rules, even their memories—has beenartificially created. These aren’t justgame worldswith trippy aesthetics or quirky mechanics. These are full-blown simulations, layered with false realities, hidden truths, and existential dread tucked neatly between loading screens.
Sometimes it’s aMatrix-style“what is real” scenario, and other times it’s a fourth-wall-breaking fever dream. Regardless, all of these games share one thing in common: they make players question everything. These arethe best games where the world is a simulation.
Genre
Action-Adventure, Third-Person Shooter
While most licensedgames from the 2000swere quick cash-ins,The Matrix: Path of Neotried to be something else—an interactive mind-bender that dove straight into the heart of simulated existence. The narrative re-imagines Neo’s journey through the lens of player agency. It even throws in alternate story paths and an ending that’s completely different from the movie, featuring a literal giant made of Agent Smiths.
The entire world operates like a simulation, because it is one, built to enslave minds while their bodies rot in pods. Walls can be run on, bullets can be dodged, and code-bending stunts become regular combat techniques. Even the menu UI mimics cascading code. It’s not a subtle game, but it doesn’t need to be. The simulation is loud, flashy, and always on the edge of breaking, which is exactly what makes it such a nostalgic oddity.
At first glance,Viewfinderappears to be apuzzle gamewith a quirky gimmick. However, that mechanic—placing photographs into the world and having them materialize as solid terrain—ends up being the backbone of a simulation so layered, it starts to fold in on itself. Players move through virtual environments within an AI system designed to preserve consciousness, but something is clearly wrong.
The deeper one goes into the levels, the more corrupted the world starts to feel. Voices of past users linger like digital ghosts, and even the game’s friendly tone is eventually peeled back to reveal a project gone off the rails.Viewfinderis short, surreal, and clever in how it frames simulation not as a narrative twist, but as an integral, ever-warping part of thegameplay itself.
A Dystopia Disguised As Daytime TV
Platforms
PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X & S, Xbox One, PC
Adventure, Puzzle
ImagineThe Truman Show, but instead of one man, it’s an entire city—and instead of a benevolent creator, it’s a profit-driven ratings machine. That’s the premise behindAmerican Arcadia, a game where citizens live in a utopia that’s actually a 24/7reality showbroadcast to the outside world.
The simulation isn’t digital, but social, enforced by propaganda, surveillance, and invisible producers controlling every narrative beat. The city is kept charming and pastel to mask the fact that anyone who sees a drop in their popularity is quietly “removed.” Players switch between two characters: one trying to escape, and another trying to help from the outside. Every inch of the city, every smiling citizen, is a set piece in a carefully curated illusion—and once the curtain starts slipping, the chase begins.
Things feel off on Talos 1 long before the truth hits. The station is full ofshapeshifting aliens, strange tech, and too many locked doors. But what makesPreysuch a standout is the way it weaponizes the idea of simulation against its own player. That iconic intro—where Morgan Yu’s apartment breaks apart to reveal a fabricated reality—immediately sets the tone.
Morgan’s entire experience is a simulation nestled within another simulation, as he’s being tested, observed, and reset repeatedly. There’s a layer of uncertainty to every action, because at any moment, the game might pull the rug again. Even the “real” world might not be real. It plays with perception, throws doubt at memory, and challenges what counts as identity—all while letting players hurl coffee mugs at alien squids pretending to be staplers.
Renaissance Italy is gorgeously realized inAssassin’s Creed 2, but under all thathistorical flairlies a simulation running on stolen genetic memories. Ezio Auditore’s story is relived through the Animus, a machine that lets Desmond Miles explore his ancestors’ past. However, the simulation isn’t passive; it glitches, breaks, and reveals hidden glyphs left by another consciousness trapped in the system.
These symbols unlock cryptic videos suggesting humanity was engineered by a precursor race and nearly wiped out by a solar catastrophe. That lore is tucked beneath cathedrals and frescoes, hidden in plain sight, and it slowly chips away at the romanticism of the setting. While Ezio is off stabbing corrupt nobles, the simulation hums in the background, a reminder that players aren’t exploring history—they’re trapped in a machine chasing truths no one wanted them to find.
By the timeSaints Row 4opens with a missile hijack set to Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” it’s already clear that reality has left the building. Shortly after, Earth is destroyed by aliens, and the President of the United States (aka. the player character) is trapped inside a simulated version of Steelport. Here’s where it gets wild: in this virtual prison, the rules are bent so far that they snap.
The simulation is a blend of glitchy visual design, parody-driven missions, and an upgrade system that lets players sprint faster than cars and leap over skyscrapers. The key detail is that it’s all being controlled by an alien tyrant trying to mentally break the player. It’s absurd, flashy, and filled with fourth-wall winks, but beneath the chaos, it’s still a simulation built to manipulate and subdue. It just happens to let players break it for fun.
