What is a walking simulator?

[Legend]

Past few days I've seen the strangest games listed as walking simulators. Like calling The Witness and Scorn walking simulators.

Has this "genre" expanded? I thought it only included games that had literally no challenge and were just walking like Gone Home.

[the-pi-guy]

I feel like people have been using "walking simulator" as a pejorative against Uncharted and other games for years now.

[Legend]

I feel like people have been using "walking simulator" as a pejorative against Uncharted and other games for years now.

Maybe this is just an evolution of that, but back then they felt like tongue in cheek ways to insult Uncharted and the like. Not something a fan would use, like this person with Scorn:

"I dunno, feels like Myst Junior for me. Ancient alien machine, unsympathetic atmosphere.
Nice walking sim for when you want to chill out and be weirded out"


It's just kinda funny since outside of Death Stranding jokes, I really haven't thought about walking simulators since Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.

edt: lol Elden Ring has the "walking simulator" tag on Steam.

[SWORDF1SH]

Tags on Steam aren't very accurate. Even with 2 or 3 tags in the filter, the majority of the results don't come even close to what I'm looking for

[kitler53]

i agree (with what i think...) Pi (...is trying to say).   

"walking simulator" is a genre but most of the time when you see people use the term its just a way to insult a the game.  it's basically a way for them to say "the gameplay sucked".

[Legend]

Tags on Steam aren't very accurate. Even with 2 or 3 tags in the filter, the majority of the results don't come even close to what I'm looking for

Last week I experienced that with immersive sims. It's a very specific game design approach with a dedicated fanbase, think Thief, Dishonored, Prey, Deus Ex, yet people use the tag for sports games  

[Legend]

Talks a bit about genres shifting in meaning over time, like adventure and rouge like.