Walking simulator

The central elements of walking simulators are controversial due to purported lack of challenge, and discontent of such games became common in the mid-to-late 2010s among "hardcore" gamers.

[3] Developers including Dan Pinchbeck, who co-created Dear Esther, reject this narrow definition in favor of a more expansive and inclusive one.

[4] Whether to use the term or something else continues to be debated by developers and fans, with those in support pointing out the positive health and mental benefits of walking as a sign it does not have to be derogatory.

Detractors characterize it as dismissive and condescending, relating it to other insults like "social justice warrior", although even its critics expressed a feeling of inevitability that it would continue to be used for the foreseeable future.

A 1980s science fiction successor, Explorer, took place on a forested Earth-like planet and featured 40 billion procedurally generated individual locations, randomly combining graphical components.

[5] In 2003, [domestic], an art game developed by Mary Flanagan, reused first-person shooter environments to reconstruct a childhood memory of a fire.

[7] In contrast to the metaphorical meaning of the term, the upcoming Baby Steps by Bennett Foddy has been described as a literal walking simulator in which the player must directly control the character's legs.

[6] In 2019, Rachel Watts of PC Gamer stated that walking sims "have challenged the way in how video games are played, experienced and defined", and that some of the criticism over their mechanics has begun to shift.