The open-endedness of a simulation game is one of endless entertainment, but there is an argument to be made that the kind of entertainment it provides is less substantial in its base form when compared to role playing games. I’m going to dispute that. The only story in simulations is the story you give it, regardless of the loose story structure the game provides you. Depending on the game, you can have varying degrees of personality per person you’re managing. Sims is a good example of that, defining personality traits and relationships for you to monitor, adjust, help, or hinder.
I can vividly remember playing Sims 2 as a kid. It was a lot like making up stories to play with friends, except it was something I could do on my own. Making stories with friends provides a certain amount of unpredictability, not knowing how the others are going to react to your childlike improvisation. While you could make your own stories and act them out yourself, it’s nowhere near as fun.
Aside from Stardew Valley, which has a stronger story element than most simulation games, I’ve been drawn back into my old Sims habit with Rimworld. Still in early access, it has a few kinks that still need to be worked out, but otherwise it’s a pretty solid colony management game with a complex storytelling AI. Your colonists are randomized with backgrounds, professions, and character traits, not unlike Sims. Unlike Sims, you’re more concerned with survival than how your characters are getting along, but that stuff still matters in game. Fights break out, someone gets hurt, and before you know it, you’ve run out of medicine by the time the yearly flu comes around and gets everyone and your cow sick.
Probably the most interesting aspect of the open ended simulation game is the ways in which players challenge themselves. Look up Rimworld play throughs on Youtube and within a couple of videos, you’ll find a few titled something along the lines of “Surviving Ice Sheet Biome” with some variations such as not starting off with any materials, only starting off with one colonist, etc.
We’re not merely content with playing a game. If we enjoy the gameplay itself, we’re likely to mod it out the wazzo (I probably have at least 15-20 mods on my Rimworld game) and to put ourselves in unnecessary challenges just to see if we can do it. Aside from our own entertainment – and often our own frustration – we challenge ourselves just to say we did it.
While playing simulations isn’t storytelling in the traditional sense, talk to a friend that’s played any kind of management or simulation game and ask them about the wildest or hardest thing they had to face. They’ll tell you some wild stories about the weird bugs they’ve encountered, how the game suddenly turned on them but they still beat it. I’ve laughed and awed at some of the stories I’ve heard from other players, and the feeling that anything can happen in simulation games, where you can encounter a story no one else has told yet, is the best part of them.
Video Games Deconstructed 