On: The Strange, Unfinished Saga of Cyberpunk 2077

[hutzlibu]

Gothic (the game) introduced that concept even 20 years ago for me.

[pixelpoet → hutzlibu]

Can go much further back to e.g. the Ultima games, especially Ultima 7. The world was incredibly big and you had a decent approximation to a living world.

[rasz → pixelpoet]

Another one from same time frame (1989-1992) was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Theatre Lure of the Temptress