Even the most immersive games are stuck in a flatscreen world. While developers can create fantastical visuals and wonderful soundscapes and have done so since the advent of home computing, sometimes there’s only so much that you can do.
Haptic feedback is beginning to emulate the sense of touch, and advances in tech, like the Nintendo Switch’s HD Rumble feature, make it clear that simulation is an area of importance for developers. But there is currently no realistic way for games to replicate the senses of taste and smell directly to a player. Short of including a personal chef with each copy of a cooking sim to recreate the recipes in the player’s own home, it is unlikely the industry will overcome that particular barrier in the near future.
