Which game world felt most "alive" ?

[Beowulf]

I'm equating alive with believable or good atmosphere.Recent games I thought had this even if poppamole

Metro 2033/lastlight universe which is more or less a corridor shooter does however have a very intimate well done world which I enjoy.

That's a strange definition. Metro games had good atmosphere when you were alone in the tunnels, thanks to great audio-visual layer.

But they were extremely linear, and I felt like they were one of the games that was on the opposite spectrum of having an alive world..
Every group scene felt like a static diorama, or an animatronic fair showcase. If you stood in one place just for a moment, you could see how artificial everything was, with mannequins repeating the same behavior over and over.
And you never came back to the same areas, and that added to the feeling that nothing ever changes.
For me the world felt really empty, like a well painted shell.

I'd say that M&B had the most alive world for me, mostly because you could take part in some of the events, or not - but something was happening nonetheless, and you could see the logic of why it was happening.

 

[Metatron]

You can't beat Arcanum in this aspect

If you never leave Tarant that is.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Kamurocho is the only answer.