My association with action RPGs are primarily action games with somewhat minor RPG elements (as in you can't play a racically different character) often with good writing and/or world building.

Deus Ex and other games that fall under the immersive sim umbrella may lean toward action RPG or CRPG, but for me what defines them is deep locational flexibility and choice.

For example, Diablo is clearly an action RPG, but it doesn't really have the location specific elements to it.

Deus Ex is arguably also an action RPG (although less so than most modern action RPGs) while also offering distinct choices and approaches at the location level.

From a branding perspective I get that using just RPG is probably easier and immersive sim is not a well known (or easy to define), category by players.

I'm like 99% sure this applies to Baldur's Gate 3 and I ain't even mad about that.

Killer of studios, devourer of devs.

Yeah. Nobody felt comfortable calling them RPGs. Because apart from character stats they were far removed from other contemporary RPGs.

Saw a YouTube video the other day about what genre we'd put Doom in if we didn't call it FPS. And they also arrived at RPG because Doom was basically a continuation of first person dungeon crawler games. They just weren't as deluded as OOP.

We could call most story driven games nowadays RPGs And that's simply because that's the root of many games. A lot of nerds wanted to bring their favourite TTRPG onto the computer and so invented a myriad new ways to do so which has been iterated on ever since.

Calling every game with RPG elements an RPG is like calling every mammal fish. Technically correct but massively oversimplified.

It's one of my favorite early access games of the past few years. My only problem with it is that they give you an awesome backstab alongside stealth mechanics that rival Thief, then make half of the enemies past the tutorial immune to stabbing. My preferred way to play stealth games is to clear out everyone without ever being spotted, but this makes that playstyle impossible.

Based on one comment, it looks like you are an immature person.