mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Recurrent Environment Simulators

arXiv 1704.02254 ↗First posted 7 Apr 2017cs.AI cs.LG stat.MLcited by 68

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Cited by 29 in World models, but placed by its own abstract, which didn’t fit.

Abstract (arXiv)

Models that can simulate how environments change in response to actions can be used by agents to plan and act efficiently. We improve on previous environment simulators from high-dimensional pixel observations by introducing recurrent neural networks that are able to make temporally and spatially coherent predictions for hundreds of time-steps into the future. We present an in-depth analysis of the factors affecting performance, providing the most extensive attempt to advance the understanding of the properties of these models. We address the issue of computationally inefficiency with a model that does not need to generate a high-dimensional image at each time-step. We show that our approach can be used to improve exploration and is adaptable to many diverse environments, namely 10 Atari games, a 3D car racing environment, and complex 3D mazes.

Key facts. Cited by 68 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 7 Apr 2017.

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Citing papers per year: 2018: 1; 2019: 1; 2020: 0; 2021: 17; 2022: 9; 2023: 14; 2024: 13; 2025: 10; 2026: 3.

68 papers.

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  1. 2024Genie: Generative Interactive Environmentscited by 706
  2. 2021Offline Reinforcement Learning as One Big Sequence Modeling Problemcited by 636
  3. 2023DragNUWA: Fine-grained Control in Video Generation by Integrating Text, Image, and Trajectorycited by 260
  4. 2021Towards Causal Representation Learningcited by 207
  5. 2021PredRNN: A Recurrent Neural Network for Spatiotemporal Predictive Learningcited by 181
  6. 2021DriveGAN: Towards a Controllable High-Quality Neural Simulationcited by 125
  7. 2021Pathdreamer: A World Model for Indoor Navigationcited by 117
  8. 2024Web Agents with World Models: Learning and Leveraging Environment Dynamics in Web Navigationcited by 116
  9. 2022Generating Long Videos of Dynamic Scenescited by 113
  10. 2024Is Sora a World Simulator? A Comprehensive Survey on General World Models and Beyondcited by 111
  11. 2025TesserAct: Learning 4D Embodied World Modelscited by 90
  12. 2024Pandora: Towards General World Model with Natural Language Actions and Video Statescited by 83
38 more
  1. 2023DREAMWALKER: Mental Planning for Continuous Vision-Language Navigationcited by 82
  2. 2024World Models for Autonomous Driving: An Initial Surveycited by 79
  3. 2021Playable Video Generationcited by 63
  4. 2025Long-Context State-Space Video World Modelscited by 59
  5. 2025Embodied AI Agents: Modeling the Worldcited by 57
  6. 2025Back to the Features: DINO as a Foundation for Video World Modelscited by 56
  7. 2022Iso-Dream: Isolating and Leveraging Noncontrollable Visual Dynamics in World Modelscited by 53
  8. 2021Vector Quantized Models for Planningcited by 47
  9. 2021Human-Level Reinforcement Learning through Theory-Based Modeling, Exploration, and Planningcited by 43
  10. 2023Adaptive Online Replanning with Diffusion Modelscited by 33
  11. 2022Playable Environments: Video Manipulation in Space and Timecited by 29
  12. 2026VerseCrafter: Dynamic Realistic Video World Model with 4D Geometric Controlcited by 26
  13. 2025Geometry-aware 4D Video Generation for Robot Manipulationcited by 23
  14. 2023Promptable Game Models: Text-Guided Game Simulation via Masked Diffusion Modelscited by 22
  15. 2025StateSpaceDiffuser: Bringing Long Context to Diffusion World Modelscited by 16
  16. 2021High-Accuracy Model-Based Reinforcement Learning, a Surveycited by 13
  17. 2024FutureDepth: Learning to Predict the Future Improves Video Depth Estimationcited by 13
  18. 2024UniZero: Generalized and Efficient Planning with Scalable Latent World Modelscited by 12
  19. 2024DragEntity: Trajectory Guided Video Generation using Entity and Positional Relationshipscited by 9
  20. 2019Model-based Behavioral Cloning with Future Image Similarity Learningcited by 8
  21. 2023Planning with Sequence Models through Iterative Energy Minimizationcited by 8
  22. 2025Exploration-Driven Generative Interactive Environmentscited by 8
  23. 2021Layered Controllable Video Generationcited by 7
  24. 2023PDSketch: Integrated Planning Domain Programming and Learningcited by 7
  25. 2023Learn the Force We Can: Enabling Sparse Motion Control in Multi-Object Video Generationcited by 7
  26. 2026MASS: Multiplayer World Models with Authoritative Shared Statecited by 7
  27. 2021Visual Perspective Taking for Opponent Behavior Modelingcited by 6
  28. 2022Controllable Video Generation through Global and Local Motion Dynamicscited by 6
  29. 2023ODE-based Recurrent Model-free Reinforcement Learning for POMDPscited by 6
  30. 2025C-Drag: Chain-of-Thought Driven Motion Controller for Video Generationcited by 6
  31. 2021Object-centric Video Prediction without Annotationcited by 5
  32. 2022Safe Deep RL in 3D Environments using Human Feedbackcited by 5
  33. 2023Learning a model is paramount for sample efficiency in reinforcement learning control of PDEscited by 5
  34. 2025Learning Primitive Embodied World Models: Towards Scalable Robotic Learningcited by 5
  35. 2018Learning the Reward Function for a Misspecified Modelcited by 4
  36. 2021Planning from Pixels in Environments with Combinatorially Hard Search Spacescited by 4
  37. 2021OPEn: An Open-ended Physics Environment for Learning Without a Taskcited by 4
  38. 2023Model-Based Reinforcement Learning with Isolated Imaginationscited by 4

50 most cited of 68 All 68 (JSON)