mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

SimWorld: An Open-ended Realistic Simulator for Autonomous Agents in Physical and Social Worlds

arXiv 2512.01078 ↗First posted 30 Nov 2025cs.AIcited by 12

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Reinforcement learning for LLM agents

Abstract (arXiv)

While LLM/VLM-powered AI agents have advanced rapidly in math, coding, and computer use, their applications in complex physical and social environments remain challenging. Building agents that can survive and thrive in the real world (for example, by autonomously earning income or running a business) requires massive-scale interaction, reasoning, training, and evaluation across diverse embodied scenarios. However, existing world simulators for such development fall short: they often rely on limited hand-crafted environments, simulate simplified game-like physics and social rules, and lack native support for LLM/VLM agents. We introduce SimWorld, a new simulator built on Unreal Engine 5, designed for developing and evaluating LLM/VLM agents in rich, real-world-like settings. SimWorld offers three core capabilities: (1) realistic, open-ended world simulation, including accurate physical and social dynamics and language-driven procedural environment generation; (2) a rich interface for LLM/VLM agents, with multimodal world inputs and open-vocabulary actions at varying levels of abstraction; and (3) diverse and extensible physical and social reasoning scenarios that are easily customizable by users. We demonstrate SimWorld by deploying frontier LLM agents (e.g., GPT-4o, Gemini-2.5-Flash, Claude-3.5, and DeepSeek-Prover-V2) on long-horizon multi-agent delivery tasks involving strategic cooperation and competition. The results reveal distinct reasoning patterns and limitations across models. We open-source SimWorld and hope it becomes a foundational platform for advancing real-world agent intelligence across disciplines: https://simworld.org.

Key facts. Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reinforcement learning for LLM agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 36 of its 45 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 30 Nov 2025.

Builds on

36 of 45 references.

Closest ancestors · 6

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Collaborating Action by Action: A Multi-agent LLM Framework for Embodied Reasoning24 Apr
  2. 2025Optimus-2: Multimodal Minecraft Agent with Goal-Observation-Action Conditioned Policy27 Feb
  3. 2024Odyssey: Empowering Minecraft Agents with Open-World Skills22 Jul
  4. 2024MineLand: Simulating Large-Scale Multi-Agent Interactions with Limited Multimodal Senses and Physical Needs28 Mar
  5. 2023Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Models25 May
  6. 2022MineDojo: Building Open-Ended Embodied Agents with Internet-Scale Knowledge17 Jun

Other references · 30

  1. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
  2. 2025DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 6,330
  3. 2023Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behaviorcited by 3,568
  4. 2022Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordancescited by 2,348
  5. 2023PaLM-E: An Embodied Multimodal Language Modelcited by 2,071
  6. 2017AI2-THOR: An Interactive 3D Environment for Visual AIcited by 869
  7. 2023Reasoning with Language Model is Planning with World Modelcited by 861
  8. 2017AirSim: High-Fidelity Visual and Physical Simulation for Autonomous Vehiclescited by 523
  9. 2019On the Utility of Learning about Humans for Human-AI Coordinationcited by 349
  10. 2021MetaDrive: Composing Diverse Driving Scenarios for Generalizable Reinforcement Learningcited by 290
  11. 2023Habitat 3.0: A Co-Habitat for Humans, Avatars and Robotscited by 228
  12. 2021iGibson 2.0: Object-Centric Simulation for Robot Learning of Everyday Household Taskscited by 194
18 more
  1. 2025AgentSociety: Large-Scale Simulation of LLM-Driven Generative Agents Advances Understanding of Human Behaviors and Societycited by 186
  2. 2024BEHAVIOR-1K: A Human-Centered, Embodied AI Benchmark with 1,000 Everyday Activities and Realistic Simulationcited by 148
  3. 2024OASIS: Open Agent Social Interaction Simulations with One Million Agentscited by 132
  4. 2024MEMORYLLM: Towards Self-Updatable Large Language Modelscited by 93
  5. 2024Pandora: Towards General World Model with Natural Language Actions and Video Statescited by 86
  6. 2023Language Models, Agent Models, and World Models: The LAW for Machine Reasoning and Planningcited by 60
  7. 2024GRUtopia: Dream General Robots in a City at Scalecited by 59
  8. 2024EmbodiedCity: A Benchmark Platform for Embodied Agent in Real-world City Environmentcited by 42
  9. 2025PAN: A World Model for General, Actionable, and Long-Horizon World Simulationcited by 36
  10. 2024UnrealZoo: Enriching Photo-realistic Virtual Worlds for Embodied AIcited by 25
  11. 2025Critique of World Modelcited by 25
  12. 2025ArcMemo: Abstract Reasoning Composition with Lifelong LLM Memorycited by 24
  13. 2024MetaUrban: An Embodied AI Simulation Platform for Urban Micromobilitycited by 21
  14. 2024TeamCraft: A Benchmark for Multi-Modal Multi-Agent Systems in Minecraftcited by 21
  15. 2025Virtual Community: An Open World for Humans, Robots, and Societycited by 13
  16. 2024Casevo: A Cognitive Agents and Social Evolution Simulatorcited by 8
  17. 2025SimWorld: A Unified Benchmark for Simulator-Conditioned Scene Generation via World Modelcited by 4
  18. 2024A Comprehensive Survey of PID and Pure Pursuit Control Algorithms for Autonomous Vehicle Navigationcited by 1

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 1; 2026: 11.

12 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026SimWorld Studio: Automatic Environment Generation with Evolving Coding Agent for Embodied Agent Learning
  2. 2026VirtualEnv: A Platform for Embodied AI Research
  3. 2025IndoorWorld: Integrating Physical Task Solving and Social Simulation in A Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Environment
  4. 2025Static Sandboxes Are Inadequate: Modeling Societal Complexity Requires Open-Ended Co-Evolution in LLM-Based Multi-Agent Simulations
  5. 2026WorldSolver: Can LLM Agents Simulate the Physical Dynamics via Solver Generation?
  6. 2026Emergence World: A Platform for Evaluating Long-Horizon Multi-Agent Autonomy
  7. 2025StarDojo: Benchmarking Open-Ended Behaviors of Agentic Multimodal LLMs in Production-Living Simulations with Stardew Valley
  8. 2025SIMA 2: A Generalist Embodied Agent for Virtual Worlds