I have had this idea for a long time. What if you could build a city, city simulator style and play in it first person with high quality graphics? Basically it would be like a mix between SimCity, The Sims, Simulators and maybe GTA franchise style sand box freedom.
You begin by creating a character a bit like you would in The Sims, giving them a name, age and look. Then you start building a city as you would in a city simulator. After you have placed a certain amount of zones, roads, power plants, water plants, places to deal with garbage, hospitals, schools, parks, police and fire stations, infrastructure etc... so that the city can start growing and has all the amenities to do so and the city is earning money for a certain mount of years and is doing well, you can then find an area of the map and place your house, which will start as a simple two story small house. At this point you won't be able to change the speed of how time moves forward so it won't make your character age too fast.
After placing your house, you can then go into the map first person mode and play as your character and do things like eat, sleep, shower, get a job, earn money, interact and talk with NPCs and more. You will also have health as will all other NPCs. This will be like what Sims can do in The Sims franchise but maybe with elements of GTA like stealing vehicles or robbing places and more. Whatever you do will have an impact on your character and might have an impact on the city as well. If you get arrested and put in prison for committing a crime, you will no longer be able to play as your character for the length of time they are locked up, but this will have an effect on the character when you can play as them again. There will be a max limit on how long you can be locked up for.
As your character has health, there will be one of two options you can choose when you are first able to play as your character which you won't be able to change for the length of the game. You can choose either to respawn if your character dies or not respawn. If you choose to have your charatcer not respawn, if your character gets killed, you will no longer be able to play as them for the rest of the game length. If your character lives and dies of old age, then you can choose a new character to play as.
If you earn enough money in the game, you can choose to upgrade things like your vehicle or build a new house somewhere else on the map or replace your house where it is.
There will also be an option where you can play as another NPC in the game and take on their rolls for a certain time such as a farmer, police officer, firefighter, ambulance driver, bus driver, fly a plane or helicopter, work in a office, factory, garbage disposal or shop, pilot a boat and more, which is where the simulator element comes into it. You will have missions you have to complete when doing this and you can find missions to complete while playing as your character as well. The all elements of the city will have effects on what missions become available.
While in first person mode, the city management will be automated but you should be able to easily switch between first person and city building/planning mode which will make the character you are playing as automated when you switch so when you go back to playing as your character they might not be the same or in the same place as they were when you left them.
