I guess some of this comes from making games more accessible. More people are playing nowadays and games are more inclusive. As a side effect, this leads to structures thay are less fun for some. There are games that break out of that, e.g. Elden Ring or Tears of the Kingdom. Both aspects, accessibility and player freedom are very important. I hope we are getting to a point where they don’t works against each other anymore.

My personal highlight was Genopanic. I cute-spooky pixelart metroidvania-inspired platformer with a good mix of exploration, puzzles and combat. No aspect is super deep, but nicely done.