i mean I feel like this is really broad sweeps and not really sincere. Because if you simply look at the foundation of every game ever made you can point to the original game that did it and claim things have never evolved.
Are shooters really any different since Doom? You point you click and bullets go pew. But realistically you can't really say Borderlands games exist as copies of Call of Duty games. They are completely different things despite the gameplay effectively being the same thing.
Is Super Meat Boy the same as Mario Bros? It's effectively running and jumping and that's it so they're the same thing right?
I still think that AAA games continue to get better and better overall. Sure there are some exceptions with MTX's and lazy itteratives sure, but as the broader picture you get Crimson Desert, Baldur's Gate 3, Pragmata, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy's, FarCry.
If you expect every game to come out and be revolutionarily new to you, then yeah I guess you're just going to never be happy. But that's a real horrid way to look at any entertainment.
But why do we need so many shooters? Yes, Call of Duty and Borderlands are rather different but you play a couple of each of the series and it gets super repetitive and the games usually get worse over time or never fix the a lot of the issues of the series. There's what 7 Borderlands games (not counting like the Telltale games) and probably well over 20 Call of Dutys? And then all shooters chased the WWII setting and then modern warfare after COD4, you keep getting the same game over and over again essentially. Or when every fucking game copied Batman Arkham combat system to where even Uncharted 3 copied that and it became super boring to play any game with melee combat because they were like all the same.
Did Borderlands ever end up fixing the issue where you can't really play with people that aren't of your level? Your friend has more time/likes that game more than you and he's like level 20 and you're level 5; you can't play in his game because you can't kill anything and he can't play in your game because he one-shots everything. The core issue there is basically the same issue every RPG has in that it increases damage output so you feel stronger even though you're not stronger at all; say an enemy has 10 HP when you're level 1 and it takes 3 hits to kill it, then when you're level 10 an enemy has 100 HP and it still takes you 3 hits to kill it (as your damage output has increased). Nothing has actually changed gameplay-wise besides the actual number values. RPGs have been making that same core mistake for like 40 years now... it never gets fixed. Video game RPGs started out by recreating the combat aspect because combat is easy to do (pretty easy math basically). However, what RPGs are actually about is the player having agency and making decisions and the world and characters responding to your agency. But that's hard to actually do so they focus on combat because that's easy. It's been over 40 years since the 80s, can't devs try to do the hard thing instead of just doing the easy thing over and over again and making it simply look prettier?
Larian is like one of the only devs that does try to do the hard stuff. There's videos on FarCry about how the older games did so much more little things that the new games don't do anymore.
All I’m getting from that is stuff like Spore and Zoo Tycoon are up your alley as games. I don’t recognise any of the other games there but I’d hazard a guess that a few of them are puzzle based if for no other reason that phones/tablets are a perfect delivery platform for them. Hell the only things I play on my phone are shit like Wordscapes - essentially an infinite amount of guess the word games from a newspaper - but I sure as fuck didn’t invest in a powerful gaming PC for that.
As for RPGs, well, as has been pointed out at the very least Disco Elysium proves that it’s possible but I’m of the opinion it’s an exception that proves the rule and until “A.I.” (the kind everyone is memeing and clowning on) reaches a point where it can dynamically adjust a game as well as human game master can, you might have to accept that BG3 is is as good as it’s going to get.
They are all basically digital versions of board games. Most of the games aren't puzzle games. Ark Nova is about making a better zoo than everyone else (getting the most points), same with Terraforming Mars so they are competitive games. It's a puzzle in the sense of trying to figure out the best way to build your zoo or terraform Mars.
RPG rant up above.
I think the reason boardgames tend not to focus on combat is because boardgames are games where you play in order, waiting for your turn while your fellow players do their actions, meaning it is a poor match for the instant feedback loop that combat mechanics provide.
DnD was based off a miniature wargame. There's quite a few very elaborate board games that are just combat that use a bunch of miniatures, the Star Wars X-Wing game is very popular, which is entirely ship combat (there's a re-theme of that, Attack Wing, where you fight with dragons instead). Of course, there's stuff like Axis and Allies that's been around forever, they recently did a GI Joe version of Axis and Allies.
The amount of different types of games and themes of games in board gaming is pretty ridiculous. IIRC, 2 mushroom games both called Mycelia coincidentally came out the very same year a few years ago. You just don't come near the theme variety and gameplay variety in video games. Even in the non-AAA space, you get tons of rogue-likes or Metriodvanias or child lost in scary world type games.
