
Persona 5 is great and already mixes up the formula in many ways (gun). But many players just don’t care for RPGs regardless.
I think Expedition 33 showed that this is not the case. Guns are a minor change to combat in Persona 5, it felt almost the same as P3R. They should play around with bigger changes.
Silksong - I had hyped myself up way too much, yet it still delivered. Absolute masterpiece.
Dispatch - I finally understand why people enjoyed Telltale games so much. The writing is great, the characters are interesting, just all around a great experience.
Lies of P - Overture - I finally finished Lies of P & played Overture a few weeks back, after dropping off the game twice in the last years. Wow, that was great! And honestly more emotional than I’d expected.

As someone who can barely remember the original games I could have been fine with a weaker and scared portrayal, especially towards the beginning of her career - but the tonal dissonance between that & her routinely slaughtering dozens of goons without showing any remorse destroyed the immersion. The whiplash between the two extremes was just too much.

First, it’s not true that there’s no protection - various anti-cheat solutions do support Linux.
Second, “strong” solutions still let through cheaters, because client-side anti cheat is an inherently unwinnable cat-and-mouse game. It’s better for everyone to block kernel-level AC and instead force better backend solutions.

Currently kernel-level anti cheat isn’t available for Linux, so games that are released with multiplayer support don’t require it (e.g. games that enable Linux support in EAC).
If kernel-level anti cheat is supported by Valve, many of those games will start requiring it. So if you don’t want kernel stuff, there’s a real chance this development will reduce the number of available games in the future.

Not sure if it’s my absolute favorite, but Pathologic has fascinated me for years.
There are so many strange and unique aspects to the world (especially the Polyhedron, an impossible tower floating above the town) that already make for excellent world building, but when they come together it creates a feeling I haven’t felt from any other world.
You know how Lovecraftian horror has a very distinct feeling? The world of Pathologic makes me feel something vaguely similar, but completely unique - no horror or aliens, but the feeling of powers existing far beyond our understanding combined with people who somehow do understand small parts, and the consequences of their choices affecting everyone… it’s really hard to put into words, but it feels like it created its own genre.
Expedition 33 is very good at what it does. It’s a great experience, well worth the money (though I found combat to be repetitive over time) and as others have already explained, a lot more artistic.
BG3 however was a mind-blowing game for me. The amount of choices you have at every point was something I’d always wanted, and I’d always been let down.
I still think about E33s story often after my ~20h playing it, but for BG3 I really wish I could play it again for the first time, after having played over 200 hours already.
I sadly have to disagree regarding Elden Ring. I love the DLC, but there’s pretty much 0 integration with the rest of the game. Nothing you do in the base game will change interactions in the DLC, and vice versa.
If a couple voice lines changed (e.g. for Melina, Midra regarding the Frenzied Flame, Miquella regarding Malenia) I’d agree completely, but as it is it’s very slapped on.

But it CAN be ground to bone meal and replace a small amount of flour in commercial bread baking operations