Another Tears of the Kingdom here.

I’m like … 5/3 subscribed between professional and personal obligations for the next several months, so don’t have time for that in my life.

When I got around to Breath of the Wild in late 2020, I arranged it so I could basically take a vacation from reality to Hyrule for over a week with it, and the experience was delightful, so I want to hold off until I can properly enjoy it.

I did similar things at the ends of periods of over-obligation with Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim (earlier, but both years after their release), I’m a sucker for disappearing into an open-world RPG as a vacation.

I actually stopped because I realized I’d missed some important early-game stuff that was making it frustrating to continue. Not a softlock, just a pain in the ass and/or long trek back.
The environment and exploration are amazing and the uh… things left behind by the alien children… are supremely unsettling.

I never did finish it, but The Solus Project is, I’m pretty sure, exactly what you’re asking for. 2017 first person exploration game, very environmental, set on a subtly creepy and somewhat confusing alien world. I got a copy in my Steam library…somehow that was cheap enough I don’t remember and played a big chunk of it a couple years ago.

Less action than the Half Life/Unreal/Marathon alien horror FPS lineage, but similar feel.

The only commercial Android game I regularly play is Wordscapes. It’s an almost embarrassing level of enduring basic bitch addiction, I don’t engage with any microtransaction bait, I have a systemwide ad blocker… and I love it.

Otherwise it’s all Emulators and Open Source (covered well elsewhere in this thread).

I have a Wii (hacked, old enough model to have GC ports) that I keep out.

I picked it up used and cheap with a sack of assorted accessories like 5 years ago because fussing with controllers in Dolphin was kind of a pain, and I had a lot of GC and Wii games I was interested in.

A Wii with Homebrew channel and loaders, with a USB drive full of disc images hanging out the back is very pick-up-and-play for GameCube and Wii.

I’m using it less lately because I’ve played through many of the things I was eager to try (and I’ve been too busy), but it’s still a nice object.

I do have a modded OG Xbox (also bought used but closer to its time of relevance) that spent it’s early life in my possession being an XBMC media player for the household more than being used for games, and a wide array of even older computers (Amigas, 68k and PPC Macs, older PCs, some workstations that aren’t so relevant to gaming, etc.) stored away, but usually do that sort of thing under emulation rather than hauling the machines out unless I have a specific reason.

Lately it’s mostly been 16-bit era and GBA games on an Anbernic RG351p that I can truly pick up and put down instantly, anywhere. Waiting rooms? Compiles? Sitting through some event a niece or nephew is in? Perfect idle.