
I‘ve mainly been playing Assassin‘s Creed: Rogue so far this week and the camera‘s been killing me. How did they end up thinking this was good or to not at least have an option to not have the camera on roller coster rails? Otherwise the game‘s alright but obviously the camera‘s with you the whole game whether you want to or not lol

I have successfully (?) played (sometimes semi-suffered, cough, Sekiro) through a buncha popular hard games and have a way less „strong“ opinion on this but also think that an „easy mode“ as an accessibility feature is a good thing.
If, for example, a parent wants to connect with their child and also experience that game they‘re playing, it‘s really no big deal to me if they could turn on easy mode in, say, Sekiro to stand a chance. Not like it‘d impact my own experience at all, and I don‘t feel the need to force them to go through my own experience either. In Celeste, for instance, you can literally fly through the whole game if it makes you happy, and yet I still grabbed all strawberries the normal way and don‘t care if others did as well or just flew to them.
It‘s less of a demand from me and more of a „if you can you should definitely include it,“ though. Obviously doesn‘t work for full on competitive multiplayer titles or something similar though.
Not even sure how much of this addresses your remark specifically, but my feelings on this felt best placed below yours lol

My first thought was Minecraft. I‘m not sure if it‘s playable offline still but a google search makes me believe so.
It runs on basically anything, and if the kids in question are still super young, there should be a peaceful/creative mode without monsters to scare them or survival mechanics to worry about, making it essentially just more complex LEGO.

Horizon: Zero Dawn. I have yet to finish it but apart from robot dinosaurs, it feels so generically open world… Admitedly, a very pretty-looking open world. Can‘t really get into the story so far either since it takes itself so seriously while I‘m having a hard time not thinking too much about how ridiculous its world is. So apart from sight-seeing, there hasn‘t been much in this game for me thus far.
Edit: This comment section is a treasure trove of hot takes, so many of my beloved games mentioned making me go „What the fuck…,“ I love it

I think artificial scarcity in survival horror is kinda annoying. A flashlight burning through batteries as if it was a battery-powered oven is just an eyroller to me, the dude having the stamina of someone who‘s just woken up from a decade long koma doesn‘t help my enjoyment either. It just makes it annoying to me to play. I know it’s meant to make me feel weak and scared but I’d prefer if they could realize that in other ways.
The story was alright though IMO. I enjoyed the town sections the most.

The only alternatives I‘ve played were Nexomon and TemTem, and Nexomon‘s grind sucked the life outta me, especially when they pulled a „oh nonono, this new region has different levels you have to grind from 0!“
TemTem was pretty fun in co-op though… even though I had to play with a VPN for the first time in my entire life cause somehow players wouldn‘t move on my screen with my „raw“ connection. No game has ever done this before nor has any game acted like this since lol, completely weird.
Idk if someone from Bethesda said this or if it was just a Youtuber regarding the stupid ways to level up in Oblivion (like jumping around for hours), but: If that‘s how people enjoy playing the game, then let them. And I agree with this.
Regarding abuse of game mechanics and not just bugs/glitches… I can only think of some Dark Souls bosses that can be baited into killing themselves by fall damage. For some it‘s clearly intentional (Iron Guard thing in Dark Souls 1), for some arguable (Dark Souls 2 the guy in the sunken area), and some clearly rather unintended (first real boss in Dark Souls 1 for example, it‘s really hard to do and when it happens the dude drops like a rocket lol)
Cheap all-time-low price tag games (according to SteamDB) that I‘ve played myself and can recommend:
Slime Rancher
Broforce
My Friend Pedro
Dust: An Elysian Tail
Poly Bridge 2 (also the first one)
Clustertruck
Risk of Rain (the old one)
The Swapper
Rogue Legacy
McPixel 3 (also the first one)
Overcooked (also the second one)
Party Hard
Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince (and other series entries)
Train Valley
Minit
All of these are of varying genres so probably most of them aren‘t everyone‘s cup of tea, but maybe one or two are gems that you hadn’t heard about yet. List isn‘t conclusive, obviously, but I don‘t wanna spam too much.
I have…
Just Shapes & Beats
Nine Sols
Smushi Come Home
CATO: Buttered Cat
Is This Seat Taken?
GRANBLUE FANTASY: Relink
Ballionaire
Pepper Grinder
Like a Dragon: Ishin!
…in my cart, but considering I‘m unlikely to get around to any of them this year, I‘ll let them sit in the cart throughout the sale and see whether I’ll pull the trigger on anything.

If all the shaders are compiling in the background and it‘s stutter free (minus traversel stutters, I guess) after that, I actually find that reasonable. If I can get rid of stutters by idling in the game for 15m while doing something else, then sure.
But I have a hunch that it‘s still not a smooth ride after.
At least this is the most reasonable thing I‘ve heard from GB since release lol

Peak
I‘m still playing Peak, if the stupid tomb opens today, I could get the last achievement! The next update is already in the works though, lookinf forward to it.
Children of Morta
Aside from that, my friend‘s back in town so we‘re also trying to finish Children of Morta. We have freed the three dudes, so I think we‘re close to the end.

They‘ve been so successful with singleplayer stuff but would somehow rather burn billions failing live services than sticking with them. They could‘ve put that money into several offline experiences and made at least SOME money but yeah, rather lose MOUNTAINS of money, I guess.