My interest in modern games has been on the decline since the PS3/360/Wii era of games, however things have really accelerated over the past couple years or so. Like many people my biggest gripe with modern gaming is the shameless use of DLC in modern games. DLC is one of the most anti-consumer loads of shit that has ever been perpetuated on a market of consumers and is akin to selling someone an SUV with only the drivers seat and no back end to store stuff, or a book with the last few chapters missing. Obviously these things would never be allowed, but in gaming it is essentially okay to sell people an incomplete, compromised game and just charge them extra for the rest. While it isn't DLC necessarily, the fact that most games are released in some sort of incomplete, buggy state and require a massive amount of patching around launch to fix is also incredibly unacceptable and will really impact the long term playability of many of those games. And then of course there's the heavy focus on multiplayer, micro transactions, and as you mentioned GaaS.
Maybe I'm just getting older and none of these things appeal to me like a lot of zoomers and younger kids, but I can feel myself getting closer and closer to my exit from modern gaming. More or less once physical media goes away that when I will absolutely not be buying any new releases that come out. I am not 100% apposed to digital distribution, but I am under no illusions that I own any game in my Steam or GOG library. I am essentially renting them indefinitely. And of all those games I don't think I've ever payed over $20 for a single game, in fact the average price I've paid for each digital game I have is probably $5. This will be true when everything goes digital; no matter how cool a game might look I can never imagine myself paying over $20 for any of them, meaning I will pretty much never buy a game at launch ever again.
This brings me to what would actually get me excited about modern games again. Well, not much at this point.
Sure, I could wish all day that the industry will pull a 180 and go back to everything on disk, no DLC and micro-transactions, and digital gaming no longer exists, but I know it never will. What will happen is the opposite of what I want which is why there will be a day where I no longer consume new game releases.
But since we're talking about games that I'd be excited for, here are a few general and specific releases I'd be hyped for.
Retro Game Compilations: I love that many companies have been porting/remastering older games and have been re releasing them on modern platforms. As long as these are released physically I typically buy them. There are still so many compilations I'd love to see, especially of older arcade games that have never seen releases outside 80s, 90s, and 2000s arcades.
Shenmue 4: While Shenmue 3 didn't resonate with me the same way the first two games did, I still loved it and sincerely hope we get a Shenmue 4. There is the anime, which might be how we end up seeing how the Shenmue saga concludes, but if Shenmue 4 were to be announced I'd absolute flip my shit over it.
Half Life 3: Yes, I'm one of those people. I do believe this one will happen in my lifetime, but good lord is Valve dragging their feet with this one. The first two Half Life games along with all the episodes for 2 are among the best games I've ever played and I trust Valve would hit the ball out of the park again with 3.
Sadly, that's all I can think of at the moment. There might be others I think of later on, but there just isn't that many newer game releases that would inspire a ton of excitement for me. I'm just happy I own 95% of all retro games I've ever wanted and am well prepared for life after modern gaming. I wish it didn't have to be this way, but all things must eventually end.