[ajmurmann]

Nier Automata is an interesting example! It touched on a lot of interesting topics and did so in a very creative way. At the same time I also feel that the game wasn't mindful of my time at all. The stretches between the interesting story elements were frequently separated by long, often-repeating stretches of fairly simple hack'n slack gameplay. I'd hold up something like Outer Wilds or Disco Elysium though. But Disco Elysium is pretty close to an amazing book and doesn't do as creative work with the game medium as Nier does.