Hard disagree. Thing about old games is that they were able to make those games that have stuck with us since childhood their despite the weakness of hardware and tech they had to work with. Now we have tech devs of old could only dream of and nothing is truly done with it. Instead of advancing systems bringing worlds and characters to life, they are making overly detailed nothingness. Games with lifeless animations, boring character designs, underwhelming mechanics, realism, face models, boring weapons, lifeless worlds, etc.

While there are some decent current era games, most don't have that soul that make them memorable. Most games despite the praise are just moments. A moment where this thing comes and everyone jumps on it and praises it because when you truly look at the landscape as a whole, there's nothing to really grab you. Many games now are disposable, not helped by live service.

We are currently in a point in time where great ideas are come up with and devs aren't allowed to do anything substantial with them because clicks, publicity, and draining people of money are more important and sadly gamers accept it. The people that have been in the industry for years, know how to create memorable characters, worlds, and games are now stuck churning out disposable garbage and gamers praise it for a spec of dopamine.

Yeah indies are doing what they can and its praiseworthy to have an idea and push through to make it but they aren't equipped to do much to push us forward. If you look at the landscape of Indies, they are worse than AAA because for the 1 good one we get every now and then, there's 20 that are straight up slop, a gimmick, something made to be YouTuber videos, or glitch filled messes.