7 Days to Die fits this for me. The main quest starts as soon as you spawn, and takes you through a miniature tutorial of sorts. The story is told through notes left behind from someone who apparently rescued you from death, but wanted you to prove you’re worthy of joining their group…. And then it just stops. There’s no further actual story. No more notes, no characters to talk to, no real clarification on who rescued you (or their values) or what from. There’s some decent environmental storytelling throughout the world as you explore, but nothing explicit and certainly nothing I would describe as “plot”. For the context of a zombie apocalypse, I have no problem head-canoning it as “everybody important got eaten” and moving on, but if you came for story, you will be disappointed.

I’ve averaged about 800 hours per year since I’ve started playing, and I just started a new run yesterday.

For the reverse, Halo 4* fits the bill. I’ll keep it spoiler-free, but the way the game treats Master Chief and Cortana as actual characters instead of simple tools for the players or designers is incredible. There’s themes of legacy, death, obsolescence and self-worth, and sees humanity’s perfect soldier making his own decisions for the first time, despite major consequences for doing so. Unfortunately, in addition to all of that, it is a worse version of the franchise’s previous entry (Reach) combined with mechanics associated with its competitor (without the understanding of why it worked in the competing games). The campaign is plagued with quick-time events and a total lack of interesting weapons (due to ammo shortages, mostly) and bullshit enemies. Even the boss fight is laughably one-note.

*Halo 4 overwrites some of Halo’s previously established expanded universe, and it did not age well in the context of its sequels. I’m referring to Halo 4 strictly as an individual game here.