I’ll take a wonderful experience over a repetitive “make rank number go up” game any day of the week.
Don’t get me wrong, I played all the online multiplayer stuff, many MMOs, all the FPS games, RTS, you name it. But even in those universes I preferred something like Left 4 Dead over something like Counter Strike. At least with a co-op game like L4D the gameplay was more interesting and felt more immersive. CS, Overwatch, even good old Quake in multiplayer mode just felt so repetitive that I got tired of them after 15 minutes of “get flag, kill enemy, twitch around the map like a hyena on meth”
An old single player rpg with a great story was always going to capture my interest more than those online games. An MMORPG is more like an MMO and less like an RPG. And for games with less of a story to tell, a great platformer or adventure game where there was actual progression and new mechanics/challenges to discover level by level, was just more engaging than running Dust 2 a hundred times a night.
Now a days with games like Witcher 3, BG3, Cyberpunk, Hades, and the like, I just can’t bring myself to plug into those perpetually repetitive online experiences. Especially when if I do want to do some multiplayer, a game like BG3 has a wonderful implementation of it. Something like that is the kind of multiplayer I can get down with.
And also, plenty of others have said it already but I’m old and I got shit to do man. I can’t be gaming on someone else’s clock. Steam Deck has really helped get me back into gaming through. That thing has been a godsend. Knock out a chapter in Justice before I go to bed, it’s like reading a bit of a good book before bedtime. Love it.
Justice is great by the way if you like the Yakuza series but want something a little less goofy. Same studio.
Don’t worry, rule34 has covered that very thoroughly. Both of your questions actually.