You can't pause but you can just quit out of the game and you'll be exactly where you left off so if you need to step away from the game just do that. Loading is super fast anyways.

Elden Ring you can, but it’s a weird workaround. You need to go into the menu, go into viewing an item, and select “menu explanation” or something like that and it pauses.

You do have menus to interact with, but the game continues going while you're in a menu. Not typically an issue if there's no enemies around, but it can take some players by surprise if they try to use it to pause in the middle of combat.

It's kinda nice for advanced players though, since you're able to move through the level and swap equipment at the same time.

The 'savepoints' in the game are where players 'pause/reset' the level. Otherwise quitting out the game entirely is quick, easy, and does mostly the same purpose. Unless you're in a few specific points you're right where you were when you quit out. Enemy positions reset, but otherwise progress is saved in realtime with the exception of bossfights. They reset the room entirely until defeated.

(Players can actually quit out fast enough that they can 'undo' falling off a cliff as the game resets their position to the last point on a solid ground.)

So there is effective pausing of the game, just not a pause while panicking midgame button.

You can pause in Sekiro (best From Software game imo)