The stanley parable

World of Warcraft, at least for the first 3 expansions. I think the people that made it back then were utterly devoted to the story and gameplay, as were the players. I'll remember playing that until I die, so many memories.

Downvote away.

planescape torment

BG I,II

Fallout I,II

Has he not heard of Ocarina of Time?

I always felt like Breath of the Wild was Lord of the rings animated by studio Ghibli the videogame.

Final fantasy 6 Chrono trigger Capcom vs SNK2 Soul Calibur 2 Super Mario Bros 3

These games all stand tall as giants of excellence decades after their release. Teams have already decent renowned executing at the peak of their genre with true craftsmanship and deep care into their design from mechanics to aesthetics to music to gameplay.

Clair obscur

Outer Wilds is this game.

satisfactory

There’s a recent one, Expedition 33.

red dead redemption 2 is missing from a lot of these

Dark souls 1

Books are where it's at! Lord of the Rings all the way!

Transport Tycoon would still be a fun game even today.

Deus Ex, if you ignore that it really is ugly as sin. Sounds amazing! Plays beautifully! But yeesh, Unreal Engine 1 humans.

Most immersive sims are arguably in the same boat. The people involved had enormous ideas. As commercial products, they were woefully underappreciated, until years later. And quite frankly they do look like shit compared to much simpler contemporaries. Some NoClip documentary about Looking Glass could show a major artist had muscular dystrophy that makes his shoulders work wrong, and I'd be like, oh, that explains things.

Planescape: Torment does it for me.

More lines of dialogue than all of Shakespear's works? Sign me up for that kinda RPG, lol.

Though these days some good voice actors can do a lot, looking at BG3 here, at least the voice casting.

Anyone know if there's a videogame trilogy of the same calibre?

Edit: Thanks guys!

Completely different genre but the Stabley Parable checks all of these.

100 years in the future and it will be just as perfect.

RimWorld

Future Cop: LAPD for the ps1!

It's not a trilogy, but I gotta preach the good word of Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights. If you enjoy 2D metroidvania style games it's top notch.

The game just drips in atmosphere. The environments are beautifully drawn and designed, characters and enemies are animated well and the music just wraps everything up in a nice bow. It's a melancholy game and it literally made me cry at points and I'm not the type to tear up often when playing games.

The game can be challenging at times, but I wouldn't say significantly so. I would say Hollow Knight is more challenging than this game especially with some of the end game content that that game has.

The game is worth full price, but it goes on sale pretty regularly and probably is right now with the summer sale on Steam.

There's also a sequel out now called Ender Magnolia. I haven't played it yet but I will eventually.

Braid and Ocarina of Time are the two that come to my mind...

Wonder if he's played the PS2 LotR games, they were good

Cdda

Bloodborne

No Man's Sky. Fight me.