I agree with you on most of those, though personally didn’t find much soul in Horizon Forbidden West or God of War Ragnarok. Likely just a taste thing.

That’s true. I personally consider it AAA, since it was published by Sony, which does fit the wikipedia definition, despite it being developed by Arrowhead.

As you said, people shouldn’t focus on AAA games as much as they do. Anyone who knows gaming in the modern day can fairly accurately predict that AAA games will be shit on launch, and will only sometimes improve to something playable eventually. Meanwhile, indie and AA games tend to be at least enjoyable at launch, and often don’t have the bullshit gambling or microtransaction scams that AAA games have. Oh, and they also have soul, which a corporation shitting out a new game every year will never be able to replicate.

Honestly, the last AAA game that I enjoyed was Helldivers 2, and I’ll still boo it for its warbond system, even though you can grind for the in-game currency.