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I loved that game so much. Haven’t had quite an experience like it since

I discovered Prey (2017) a few years back. It is so my shit.

It's probably the worst named game of all time. It's essentially a sequel to System Shock 2 and Bioshock. Should have been called Xenoshock or something because it's generic name is nothing like the really original game underneath.

You are fully in the driver's seat, with a crazy amount of freedom in how you want to get from one section of the space station to the next.

The opening scene, once I discovered the reality behind the scenes, I was hooked.

• Some Pokemon ROM hacks where the difficulty spikes were not too harsh

There are definitely some good pokemon fangames on PC that aren't super difficult from what I remember.

• Pokemon Hidden Place ( Spanish fan game with English translation IIRC )
• Pokemon Bizarre ( another Spanish/maybe Portuguese ( I don't fully remember ) one with English translation ). Has some memes here and there but it's manageable.

Most other fan games I could think of are either too long, have a good amount of difficulty, or have some sort of QOL thing preventing me from recommending it.

Baldur’s gate 3 would be my suggestion. It has difficulty settings from easy to insane. No quick time events. And the whole world was designed with care.

The combat system is very deep since it is based on DnD.

You can ignore side quests and still see the whole main game but even after 1500 hours in the game i was still finding new questlines and hidden caves to explore.

Half life 2?

Metro 2033?

New doom games

Witcher 3 if you stick to the main quest line only

I know exactly what you're talking about with the burnout and decision anxiety for new games that take hours to complete a tutorial or have paragraphs of menu text. It's not exactly the open world you're talking about, but I found Hard Space Ship Breaker to be a great alternative to that. It's got excellent lore and storytelling while still being a very simple game. Think power wash simulator, but breaking apart spaceships in a space trucker stop. It's simple, and each "day" is a hard 15 minutes, so you'll always have a stopping point in a reasonable time.

What are some ROM hacks you can recommend?

There is Mass Effect on the Game Pass.

Any of the Naughty Dog games fulfill this criteria, especially the Uncharted games. They are mostly linear, all about exploration and combat, and very little fluff.

Indiana Jones & The Great Circle is pretty good too. You don't unlock skills or abilities through experience but rather through finding books throughout the maps. The maps themselves are not too large and worth exploring.

If you want more Skyrim, Starfield will give you lots of that. I know people give it a hard time, but it really is just more Skyrim in space.

Fahrenheit (2005)

Super Mario Bros Wonder. Probably all the Mario platformer games. Those games are mostly just pure gameplay. Sure there is fluff in the beginning to setup the story and setting but than it gets out of your way

Shattered Pixel Dungeon on fdroidorr Linux or Windows