Oh, and just in the moment I hit send, I remembered another gem from the olden times:
Unreal World: Basically the survival game. 99% of today's survival games are just a pale shadow of this. I mean, nowadays there are even "survival" games without hunger mechanics or proper simulation of wounds... No, this is not one of those easy mode survival games. This is Fantasy Finland, and it's the Fantasy Iron Age. Available for free or, if you want updates faster, also for money on Steam.
If I weren't currently at work and would have time to think about the answer, I could probably come up with more titles, but those are the top 2 that come to mind, if I ignore cRPGs (at least that's how I read your "avoiding final fantasy-esque" requirement):
Settlers 2: It's new enough to still look decent by today's standards, and has amazing game design. Available at GoG.
Star Control 2: One of the best early open world games. The graphics have definitely aged by today's standard, but the humour hasn't. Or maybe it has, but just a bit. Available for free and open source.
Just look at the trailer. Of course there is still some animation jank, but the overall visuals are just stunning.
It's so uncanny valley that I might feel bad for deleting the pool ladders (or whatever the equivalent of that is in inZOI).
I would like to answer Vagrus, as that is what I would want to play.
However, I spent way too much of my spare time playing Lean4, and that isn't even supposed to be a game!
Almost all the rest of my gaming time goes into Palworld multiplayer with my wife. What left about 1 hour for Vagrus last week...
And for it to be a worthwhile saving in low memory or storage situations, further constraints need to be met too. For instance, you would need to compile your own standard library, or go fully no-std...
I wanted to play Baldurs Gate 3 multiplayer with my wife, but couldn't convince her. She really doesn't like turn-based combat, and the game has too much dialogue for her taste...
So, we are now playing Palworld instead. It's a lot of fun in multiplayer, but still quite grindy.
To answer your question: I use an Xbox Series X gamepad. However I cannot recommend this cheaply built piece of junk.
I also tried to use the DualShock 4, but with that I had the problem that it interfered with my WIFI connection. I'm not sure if this is a general problem, or only happens with my WIFI base station though. Also, the DualShock controller has a severe drawback, and that is its short battery runtime, compared with the issue that you cannot easily switch batteries...
So, my recommendation: An Xbox One gamepad. While I don't own one, I am using them regularly at work, and they basically have all the advantages of the Xbox Series X gamepads, and have a way better build quality.
I would also recommend Xbox 360 gamepads, but they need a dedicated base station, which is very expensive.
Yep. With Kingmaker it was extra annoying, because the game has Steam Deck Verified rating, and the Steam Deck defaults to the Linux build.
Thing is, you can play through the whole first chapter of the game with a gamepad without issues... However, once you unlock the Kingdom Management screen, you run into the bug, which is a soft-lock once you open said screen. The UI doesn't properly initialize, all text fields remain at their default value, and you cannot make any inputs any more. Luckily the ESC-Menu still works, so you can save your progress...
If it weren't for the Steam Deck, I guess very few people would have run into this bug, if any at all. Kingmaker has a different UI if played with a gamepad, and even though Kingmaker's gamepad-UI is done really well, it is clear that it is meant for playing the game on a TV screen (think: consoles). If you are sitting right in front of your screen (PC), the UI you see when playing with mouse and keyboard is superior in each and every aspect.
Xbox Series X/S.
It isn't even particularly bad by itself, but compared to its predesessors (Xbox One and Xbox 360) the Xbox Series X/S gamepad is a clear step back when it comest to build quality (just try pressing the D-Pad buttons without thinking "this is cheaply made"), and that comparison is what makes me hate it.
And what adds insult to injury is that the quite expensive Elite version of the controller is just as cheaply built as the regular model...
Technically I'm still playing "Vagrus - The Riven Realms", but I didn't play much lately, since I rediscovered my love for the Lean4 programming language and am now playing around with a formally validated heap again.
There is a Wikipedia article about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_video_games
It is, however, vastly incomplete, as entries without "reliable sources" get deleted. Mind that linking the source code repository, the steam page, the license file and news about a game going open source are not enough to count as "reliable source".
Does anyone know how to report bugs for this? Because the Linux build is linked against libcurl-gnutls, but libcurl-gnutls is not included in the appimage...
I had to unpack the appimage, and manually create a symlink to my system's libcurl to get it to run.