Maybe Destiny 2? The gunplay is unmatched and popping alien heads off in an explosion of alien blood or exploding robots in an explosion of robot blood is very satisfying.
So, no one has mentioned any of these as far as I can tell.
The Crew Motorfest - sort of a competitor to Forza Horizon (FH is PCand Xbox only… The Crew is also on PS)… it’s an open world ish always online style game. Some say it had better physics and closer to sim than simcade when compared to FH… it worked better out of the box with my peripherals (wheel, pedals, shifter)… bonus: the prequel, The Crew 2 (which is a bit older and has a different setup) is $0.99 on basically all the platforms right now.
Dakar Desert rally - kinda rocky launch and might still be buggy… not sure on that front… but it’s kind of an ambitious game that no one else was making. Basically driving offroad through the desert from GPS waypoint to GPS way point in a huge open environment (this is called “rally raid”) in a variety of vehicles - cars, “cars” (really super trucks), big trucks (imagine racing a dump truck across the desert at whatever 120mph), motorcycles, side by side, atv. More simcade than sim in terms of driving feel. They,re not developing it anymore (in terms of new content… game breaking bugs probably get fixed) but there’s a decent amount of content there… a little context that they kinda over promised to an extent and under delivered. Victim of the recent industry-wide layoffs for sure. So it got kinda panned. Definitely not the GOAT, but maybe worth it when on sale if it sounds at all interesting to you.
Because it’s fun and I have friends I play it with.
The thing with destiny is that there are somewhat diminishing returns in terms of time invested vs in-game advancements.
The min-maxing and endless search for God rolls and the best builds can push you that extra 10% or so over the gen-pop player base who doesn’t spend 20hrs a week on the game.
But gen-pop and casual can still approach end game content without feeling like a total noob.
That said, there is still end game content that is geared towards “power users”… master nightfall, master raids, etc.
Also, as a D1 year 1 player who actually kinda gets what’s going on, story-wise, it’s great. But admittedly comprehending the story is very difficult given where they drop you in if you just started the game.
I will also applaud Bungie for making adjustments over the years. For sure it’s a lot less addictive than it used to be, and less of a grind. Or maybe its as much as a grind as you want it to be. The changes over the years have made the core game more approachable while they still held some high-level end game stuff for the die-hards. They tried to do the same with the story and it kinda works a little.
Also, for me, the raids are really great. Haven’t really experienced that sort of game play, teamwork, puzzle solving, and requirement for perseverance and gaming skill anywhere else. they’re just plain fun, especially if you have a good group to play with.
Not sure what sort of length on play you’re looking for but wingspan and terraforming Mars are both really good board games that have good-to-quite-good mobile versions.