I don’t really see how what you’re describing relates to patient gaming – isn’t patient gaming moreso to do with waiting until games drop in price, then getting them patched up with all their DLC?
Aparently not – the store page doesn’t say it requires a third party launcher (which it says for EA and Rockstar Games), only that you’ll need a battle.net account, which you could create online. A journalist has also confirmed this on twitter, although I don’t have a link right now.
I would agree this has been the best year in recent times. It feels like we’re finally pushing past the impact of COVID, and the industry is getting used to being remote, or dragging everyone back to the office.
I’m not completely in the loop, but off the top of my head we’ve gotten:
AAA:
SF6
RE2
Hogwarts Legacy
Diablo 4
Indie:
Battlebit Remastered
Dave the Diver
And we still have the holiday season to look forward to. Maybe not the best year ever, but still a fantastic one, and especially so given how slow the last few years have been,
The PS4 is an amazing value for the number of fantastic exclusives that it has, even though that number is dropping. You can still play Uncharted 1-3, TLOU2, and Ghost of Tsushima just to name a few.