>>47741When I think "modern game" I think something that was made in the last 5 years, tops. As you said, Mirror's Edge is something like 20 years old, thus it's not modern by any stretch of the imagination. At any rate, you say there are games like this in existence, but nothing comes to mind for me, aside from maybe Hollow Knight/Silksong or Blasphemous I and II, because those games require the player to "git gud" enough to defeat bosses and explore the environment by using upgrades and equipment to avoid certain death, but by the very nature of how "Metroidvanias" work, they still feature character progression in various forms, whether it's exp grind or the acquisition of new weapons and abilities. This is why I said you're not really going to find a game that doesn't feature these things, and you sort of have to narrow down your list of objections to in turn accept a larger list of games you might be interested in playing.
Here, five modern games I think you might be interested in, that are popular and at least 5 to 10 years old:
>Hitman World of Assassination There's 47 flavors of murder, true, but 47's entire arsenal is more or less unnecessary, because 47 can kill his target with his bare hands, and all that variety exists primarily for variety's sake. Plus there are challenges you can do that make things interesting; One of the challenges I remember is that you have to equip your weapon at all times, and if you unequip it, you have like 20 seconds to equip it again or you automatically fail the mission. This is challenging because the guards and other NPCs will notice you carrying it and you could blow your cover or be forced into open combat, which ruins any stealthy approach. Obviously you can circumvent this challenge by wearing an appropriate disguise, but how about you try not to do that?
>The ForestIt's an open world survival game with crafting and collectibles, but for the most part you're as strong as you'll ever be from the outset. You need certain equipment to fight against certain enemies, and the acquisition of that equipment mostly requires exploration in a hostile world full of enemies that can appear at any time and murk you. Therefore, it pays to know when to engage and when to entire avoid combat. The learning curve at the outset, like most games, is steepest, and will taper off as you gain meta knowledge, but I feel it's worth at least a single playthrough. There are objectives, but you can tackle them at your leisure and spend most of your time acquainting yourself with the map, which will be something of a challenge in and of itself for the first time player.
>Kingdom Come: DeliveranceGet past the first two or so hours of cinematics, and then ignore the story in favor of exploring the world. Again, this is a game that will kick your teeth in if you're lacking in meta knowledge. Obviously it's an RPG and therefore has something of an exp grind, skill trees, and leveling mechanics, but most of the skills in those trees are inconsequential and provide passives to help you survive at best. The combat is influenced by your stats and equipment, but it still has a learning curve that you have to acclimate to, and you'll know you've "made it" when you can dispatch an entire camp of hostiles by charging in headfirst and taking them out one by one. This game is very much an Elder Scrolls clone, so it features similar systems; stealth, a wanted system, and survival mechanics like hunger and the need for sleep, etc. My advice? Go in blind, start on hardcore mode, and accept all of the handicaps during character creation. The sequel is more of the same, albeit with some streamlining for convenience's sake.
>Divinity Original Sin 2It's an RPG, so you have to contend with upgrades, skill trees, essentially building a character, but it's a tightly controlled experience. There isn't really a grind because there are only so many combat encounters at any give time per map, and you can only visit each map once during its corresponding story chapter, so in order to really have an optimal party, you have to explore the entire map and engage in every combat scenario. In this case, less is more, because each combat encounter feels like it was handcrafted because it has a unique gimmick that you'll have to figure out in order to survive. Now, most of these are straightforward enough, but it'll test your preparedness and resilience as the player, because every character is more or less a jack-of-all-trades, in the sense that classes and attributes don't lock a character into a specific path of progression in terms of skills. You can specialize in one type of magic, or you can have a blend and try to make every character as versatile as possible, and their efficacy in battle is a testament to your understanding of the game itself. Maybe it sounds vague, but I'm not going to write a novel here to try and explain the game to you; read up on it for yourself.
>Sekiro: Shadows Die TwiceI was going to suggest Elden Ring because it's large in scale and has much more content, but I feel like Sekiro is the embodiment of Fromsoft's design ethos. You really just have to acquaint yourself with the game's basic mechanics and work at it until you're proficient. There's not much more to say, the game will test your reflexes most of all, but once you get it down, the only downside is that you'll find yourself wanting for more content, because it's a short game compared to Elden Ring or some of the others I've mentioned.
Now, maybe you have your objections, but that really reinforces the point I made earlier. You have to reassess your expectations, because as far as I can tell, these are some of the best games to have been released in modern times, and they can all at least partially be described using the terms you've laid out in the OP. Here, have /v/eddit's top 100 for a comprehensive list of "good games" at a glace. Name anything better, I dare you.