> they A) mistook the most critically acclaimed game, it being “The Last of Us”
I think there's some subjectivity in most critically acclaimed game, and decade. TLOU Part 2 [0] is "slightly" lower than BG3 [1] (to the point you're well into subjectivity), and the remaster [2] technically falls out of the decade criteria by 6 months. I think at the point you're arguing about trying to objectively clarify the best subjective option.
> named a whole slew of “indie” titles.
I named a whole slew of indie titles (in a separate category to things like BG3, Elden Ring, Withcher, Total War, but nonetheless) because the boundaries are fuzzy. Do you mean indie budget (Stardew valley definitely falls into that, but it's an incredibly polished experience, to the level of many AAA games), do you mean "a small team" like Dave the Diver [3], do you mean no publisher - Star Citizen is an indie game by that metric, with it's "indie" budget of $700 million. Or CDPR - they _are_ a publisher, funding their own games (that meet the no-guns criteria too IMO - Cyberpunk 2077 has guns but playing it like a third person shooter isn't really how the game is set up).
I deliberately used the "AAA-budget-quality" term to try and differentiate that; it's subjective (like all art and art reviews are), but for the most part, people (in my opinion) are talking about differentiating "production quality" when they talk about AAA and non-AAA games. First and second party studio games like Zelda, Mario, Crash Bandicoot, had small development teams and budgets that make many definitely-PC-indie games (e.g. Hades) look like blockbusters in comparison.
I think there's some subjectivity in most critically acclaimed game, and decade. TLOU Part 2 [0] is "slightly" lower than BG3 [1] (to the point you're well into subjectivity), and the remaster [2] technically falls out of the decade criteria by 6 months. I think at the point you're arguing about trying to objectively clarify the best subjective option.
> named a whole slew of “indie” titles.
I named a whole slew of indie titles (in a separate category to things like BG3, Elden Ring, Withcher, Total War, but nonetheless) because the boundaries are fuzzy. Do you mean indie budget (Stardew valley definitely falls into that, but it's an incredibly polished experience, to the level of many AAA games), do you mean "a small team" like Dave the Diver [3], do you mean no publisher - Star Citizen is an indie game by that metric, with it's "indie" budget of $700 million. Or CDPR - they _are_ a publisher, funding their own games (that meet the no-guns criteria too IMO - Cyberpunk 2077 has guns but playing it like a third person shooter isn't really how the game is set up).
I deliberately used the "AAA-budget-quality" term to try and differentiate that; it's subjective (like all art and art reviews are), but for the most part, people (in my opinion) are talking about differentiating "production quality" when they talk about AAA and non-AAA games. First and second party studio games like Zelda, Mario, Crash Bandicoot, had small development teams and budgets that make many definitely-PC-indie games (e.g. Hades) look like blockbusters in comparison.
[0] https://opencritic.com/game/8351/the-last-of-us-part-ii [1] https://opencritic.com/game/9136/baldurs-gate-3 [2] https://opencritic.com/game/234/the-last-of-us-remastered [3] https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/keighley-weighs-in-...