I know it's a thing generally these days because of how shit multiplayer especially has gotten but if I see something that's 'online' now I don't want anything to do with it. Every new release it's the same story, they can barely be called games anymore they're more like a live service with some minor gameplay elements tacked on in the most half-arsed way imaginable. That goes for a lot of supposedly singleplayer releases as well depending on the company.
I think I'd much rather pour my free hours into something like Microsoft Flight Simulator because then I'd at least gain a valuable skill from it and I've also found myself delving back into the good stuff that was the early 2000's releases. Even if you see something that looks vaguely promising it inevitably gets annihilated by the DEI contractors that plague this industry now.
It's extremely ironic that the games industry is trying to cater to anybody who isn't a gamer and they seem to be all mentally ill weirdos to one degree or another who have an addiction problem and fleece them for all their money before moving onto the next cringey fad. I'm sorry for coming across too black pilled, but if a game does well it seems like that developers will go out of their way to ruin it because yet again, they've shown that gamers do not matter and we're nothing more than a vehicle for hype to get their product into the normie sphere who just want to college digital items all day instead of play the fucking game.
I ditched team-based and solo online quite a while ago now. It's pretty much exclusively limited to co-op, and even that is a rarity for me.
Multiplayer became shit because of the emphasis on matchmaking and public servers. Private servers allowed for self-moderation (or the lack thereof if you preferred) and was infinitely better for nearly everyone. Did you want an unironically good Christian server that didn't allow swearing? It probably existed. You want one where you can troll to your hearts content? It existed. Wanted a try-hard server? You bet those existed too.
The only type of person matchmaking benefits are those delusional enough to believe the algorithm works in matching them up with others. But the hard truth is that it never does. You will never get a skin-head and a feminist to get along online. It simply doesn't happen. But matchmaking says we should put these two in a lobby and surely this will work out.
The end of the private server as the default is the biggest hit to the health of the online gaming landscape, and nothing will change my mind.