I've got into gaming during lockdown - my parents never bought me a console when I was a kid and we had a shitty PC so I only ever played out of date games or on consoles at friend's houses.
I bought a PS4 back in March and have to say I'm impressed at what games can do these days and as story telling devices they are great. Red Dead Redemption 2 is an extemely well written and acted epic tragedy about the decline of the wild west and the rise of modern industrial capitalism which can only be described as Tolstoyian. It covers themes of slavery, female suffrage, race, the legacy of the civil war, capitalism, finance, industry and destruction of the environment as well as human themes of loyalty and redemption ("what about loyalty?" "be loyal to what matters", a great scene towards the end which encapsulates the story's overarching moral lesson) and very detailed and rich character portrayals of dozens of characters who you spend 60 hours with. It also looks beautiful. It is absolutely amazing and is a fine example of what a mature video game looks like - the strength of the writing and the detailed depiction of 1899 America also makes it timeless and of historical/educational value, so I think people will still play it 100 years from now.
I also enjoyed Witcher 3 and Detroit: Become Human, and I'm looking forward to playing Cyberpunk but might wait until I get a PS5.
That being said, games which reach those heights are few and far between still, and I don't have much interest in games that lack a decent story.
Added: I think I heard somewhere that Red Dead Redemption 2 is about 3 times longer than War and Peace when you combine all the possible dialogue and reading materials (newspapers, diary entries, poems, letters). You won't experience every line of dialogue or read every letter or newspaper, but this gives you some idea of how rich in detail the world is, and the extent to which it is a literary achievement as much as a gaming achievement.
