Play mass effect. The definitive edition. It scratches both the narrative and 3rd person shooter itch and is widely considered a masterpiece. It's relatively easy to pick up as it plays like an old school cover shooter (take cover, pop up and shoot)

Mass effect legendary edition(best rpg game ever made), Fallout 4(same as elder scrolls and by same devs, but nuclear apocalypse, recommend over elder scrolls), Saints row 4.

Try God Of War (the newer ones) has a story path too follow and isn't fully open world but has some freedom.

Theres an explore difficulty which heavily reduces combat so you can focus on story and relearn controls. (Have not tried this difficulty so can't talk about.)

Uncharted series would also probably be q good one for shooters+story

Yay! Another opportunity to recommend my favorite game of all time!

Dust: An Elysian Tail is a Meteoidvania with a great story, that starts off really casual and gives you the opportunity to move through the game at your own pace, get uses to combat, familiar with combos and aircombat, etc.

The game does pick up in difficulty a bit after the first two areas when you go to fight the first boss (overall the bossfights are quite challenging, even now when I speed through the game for the 100th time they still give me some trouble), but if you don't feel ready yet, you go and complete some side quests and come back when you have improved.

For a metroidvania, it's very forgiving and great to pick up and play for an hour or two and then put it down again, since you dont need quite as much skill or reaction time as in other Meteoidvanias to be successful in combat

It's also not very expensive (15 bucks on steam I think), so if you want to make me happy go try it and tell me how you liked it when you're done :)

Honestly, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The game has like 7 difficulty options so you can choose what feels good for you (and you can change the difficulty at any time), but it's honestly pretty easy even on the higher difficulties (there are mods to make it more difficult but you can worry about those later). The game is pretty forgiving with frequent auto saves and manual saving available at any time so even if you die you don't lose much. Controls are basically standardized at this point, so it will be easier to pick up other games after the fact, and the variety of playstyles available will get you accustomed to a wide range of controller handling styles.

High on life. Guardians of the Galaxy. Ect. I would start with narrative story driven games less reliant on upgrade systems and rpg elements. Imo you might get overwhelmed

Wow some great leads here. And with the Steam Winter sale going another week I should have time to properly look into these and maybe buy a couple…

I must say Spiderman remastered looks quite impressive. Is that over ambitious for a ‘controller cretin’ to pick up within a week?

Same question for Witcher 3 Wild Hunt which is going for like £5 at the moment… (I admit to quite enjoying the Netflix series too!)

Thanks everyone!

For First Person Shooters, I heavy recommend the Borderlands titles. They also have adventure RPG elements (skill trees, side quests, etc). The stories are well written, imo, entertaining, and funny. I was sold on them when someone described them to me as “Diablo, but with guns.”

Warframe is a nice constantly updating game. You might enjoy it. Beautiful graphics, simple controls and nice storyline. I'm not much of a multiplayer game like the Fortnite or online shooters. I like story mode games and fighting games.

First of all welcome back! Hope you find yourself enjoying in this hobby of ours once again!

For my personal. It would take time for you to get fully familiarized with everything but i dont doubt yall get back in the grove once you get your device.

Days gone zombie/adventure/open world.

This game was my bothers game when he got back from gaming since 2009 and he insanely enjoyed it. So imma put it here.

Titanfall 2/Call of duty Modern warfare orignal trilogy.

I dont know if you have any interest to any fps games but imo this games is good experience with coming back players but just the singleplayer side.

Open worlds game is now become normal to the current landscape of the the industry if you want to start to any open world i think elder scrolls skyrim will not he a bad choice or Fallout 4. I know someone will alot more knowledge will comment here but i just want to put my stuff here (heheh) happy gaming good sir.

I reckon Elden Ring or Bloodbourne would be good for you.

They hold your hand a fair bit and dont have a great deal of character customisation. Not really a steep learning curve too, the game is very forgiving.