Just rehashing the same concepts and improving them is a pretty solid strategy.
This strategy won’t create the Minecrafts and Stardew vallies, but it covers the bulk of game development.
Even if a story is exactly the same, like going to see a Shakespeare play, we still do it because the performance matters, the interpretation matters and the direction matters. And that's before you get into reskins of the same story (eg Taming of the Shrew -> Ten Things I Hate About You).
So the structural similarity is wroth noting and examining but it really has nothing to do with the execution, with how the movie or story or video game looks, plays or how it makes the user feel..
[1]: https://www.openculture.com/2020/08/37-possible-stories.html
They hit upon a working formula in 3 and every game after has basically been the same game in a different environment.
When the original FC came out, if you had told me it would end up being what it is, I wouldn't have believed you.
But FC1, 2, and 3 were all such vastly different games it's obvious in hindsight they were fishing in many ways.
For the record, while I do like the FC formula, I haven't played the latest one because not enough time has passed for me to enjoy it (since it's all basically the same).
imo 2 is the best in the series if you can forgive it's flaws (like soldiers constantly re-spawning). I don't think I've ever experienced a more immersive game.