I can name 2 games too. Look at games like animal well or balatro. They’re wildly original and not made by old Japanese dudes.
That's not just games but entire modes of expressions and genres being invented. So successful the industry is still occupied with reproducing those franchises, not inventing new ones.
Animal Well was great, but it's also so exceptional now, like Expedition 33, that people frantically celebrate each AA title in an otherwise extremely bleak culture.
But what I see is also happening in parallel, is that the people nostalgic from the 90s era of video games are now 30 to 40, are now senior programmers and they are determined to create another batch of truly good games.
Sure the biggest studios have the biggest marketing budget but when you read a little about them, they are just all slowly dying. Most news about big old studios are about firing thousands of people, being bought by other corporations who will also fire people.
Sure, Expedition 33 feels like an outlier, but it’s just a game from ex Ubisoft employees. Ubisoft which is sadly also slowly dying.