There is always a future, it is just up to us to try to understand — and acknowledge — what’s happening now that is, in retrospect, the future of the past, and someone clever will slap a fitting title on a certain period until it sticks … and the rest will be — history 
1,2,3,…4, BINGO. 
srsly tho, one of the major changes we have encountered over the last 10 years (that most of the time is forgotten/overseen) is the sheer scale of complexity that goes into providing a deterministic online gaming experience, and how do we know that?
Each time online services are not working as intended, we get instantly irritated - a sign that we have gotten so used to it just working all the time, that it doesn’t occur to us how bizarre it is to just expect it working all the time.
Just think of how obnoxious issues w/ cloud Services, video/music streaming or applications is! Kinda unbelievable how far we have come if i remember hoping that the DC connects to the PSO lobby and expecting getting disconnected all the time 
And last but not least, a thought i haven’t properly boxxled around in my head yet, so this is more of an inconsistent list/me rambling instead of a proper point for discussion:
I guess one aspect what we’re seeing taking place for the last three’ish years is homing in on/consolidation of what i’d call “sensible scale” in games — people have discussed the ubiquitous Ubisoft open world problems several times here, and what struck me when e.g. playing Watchdogz 3 was how empty the world was feeling, although there were so many NPCs around.
bigger is better just doesn’t apply anymore, and tbh, in hindsight i feel like that was already the case in 2009 to 2010ish:
The transition from Forza Motorsport 3 to 4 was the first time i felt that on the surface, the successor made a step forward, had better graphics, newer roster of cars, a few new tracks - but lost a part of its soul in the process, by focussing too much on becoming more realistic, crowbarring DLCs in the game etc…
Same thing happened with transitioning from Forza Horizon 4 to Horizon 5: bigger isn’t always better, and as such Mexico hasn’t lit a fire in me (nor in my siblings/friends)… in theory, lots of space to traverse should be good for a game that is about driving around aimlessly, though inexplicably FH5 fails there… not sure why/what it is, but the UK setting felt more rewarding to explore, had more POIs (or rather: it felt like that, even though i’m pretty sure if you’d count it, i am pretty sure that FH5 would beat 4 in that regard)…
And that’s what i mean when i say ‘sensible scale’ — creating a handful of memorable places/scenarios and making those feel ‘alive’ instead of just cranking up the numbers seems to be where i feel that successful games seem to strive atm, and that feels a bit like returning to what made e.g Chrono Trigger or FF6 feel so big (even though they weren’t comparable to a Starfield, Elden Ring, BG3 et al) - pairing style and substance instead of favouring substance over style.
Or rather, that’s what seems to work for a decidedly small focus group of people i know, i.e. a few friends and moi, so ymmv etc.
