The hook for me is the lack of respawn numbness. Something about insta respawn shooters just turns my brain off and lulls me into boring mental stagnation as I throw myself on the gears. It’s the high longer term stakes that are the interesting part. Failing in the heat of the short moment, and thinking back on what you mightve done better. But you’ll never experience that exact situation again, so you just try to carry your lessons forward. It’s a different pacing that keeps things novel and memorable

To each their own, but i enjoyed every second of my several years playing PUBG. It’s the same hook as Ironman style high paranoia solo games like Project Zomboid or many others. High stakes, ambient stress, and extremely quick and sudden failures that hone your instinct for next time. I enjoy single player games and many other genres as well for different reasons/goals. I dont think the royale/extraction genres are just fundamentally faulted like you suggest

Best I’ve done so far is crowdsec + pangolin geoblocking to just my country. I cant install tailscale subnet routers at all my friends to get their TVs to work. Non starter.