Part of it is the fact that we've translated fighting and violence to gaming fairly well. but other aspects of human behavior, not so much. But then, how do you do that? I can't think of any way to simulate sexual activity in a video game without it coming off as puerile or creepy. I used to make jokes about "Wii Strap-On" accessories with regards to pornographic video games back in my 1UP days. That's for more creative heads to contemplate than mine, I guess, and if we want to move away from standard video game plot devices, that's a problem that's going to have to be tackled. In a lot of ways, gameplay has never made sense in the context of game stories. In the gameplay department, it seems like Monolithsoft decided to refine the well-received battle system and gear it more towards fans of games like World of Warcraft, Monster Hunter, or God Eater.
As far as what you want, back in the 1980s, Electronic Arts made a series of space RPGs, Starflight and Starflight II. These games were more Star Trek than Star Wars. You piloted an exploration ship and explored planets, picked up life forms, and collected relics that filled in the game's backstory and its conflict. It turns out your homeworld was a colony designed to save humanity after solar flares killed all life on Earth (you can even visit a lifeless, barren Earth in this game, and find relics that describe humanity's final days on Earth). There's some combat, but with the exception of one or two alien races, you can choose to talk to the aliens rather than fight them. But there's a conflict there, too: your current world is headed toward the same fate as the Earth, and you have to stop it by collecting clues. And as you piece together the story, the morality of the whole game becomes incredibly gray as you discover who is causing the solar flares and why theyre doing it.
