I just got into Mudborne after having nearly 100 hours into Apico.
On a related note, I know I could never be a game dev because the discussion boards on all my favorite games are just 'this should be a sandbox sim instead' and I don't know how they handle it.
Not being interested in social conventions, for me.
Not in a too cool for school way, I've never been purposefully contrarian. It just often never even occurs to me that someone would care what others thought of something they are doing to the point of going against their own nature or best interest.
I played the demo of this and really enjoyed it. I have tons of hours in Kingdoms and Castles by the same dev.