Been thinking about this since I've been playing Rain World. I feel that Rain World is solidly within the genre. There are definitely video essays out there about it being about existing in an ecosystem or whatever. Pathologic is another obvious one. The original Dark Souls is probably paradigmatic of this category.
What traits define this category? I think:
- Difficult, you struggle to make progress
- Inscrutable narrative motivation
- Hidden depth to the world that can be teased out through intensive study
- Possible to find it fun, but much likelier to just bounce off (and watch the video essay instead!)
Is this a valid category?
A different type of video essay bait is the "you ever think about how you're a bad person for playing this video game?" game, like Undertale, Spec Ops: the Line (though that one predates the modern video essay trend), or maybe Slay the Princess
Killing royals is cool and good.