They are more worried about new players than the ones that gave them money almost a decade ago. This upgrade gives them an excuse to put the game on storefront pages again.
First, it's 2024. There are plenty of games that have figured out how to respect the gamer's free time. Don't hesitate or feel bad about dropping a game if it pretends being annoying/frustrating is an acceptable element of it's difficulty curve. Life's too damn short to be miserable playing a Souls-Like or something if it's just not for you.
Second, I deal with something like you're describing. What works for me is to recognize when frustration, anger or whatever is getting the better of me and just accepting that I'm just not going to be productive for that period. I invest in some self care, which can sometimes be as simple as laying in bed and stewing, or putting on some familiar sitcom until it's time to go to bed.
It might be a day that I'm writing off; if it's bad, it might be a week. But once I take that pressure off myself, sometimes it helps me get back on track faster than if I just tried to bury everything and soldier through.
I think he's really good at evoking feeling through visual storytelling, and finding gameplay that mostly kinda reinforces those themes.
The underlying themes in his work often don't hold up to fridge logic, but it's still an engaging and memorable experience while you're playing. Death Stranding was one of my favorite games I played last year (hashtag patientgamer...).
*removed externally hosted image*
I was a player in a campaign where two of the other players just full-on sprinted past every sign post the (Pathfinder) GM threw up saying, "This character is here to give quests. He is much higher level than you. Don't attack him. He will slaughter you."
They pulled out their weapons and made to attack the guy and my CN character was like, "You have fun with that. I don't want to die today." The quest giver and our other party member tried to talk them out of it for a couple rounds AFTER they started attacking (and doing no damage, naturally). The NPC then started using non-lethal spells to try to defuse the situation. A couple rounds of that and the GM finally gave up went hostile. Two or three AoE attacks later and both characters were gone.
They rolled new characters, but I didn't last much longer in that campaign.
I had a copy of Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet that would cut out and loop back in the middle of the song. I listened to it so much I could sing along without missing a beat. Then whenever I heard the right version, it always felt weird when the song flowed through normally.
I have an ex with the same name as one of my sisters. You do that once, and it gets confusing and awkward. Twice? People start coming to really odd conclusions.