I don’t think it’s gate keeping to suggest you should be familiar with the biggest titles of the year if you want to make confident statements about the state of games.

It's not a gate, it's recognition of your lack of knowledge

So in order to have an opinion, you must play every game that ever comes out, regardless of whether you enjoy the genre, the franchise, or even have the console required to play it? And you think that's not gatekeeping?

In order to have a credible opinion about things you should be familiar with the things.

Why are you building a strawman? No one said anything about "playing every game that ever comes out" in order to have am opinion, just that it's useful to have some knowledge of a topic before forming said opinion lest they be dismissed as yours seem to be currently.

It just kind of puts everything else you said into question when you make a statement which is easily disproved by anyone vaguely familiar with the subject.

If you're wrong about the one sentence in your comment that I have knowledge of, what other bits are wrong? Why should I assume the one sentence I can relate to is wrong but the other sentences are not?

Not the parent, but the gate keeping is coming from you. Your question, assuming good faith, was simple:

"When was the last time a AAA game was truly fun to play?"

The comment in reply answer the question.

You then preceded to gatekeep by redefining what "AAA game" meant but dismissing the ones listed out of ignorance.

I can think of numerous AAA games that are fun to play. the first one that came to mind was Elden Ring. I know others that while I didn't play, others loved, such as God of War.

Rather than ask a question and start dismissing answers, gate keeping what "AAA game" means, instead accept the fact that there are numerous AAA games that have been released this year alone that people are having lots of fun with. That doesn't take away from smaller, indy titles, nor does it mean AAA is without fault.

tl;dr: Stop gatekeeping with ignorance.