The game design work in modern cinematic, linear narrative focused games like HFW, GoWR, TLOU2, Days Gone, Spider-Man, etc. isn't simpler. They have way more work and more complex work than the combat/gameplay focused games, as would be the case of old school hack n slash games from PS2 or stuff like that.
They have way more mechanics and content to test and fine tune, a longer progression/difficulty/discoveravility curve needed to keep the player engaged and their UI/UX experience needs to be more intuitive to appeal a wider and less skilled demographics.
On top of that the world building, character design and development, story and writing also requires more and better work. Plus since the games are longer it's also needed more collectibles, unlockables or upgradeables, secondary missions/content to make the game feel less repetitive and empty.
His point isn't that the cinematic focused narrative games are worse or simple. He simply prefers when games focus more on telling their stuff via gameplay or environment storytelling than via frequent and long cinematics or texts because he considers than since gameplay it's what it differentiates gaming from other mediums, to push the gaming medium forward it should focus more on gameplay and on using it more to tell what the game wasnts to tell.
Regarding Metroid I think his criticism maybe was a bit harsh but also think was fair regarding that breakable parts of the environment weren't highlighted enough so you had to be constantly shooting everything to spot the breakable portions of the environment, which in a Metroidvania with a big map is a pain in the ass. I agree with him that this specific part should be improved, since many other games make a way better job at highlighting breakable parts of the environment without making them too obvious.
