as a foreword, the majority of my exposure is through people reviewing or fake-reviewing an ARG as opposed to watching originals, which might have influenced my experience, but I doubt it's that impactful
I don't think I've ever seen a *single* ARG that I could recommend to someone unironically as a solid story. Most of what I've seen on channels like RetroGamingNow (which is an amazing channel all things considered) are incredibly lackluster, lacking in direction, a solid story (or a coherent story at all), often unwatchable in their original format, etc etc. There is a reason there exists a stereotype that most ARGs are about a secret organization that does very scary things which aren't actually scary. There just isn't any subtlety going, or attempts at symbolism in a deep way
Then Searching For A World That Doesn't Exist happened. I don't know how to put this short, but as a story it's really bad. The video itself is surprisingly great, pacing is amazing, visuals, narration, tension is executed incredibly well, but there just isn't a solid story, little to none lore, the locations are completely random and meaningless, characters have zero depth, main villain is stupid, the majority of plot points is left unexplored/forgotten, etc etc. I have written like 12k words about it which I might make into a video someday, but summarizing - I'm just incredibly disappointed by how amazing this video feels, yet how stupidly shallow it is (and Part 2 is just bad in all aspects)
This disappointment is exacerbated by people doing their takes at a similar style. There's a video trying to adapt Shakespeare plays instead of The King In Yellow, and while it is kinda dumb and insanely on the nose, it at least tries to understand the symbolism of the original and adapt it in a fairly innovative way. Unlike SFAWTDE, which made The King in Yellow into poor man's Bill Cipher
There is also Namentix who I've seen on this subreddit occasionally, and while their videos do look cheaper in comparison, you can clearly see that an actual story is being told, there is clear intention behind some of the things happening, even if some of it only stretches out the time. "Devastating Search"'s conclusion is genuinely touching in a subversive way, for example. Unlike SFAWTDE, where a lot things exist solely to aurafarm, show off cool builds and weird game mechanics
What I'm trying to say is, it's disappointing that for a genre with so much potential we don't really have any genuine masterpieces (that I know of). Minecraft as a medium is amazing to do anything that actual cinema does, made much more accessible. Found footage and narrating over "found footage" has a ton of potential to do all kind of weird things, subtle discovering of something unusual, unreliable narrator business, etc. I haven't even mentioned the puzzles, which oh so often boil down to image brightening or base64 (which looks especially dumb to a programmer). There is no need to show off 50 giant locations obviously made with Axiom to make an impression or convey something deep, there is no need to make a scary black figure or scary government organization to genuinely horrify viewers (which, credit where it's due, Part 1 SFAWTDE does understand quite well).
Now I want to highlight something good. Zachobuilds is a great channel, and while some storytelling feels very forced, all videos have a story, usually everything that happens has some sort of symbolism, events on the screen have meaning beyond showing off a build you paid 5$ for, and some videos really hit the right spot.
"The Last Beta Player: a Minecraft movie" (it's not really an ARG, but I hope you forgive me) is really cool while lacking any narration, showing that unfiction style is not strictly required to provide a very convincing narrative. It also shows that small, realistic builds that a player could make are much more immersive than bombastic decorative builds
wpeoif/"My creation is trying to delete me" tries doing actual symbolism in a really interesting way. Personally, it feels too open to interpretation, but I must commend the effort
If you have any additional thoughts/recommendations I'd be interested to hear you out, but that's the rant :D