I only know the book and movie from a long time ago.

Baldur's Gate is one of the best attempts to bring a Dungeons&Dragons campaign to a video game. It had D&D license and made a lot of stuff very truthfully to the source material. The world is based on the D&D campaign-setting Forgotten Realms in the region of the Sword Coast. For this game the Infinity engine was developed, which was the base for a lot of similar games, including the sequel Baldur's Gate II, but also Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale.

As in a D&D round you gather a party of individual adventurers and step out in the world to exterminate evil… or get rich… or both. You create your main character, following the D&D rules, but the other characters you find in the game and include them into your party, if you want. But once they are part of your group, you control them all directly. In combat things happen in real-time and you can give orders. If you are overwhelmed (and probably a good idea at the start of battle), you can pause the action to give direct orders. This can be in very fine detail, including which enemy to target, which spell to cast or which weapon to use.

Also outside of battles the game uses D&D rules, for instance for stealth, for pickpocket or for other interactions. Freedom to do what you want is the key philosophy here. Baldur's Gate is a game which often allowed you to play how you want. Therefore systems exists for a lot of things. Decide which party members to recruit. Which way to go. Be evil or a do-gooder. In a way it is a Skyrim with isometric view, a party (instead of a single fighter) and a much deeper battle system.

In Baldur's Gate you create your character based on the D&D-system, which starts out at the fort Candlekeep were you grew up. One day your mentor hastily wants you to leave the keep with him. Outside you encounter a figure that demand of your mentor to hand you over. Your mentor denies this request and fights to allow your escape. On your own now you try to uncover the secrets about this encounter and meet a lot of interesting characters on the way.

The characters are also great in this game. Who doesn't remember Minsc and his miniature giant space hamster Boo? Look, how lovely they are:

Interplay projected 200K sales for the game, in the end it sold past 2 million, a major success for the time.

These group of games seemed gone from the market after the demise of Black Isle, but Black Isle veterans founded Obsidian and developed Pillars of Eternity, Interplay veteran founde inXile which released Torment: Tides of Numenera and Larian Studios started to go in this direction with Divinity. So in modern times we have more games in the style Baldur's Gate started, including after a long time Baldur's Gate III by Larian Studios.

The game got an Enhanced Edition some time back (also including console versions), which probably is the best way to play it these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiAsHuRO_Ao

8) Your most terrifying enemies are chariots, but no horses are involved.

This game's protagonist is initially exiled for their uncertain parentage.

6) This game really drills its core themes into you

The setting is clearly based on the works of a popular but controversial author and philosopher

8) Horizon Zero Dawn?

6) BioShock?

Putting up a big batch of hints this time.

9) Sif, Zacian, the trope of blade wielding dogs seems to repeat.

Easily my best hint, but to narrow it down I'll add that it's a JRPG.

8) Counting is hard... what number comes before 3?

This series has around 2.5 games and that's all it'll ever have.

7) It's not a game.

6) Genre suprise.

5) This game went free-to-play many years after it's release, but not many seemed to notice.

Well, what can I say about this game. It made the singlehandedly the Switch a success. It won a shitload of game of the year awards. It is among the highest rated on Metacritic. This game is successful, influental and just great.

Breath of the Wild is among the greatest games of all time, without feeling too much like a Zelda game. The game feels so free, so open, I can go everywhere, do everything, discover so much stuff. The physics engine even further allows for experimentation. This is just awesome. And the world to explore is interesting. The region matches the description of what happened. The ruins, the emptyness, the nature getting back at civilization, this matches the destruction 100 years ago. Many things show this in detail, like the massive field of destroyed guradians before the walls of Hateno village. For each village still existing is an explanation how it survived. Hidden in the mountains. Big wall. Only reachable by air. This all fits. At the same time civilization slowly gets back in form of the stables. This gives the game an overall feel of a coherent world.

And everything is so beautiful. The nature, the ruins, all so serene. Until you meet a monster, that is. You can roam the landscape and explore the land. It is dangerous, but beautiful at the same time. I run around and was just blown away by some of the views of nature around me.

The game gives you so much stuff to do, to explore, to fight, to collect, that you can completely forget the main objective. Ganon? Zelda? Who cares, I have to cook the perfect meal under a red moon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCCpwFYibmU

Next batch of games gets hints.

#11: Star Wars: Dark Forces guessed by The_Liquid_Laser

#10: Demon's Souls guessed by The_Liquid_Laser

#9: Okami guessed by S.Peelman
The best Zelda not from Nintendo.

#8: Octopath Traveler guessed by The_Liquid_Laser
The first letter of the names of the protagonists form the name of the game (at least the first word).

#7: Xenoblade Chronicles guessed by UnderwaterFunktown
Long ago, the world was nothing more than an endless sea cloaked in a boundless sky, reaching as far as could possibly be imagined.

Seems easy; Okami?

7) Xenoblade Chronicles