Outer Wilds is one of my favorite games. If he likes the explorey/other worldly feel of souls games, he might like it, but it certainly doesn’t have any combat.

As for fighting, I’ve recently started replaying Returnal, and I really enjoy that. It’s a well known console game, but I think it came out after 2020. It’s a roguelike format so slightly different from souls, but I love it.