My old Nexus 5 was my first smartphone and probably still holds the top spot for price, performance and usability (at the time) of any phone I’ve owned. My current Pixel 6 is somewhat close- but there was just something SO solid and magical about the old Nexus 5.
Compatibility is unlikely to be very different. The key is immutability (easy to update, hard to brick your system) and some baked in nice to haves for gaming like some specific drivers/patches and controller support out of the box.