I've had a similar experience with my wife on Dark Souls. I tried making her play multiple games that are considered as accessible and beginner friendly, she didn't really enjoy them. Then I suggested she tries Dark Souls to get some laughs... surprisingly she got hooked.
What is BOTW if not an amplified puzzle game? The core mechanic aside from the open world is literally to enter small isolated puzzles and to solve them. Zelda in general is heavily reliant on puzzles, are they not puzzle games? What about detective games and point and click games like Myst, Monkey Island, what are they?
There are many mobile games like Candy Crush or Angry bird.
To which I answer, can’t we kill stuff in puzzle games?
So essentially something like Thief or Dishonored where you need to find a path in a level?
I believe you're being very reductive by saying we don't have AAA puzzle games. Yes we don't have AAA tetris-like because they don't need ultra HD graphics or first person viewpoint and therefore they have some limits, but puzzles have definitely been incorporated in many games.