Bridging the gap - noob to gamer?

I'm so frustrated with my gaming skills right now but love the stories I get glimpses of when watching others play over the last decade.

Some I've tried includes Last of Us and Mass Effect on easy settings. I can't get past the first hour of game play (first 20 for Mass Effect lol).

Part of it is the hand eye coordination but also part of it is understanding what the heck I'm expected to do. Some games are so open ended and seem to expect you to inherently understand how to move along the game play.

I can play Age of Empires but really want to get into more story oriented games like Mass Effect, Last of Us, Borderlands, The Witcher, etc. Is there some medium ground out there I can play that can bridge the gap?

Edit: I have a windows desktop (setup for gaming ability) and ps4