Lots of great recommendations here. You can't really go wrong with any of them.
But since you mentioned forward thinking (and to some degree gaming friendly), I wouldn't really recommend Mint. It's rock solid but that implies that it's slow moving and not very forward thinking.
Bazzite seems to be a good gaming choice. But sometimes, (rarely) these newfangled immutable distros can be a bit hard to get help for.
So I would recommend going with Fedora.
ETA: What hardware are you planning to run this distro on?
You don't have too new hardware so Mint (with its older kernels) wouldn't be a problem. But yeah, sticking with Fedora (or Bazzite) seems like a better option for you