"Just use a DLL" Like you say, it gets trickier for Android, or Xbox games, or... iOS, which requires each library binary to be signed by the publisher, or...

"Just use a DLL" Like you say, it gets trickier for Android, or Xbox games, or... iOS, which requires each library binary to be signed by the publisher, or... Rust or Go, which encourage static linking of all dependencies... These days a "normal desktop platform" is really a minority of software.