Both BotW and WoW also made exploring the "empty" areas rewarding (they're not actually empty, and there are things to find).
Weirdly, that's what every FFXI player did almost every day and for years, until they finally added fast(er) travel options in later expansions. Even using the Chocobo to increase run speed, it took 30+ minutes of travel to get to any end game content. And it was very easy to accidentally die along the way in places where nobody could resurrect you without also dying themselves, and then you would need to make the entire trip again. It was absolutely stupid and a complete waste of time, and yet I have nothing but fond memories of it.
But literally days of walking would be too much without something (either plot along the way or fast travel).
I discovered the Elders Scrolls via Morrowind, then because I enjoyed it so much I was overjoyed about Oblivion coming out, and a little bit less about Skyrim.
... But these last two left me with that feeling of emptiness about the world. Oblivion had some redeeming qualities on specific quests (going into that painting was absolutely fantastic, although way too short), but felt like a drag overall. Skyrim felt like you never stop stumbling on something, encounters and quests felt evenly spaced and incredibly generic, succumbing to a Horror Vacui of sorts[0]. Also since everything dynamically adjusts in difficulty to your progress, everything is always as easy as it ever was. As a result there's no risk, no surprise, no tension.
Comparatively, Morrowind had many many flaws but I just kept on wanting to explore the world more, go past this ridge, reach to that spiky thing on the horizon, enter this weird tomb, walk down that windy road...
While quite different of course, they have basically the same goal: you first have to get lost in order to find your way.
The fun begins when you explore and stumble across things by mistake.
Also many landmarks in BOTW are straight up taken from the NES game, like the twin mountains in the gerudo desert.
After Ocarina of Time, the Zelda games went to a linear story with a dungeon formula almost copy pasted for 20 years. BOTW breaks this pattern to get back to its roots: exploration.
Just watch the interviews of Aonuma explaining this.
Zelda 2 was pretty linear too.
The twin mountains are spectacle rock. They have appeared in many games. Most notably, imo, they’re in the crater of death mountain in ocarina of time. If you squint at the way the fire temple is built (two towers) it’s sort of implied to be built inside of it. Very cool
BotW manages to always be fun and interesting to explore. A quality worth taking inspiration from for sure. Getting around the map in games like Assassins Creed often feels like a chore.
Games are for every one (well some games are for mature audience but that's not the point).
I like easy games because I don't want to be punished for not being good enough after a job week.
I like thinking/strategy games like chess because I like to challenge myself.
I like a lot of other genre for different reasons.
But not a single one of them should be depicted as "for little kids", not even sokoban, tictactoe, etc... because that's just not true.
Games are for entertainment. You're either entertained, or not when playing the game. It's completely subjective. It does not depend on the fact you're a kid or an adult.
Where they see something they don't understand, and assign an "alien" status to it. They might as well be saying that BOTW is for Klingons, for all the rationality there is behind it.
In that poster's vein, we might as well refer to all GTA players as criminals and thugs (of course they're not!). When in reality, the player base of both GTA and BOTW has a massive overlap - both games are largely played by the same people. "Computer gamers".
No need to insult the fanbase. You can just say "I don't like it".
> it just goes to show that people like different things.
Which is why I simply explained what worked for me and what didn't work for me, not saying any of my comment was an absolute truth.
Nintendo's open-world is the only open-world I liked.
I can't get immersed in GTA's open world because I'm just a random going on a killing spree for 15 minutes then shut the game down.
I hated Skyrim, the world is big but empty. There is nothing particular about the landscape that makes me want to "go there". Most of the time, I discovered areas because I was going in straight lines.
Zelda on the other hand, I was like "oh wow, a mountain split in two, I wanna see it". The landscape view makes you want to see what's going on and act as a map ("oh so the gemini mountain is on my right, I must be at XXX"). You're on top of a tower, look at the volcano, and you're like "what is that thing moving on the horizon". Same thing for pretty much all divine beasts.
The other nice thing about BOTW's open world is the map. You don't need it. In The Witcher 3 you have a GPS that tells you where to go. When people tells you to go somewhere in this Zelda, you ask people, you look at the road signs, and you go there. This makes the world much more realistic and less empty because you need to interact with it.
To go to the Goron village, you have many ways of doing it, stockpile a huge amount of food to heal while you burn, or go around and talk to people to find the potion. If you choose to stockpile food, you need to hunt, to cook, and to interact with the world once again.
The world is part of the game play, unlike many other open world games where the world is just the scenery where the game play take place.