> What I haven't put my finger on was how both of these games propel you to discover the world, and to find out what's above the hill or if there might be a cav

> What I haven't put my finger on was how both of these games propel you to discover the world, and to find out what's above the hill or if there might be a cave in a cliff. I don't know if it's the terrain design that's actually thought through and not left to some algorithm, or if it's simply the perk of having a great brand behind these games that have rewarded us properly for exploring their previous worlds. Breath of the wild is a game full of secrets. Things are there and they need to be found. Many other open world games are not. They’re full of missions. Because the ui is so informative, you actually get rapid confirmation that there is nothing. A lot of missions start at a hub and make you go to a place and then come back. That’s how that portion of the world gets used. Botw doesn’t do this much. Most content that you find is immediately relevant there because that place is interesting in itself. Lastly, you don’t have a dearth of dialogue to get through things. Dialogue is fine and all but side quests are conceptually very stupid and the writing is inevitably tiresome. It breaks immersion when someone needs you to collect maguffins again.