NMS has very different world building that sets it apart from both Gothic and TES series. The game world in TES and Gothic depicts "real" fantasy world, and the

NMS has very different world building that sets it apart from both Gothic and TES series. The game world in TES and Gothic depicts "real" fantasy world, and the player personas in the series are bound to experience it from the point of view of characters inhabiting that fantasy world as if it was real for them. On the opposite side, in NMS the world is ontologically a simulation, and the player persona gradually becomes aware of it being a simulation while progressing a story (a.k.a. breaking the fourth wall). In that sense, procedurally generated environments, generated quests, NPC design and interactions are very logical to the lore and add to immersion, but there is no guardrails to the story because lore is tuned against having them. Whether you like it if you need more guardrails: probably not, it is kind of game and world building, where the final goal is to find out there was no final goal in a first place.