An adventure is not judged by your reward upon completion but by the events you experience along the way. To become someone (or something) else, if only for a moment. Let’s be honest, we all play games to escape our real-world responsibilities. Open worlds are the best way to give the player a sense of adventure.
Who wants more realistic 1:1 style games like The Division 2 but on a grander scale? Me. Who wants an empty big open world with nothing to do? Nobody.
A larger map does not mean a better game. Here at Rocket Chainsaw we are constantly debating the relevance of big open worlds to how good a game is, and while our editor Andrew wishes they were less obsessed, I’d straight up like to say the map size is irrelevant.