The only difference between an Ubisoft game and Zelda are map icons

[Yurinka]

People constantly praise Elden Ring, Zelda Breath of The Wild and Tears of the Kingdom becuase of the “freedom” it allows versus an ‘ubisoft’ game (assassins creed, far cry, horizon, Tsushima, etc.)but the only real difference is the idea that map icons aren’t present on the map

It’s honestly as easy as removing map icons to make people think the world design in one game is superior to another.

As I remember in most relatively recent Ubisoft or Sony open world games you can disable most or all icons in the UI via the game settings. Even to remove the map during gameplay.

The main difference between Zelda and the Ubisoft and Sony open world games, other than having a Nintendo logo and worse graphics, it's a bigger focus on differentiate more the biomes and a few more unique situations in specific areas of the map. Something that GoW does very well.

To make open world games (including Zelda) feel less repetitive they should make the maps way smaller to repeat each mission type and collectible type less times. And increase even more their development time to include a bigger diversity of mission types, different biomes and unique situations, because that requires way more work than to repeat more times something you already have.

BotW doesn't even feel like TotK

TotK feels like BotW adding the Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolds crafting mechanics for vehicles/devices.

 

[Swift_Star]

I played it for 30h and felt like I had my moneys worth. I have no desire to go back to it. It’s too much content and the game doesn’t respect my time at all. I play it like for 2h and feel like I accomplished nothing. Maybe I’ll try it again when I’m on vacation, but right now I need linear games.