It gets the open-world aspects right. All of the world is accessible from the start, the only limitations being your ability to tackle stronger enemies (like deathclaws). Exploration is rewarding, not forced. The world is designed such that exploration is driven less by quest markers, but by the player noticing interesting things in the world, like say a giant dinosaur out in the distance.
It has a main storyline, but it is a storyline that can accomodate a huge variety of choices made throughout the game. There's no artificial "essential NPC" mechanic, you can literally kill everyone in the game and the story still works. This makes the game very immersive - the player has absolute free choice in how they want to approach the game, and more importantly it feels like the choices you make and the factions you side with actually matter to the world