The world of BotW felt barren and empty, so maybe that‘s a good thing. It was huge, but not a lot going on. It felt like a lifeless desert with some events sprinkled throughout.
Tears doesn't want to repeat the exact same limited experience of exploration you had with the last game. It tries for something different.
that what I find most enjoyable (by this point, at my "advanced age") is setting it all up, it was not that simple to get it all working
I have to start some command line daemons, I had to get some kernel modules, I had to recalibrate the thumb joysticks, etc...
after all this fun clicking around my PC, the game became almost an after thought... I did play around, brilliant game. the superb quality on release was impressive...