I guess I'm not seeing the argument here. Is it a completely open world? No...but there are multiple paths through (and around) most things here. Examples:
1) When you first land on the beach, there are paths through the area that let you bypass encountering all of the companions.
2) There are several paths into (or around) the crypt
3) There's no reason to go into the blighted village if you don't want to. There are paths to the north and south to go around.
4) There are multiple ways into the underdark
5) many more...
All of these things let you take in as much (or as little) of the world as you want. Other than the one point where you end up outside the druid's grove, everything else felt like I could do as much as I wanted and didn't feel like I was forced on rails to go in some linear path.
It is the feel - the ambience. It feels constrained even if it isn't as constrained as it feels. It feels like every inch was planned out and you are constrained to those inches. It does not feel real.
I don't need the paths between point A and point B to be super different - I just want them to feel open. There are more than just roads in your typical DnD campaign and certainly there is significant area just off the roads. It feels like they are overdoing the elevation mechanics and in order to do that they need to constrain you to very narrow routes. As stated by others - it feels like everything is just crammed together as well - uncertain how these people are able to even sustain life with no farmland or forests they can enter.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could have mounts – then everything could be much more spread out. Maybe for BG4… there’s just something off about a D&D party not being able to ride anywhere, bring a wagon along for loot.
Absolutely. If you have a grassland, that would be an ideal way to traverse it.
