There is no judgement in quality of content by saying something is more build like DOS than BG (quality lies in the execution not these decisions themselves). You just look at it from your experience and if you like it more or not, it doesn't change the fact that there is a reasoning in doing it one way or the other. I even wrote for what they are going for it makes more sense with the system they have in place for maps, still the result is a extremely gamey experience that is closer to DOS than it is to BG/DA:O.
In YOUR opinion.
It doesn't feel that way to me at all (plus, as someone who lives in a very hilly area where there are areas that are like the BG III map around, sans coast of course (in fact, my options for evacuating amount to going over a very steep hill or down some narrow one lane roads that would likely be packed and you see areas that have nothing built on them because there would be too much work involved all the time, even in more built up areas), I could say that overly flat terrain feels too gamey and unforgiving if only because it doesn't give you a clue what directions you should head to get anywhere, in fact that was a criticism of several of the earlier Final Fantasy Games. Go the wrong way and you're dealing with monsters far stronger than you could hope to beat). It honestly works for me because it's basically similar to how things end up around here.
Really, IMO constrained pathing gets too gamey only when it gets near this level:
![[Linked Image from static.tvtropes.org]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/linear.jpg)
or this level:
![[Linked Image from static.tvtropes.org]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/railroading_4430.png)
(admittedly we have a bit of the latter now, because certain areas are not ready to be played forcing you to take other routes, but...)
And either way, it's still infinitely better and less immersion breaking than being ambushed by a trash mob moving between two maps that are supposedly right next to each other (happened too many times to count)