I'm confused as to why everyone thinks it's so open world. It's a hub game. It's just a big hub. You still explore the whole map and then there are map exits that will take you to the next map. That is clear when you try to take the mountain pass.
So it is just like BG1 and 2 except the map location take much longer to explore. Just like with the previous games, you can explore whatever area of the map location you want whenever you want.
The problem is that unlike those games, Larian has multiple timed events from a story perspective, but they don't follow through with it in the mechanics. The ritual will just keep going forever if you don't stop it. You could literally ignore them, travel to the underdark, sleep for weeks, come back and they act like it's only been an hour.
So again, it's not the map. It's the story elements that are janky. Lots of people keep viewing like an open world map, but if it was then you'd be able to get to Baldur's without pulling up a transition world map, or you'd be able to, at the end of EA, travel to Moonrise via raft without a cutscene.
And it's highly unlikely they're going to let you return to the grove in Act 2 and 3. So again, not open world. It's one big location map in a hub game.
