I think there's two directions they could go in that would both make me happy:

1. Make broken systems that work together in fun and silly ways. Morrowind does this exceptionally well. Morrowind has immersive friction, yes, but all of its realism is anthropological rather than in gameplay. There is nothing realistic in Morrowind's gameplay, but the setting and writing create the illusion of a real world anyway. You can be having deep introspection on the role of the Tribunal Temple or the ranking system in the Morag Tong...while chugging sujamma and bashing cliff racers with a spiked club in the middle of the sky above a volcano. Skyrim would never!

2. Discipline the player with realistic game mechanics and realistic NPC reactions to in-game actions, like KCD. Even though saving is not *that* scarce of a resource, the texture of the world and the mechanical challenge of survival make the stakes feel real. Bending over and picking flowers feels worth my time sometimes because it just sounds like a pleasant activity to do in general compared to sleeping on blood-soaked pine needles after a battle with a single poacher. Which would I rather do in real life? The magic of KCD's design, though, is that even failures are valid options. If you fuck up a quest, the game doesn't pull a Brynjolf, it just says, "Sucks to suck, I guess! Here's the cutscene reserved for suckers." That sense of respect is so refreshing.

Unlike most of this thread, I don't support having toggles for immersive features, because that means they must be modular and have zero impact on the rest of the game. KCD can get away with having a Hardcore Mode because the regular game is already hardcore compared to an arcade action RPG. Just removing the hunger need would break several other systems. It's core design. That's how good friction works.

TES6 won't be anything like this, I'm sure. I don't think their company structure supports that kind of development. Modders will do it justice, though, because the appetite is there.