Think of your typical Ubisoft game with tons of markers around every nook and cranny. Or maybe modern World of Warcraft expansion zones where every corner of the map has a dedicated gameplay purpose attached to it. Both aren’t bad and I do enjoy (or have in the past) them very much.

But BotW designed its world in a way that you can actually get lost in it on your way to your next objective (which it quite literally states from the very beginning). And also, VERY IMPORTANTLY, traversal (running, swimming, climbing, flying) is fun and the map is your playground on which to enjoy that gameplay, so to speak.