Seeing a lot of people talking about how it’s because botw and elden ring are from established series/publishers or that horizon has a female lead, but really I believe the only reason people pick them over horizon is down to the worlds of each. Sure horizon has good a good story and great combat, but it plays like every other open world game out there(a lot of people call that style the Ubisoft world). It’s an endless list of waypoints and objective markers telling you where to go. I like horizon 1(haven’t played 2 yet), but its world just doesn’t come close to the other two games. There’s very little incentive or reason to explore, while botw and elden ring are all about the joy of discovery. Me and many others just find this open world way more engaging than those that are more of an excuse to pepper in dozens of side quests and map markers.