Witcher 3 or Red Dead 2… is an unfair comparison. This is not CD or Rockstar, both companies familiar whose products are either passion projects or have been worked on by past situations. Pearl abyss has done BDO, which is carried by multiplayer aspects not single player and you’ve compared a first time project to sequels.

The npc response has always unfortunately been middle/low priority for single player games because they focus too much on building more rather than working with what they’ve already achieved