The game does not need to be an open world game because they have literally done nothing with the open world.
Honestly, I've been saying this about Witcher 3 for years. Literally nothing to discover in the open world beyond a bunch of already marked POIs that either give a skill point or a crafting recipe. I just don't know why people are surprised to see the same in Cyberpunk.
Witcher 3 never billed itself as like an "open world simulator" like gta it was always gonna be a bunch of decent quests and narratives scattered in an open world
Traveling in TW3 was actually fun. Usually because you'd stumble on a random side quest on your way to another quest and as you cleared those the game world got a bit brighter and people started recognizing you. It didn't require a lot to make the travel aspect fun. Just an occasional acknowledgment that you'd done things.
I think we expected them to like at least meet the bar GTA 3/Vice City set decades ago for sandbox interactions in a modern city open world but they didn't even come close.
Honestly, I've been saying this about Witcher 3 for years. Literally nothing to discover in the open world beyond a bunch of already marked POIs that either give a skill point or a crafting recipe. I just don't know why people are surprised to see the same in Cyberpunk.
Witcher 3 never billed itself as like an "open world simulator" like gta it was always gonna be a bunch of decent quests and narratives scattered in an open world
Traveling in TW3 was actually fun. Usually because you'd stumble on a random side quest on your way to another quest and as you cleared those the game world got a bit brighter and people started recognizing you. It didn't require a lot to make the travel aspect fun. Just an occasional acknowledgment that you'd done things.
I think we expected them to like at least meet the bar GTA 3/Vice City set decades ago for sandbox interactions in a modern city open world but they didn't even come close.