Blacktail

Despite its various flaws, I strongly recommend Blacktail for fans of open world exploration/collectathons with minimal hand-holding.

In structure its world reminds me of that of Elden Ring: see something interesting, try to find a way to get there, and when you do you discover a surprise, a reward, a side-quest, or ... a strong argument to leave and come back later. The world is gorgeous, combat is fun and challenging, and progress is slow but steady. The gameplay loop does get repetitive around the mid-game, but there are enough things to do and find to keep your game sessions exciting.

As for the flaws, well, it might be because the game tries to do so much that inevitably some of it would be mediocre.

In particular, the story is very meh. Without spoilers—you should be able to figure things out very early in the game—I'll just say that the potential of the premise is wasted. There's an attempt at some depth, but it falls flat. Something about society and psychology and ... it doesn't stick the landing. The side quests are just bizarre, with wacky characters that are supposed to be charming (I think) but are mostly annoying. The dialog is long-winded and awkward, and it doesn't help that the voice acting (in English) is bad. I like stories, but in this game I found myself skipping through these boring yarns to get to the adventure.

The game systems also get caught in their own shoelaces. There's a "morality" mechanic that feels very opaque, arbitrary, and unnecessary. It barely affects the story (and does not alter the ending), just another RPG thing to do to gain abilities. There is not enough enemy variety to make the big game world feel diverse, and since enemies regenerate over time encountering them can become grating by the time you get to the late game. And the resource economy is, well, let's just say that everything is available everywhere and you should rarely lack what you need.

My biggest personal complaint, though, is about affordances. The game is spectacularly bad at teaching you how to interact with it. There are countless examples: It took me a long time to discover the controller button that reveals quest markers, or where to find the list of the collectibles I had gathered so far (it's not in the inventory, nor the journal, but ... in the almanac!). In one boss fight I was told to do something, but not how to do it. It took me 10 deaths and painful reloads before realizing that I just needed to press a controller button. The description alluded to something quite different (a common issue). Also, why does the "deflect" magic open magical things? How was I supposed to know that it would do that? Etc., etc., etc. Even the online guides tend to assume that you know how to do all the things.

But enough of my gripes. The game does a lot right. It's a fun, not-too-serious romp through a cartoonish version of Slavic folklore. Quite big, quite juicy, and quite satisfying.