Could it be that a lot has happened with open world games since 2017? I'm playing Immortals Fenyx Rising on PS5 right now and I'm really impressed with this lush world and quality. One of the best Zelda copies for sure.
But on the other hand, I didn't see the same backlash when God of War Ragnarok was released and that game is direct follow up in evere sense.
i personally found (the demo) to be ... artificial, randomly stuffed with things to do, the world did not merge for me, it felt more like a disneyland ride. that was the thing BotW did so great, the world.
In regards to "we've waited 6 years for this?" - It was touched upon in Pre-Release Discussion, that the various vehicle building mechanics the game contains calls for a positively unheard of QA process. If the building works the way I and many others think it will work... We're talking hundreds of possible combinations all having to be able to interact with hundreds of sky islands, in terms of physics collisions, elemental interactions, etc.
COVID is already accounted for in regards to the dev time, and when you take into account a QA process that not only has to cover the vehicle building, but also live up to the ridiculously high polishing standards demanded by an EPD game, that's a very, very, very long time.
I understand that people might be disappointed that that one aspect of the game has taken up such a long time. But personally, I think the wait will be totally worth it, because the possibilities of the vehicle system (again if it works like me and many others think it will work) will call for a gameplay experience that will blow my mind into oblivion.
counter point: even if it has many combinations and was a huge amount of work... as someone who actively disslikes that aspect in the last trailer that just screams "much of our time did go into things you will at best ignore, at worst dislike".
i will keep my final decision reserved, maybe its less intrusive, maybe the game is so packed that im fine with it being a big part of it (that ill try to avoid). but just because something si complex, does not mean people need to accept/like it.
I was in the camp: i want hunting to be more complex and needed, i want to take those gels and bones that i already have and use them to make arrows, weapons. I wanted the naturalistic aproach.
Every time i have seen those "dew dew minecart go flying brrr" clips/videos, i thought: yeah, thats just not the game im playing, dont care for that at all.
What im saying: i've seen less of the stuff i want (well mechanically, the sky and underground areas are great) and more o the stuff i dont care or dislike with this last one.
--> as you have read my other post in the main thread, i am conflicted,
from an Software Engineering perspective i find the QA argument interesting, from a "will it be a good game" im confident, they cant fail that hard. from a "will it deliver what i was hoping from a sequel" perspective it feels like were moving further away with every trailer.