Personally I loved the story in BOTW - the memories, piecing it all together and figuring out what happened, the flashback cutscenes, etc. And I love the lore in Souls games, too, but I think the reason all this works for me is what you said - it's stuff that's already happened. I don't really like a more passive approach to things that are still currently happening.
I'm someone who doesn't like environmental storytelling much. I generally want games to have directed, purposeful cutscenes; it just works better for me. One issue I have with games like Skyrim, for example, is that cutscenes don't really exist - things just kind of happen when you're around other people, but you still have free control to move around and such even while people are talking and divulging critical plot information and the like. I know some people like that, but it drives me up the wall. I want to have actual cutscenes with cinematic camera angles, purposeful matching music, etc.