Choosing to ignore the Ubisoft format of filling/clearing icons off the map definitely improves the game, but at the end of the day you're cycling through a very repetitive grind of solving environmental puzzles of the shoot target/pressure plate variety, collecting stuff and fast travelling to the main hub to regine your rewards into stuff that isn't particularly useful.
I'm playing Far Cry 5, and it is more or less the same, except less puzzles, and more blowing up random stuff.
The structure of this game is honestly pretty baffling, because it really does force you to focus on the repetitive map markers, rather than allowing you to explore them at your own pace, if/when you want to.
Basically, the map is split into three regions, and each region has three story missions available. To begin a story mission, you need to earn a certain amount of "resistance points", and the best way to earn resistance points is by - you guessed it - clearing miscellaneous map markers. The problem though, is just like many other open world games of the same caliber, most of this stuff is completely devoid of their own micro-stories, and instead they are just tangentially related to the main plot, namely that "its the bad guy's stuff".
So the whole gameplay loop is basically you running around blowing up random stuff just because you can, then you get abducted by the antagonist's henchmen, then they talk at you for a few minutes, before your inevitable miraculous escape, and then you have your final confrontation with that region's lieutenant. Presumably rinse/repeat for the next two regions. Then roll credits.
Its an entertaining enough sandbox, but they haven't really attempted to present this in any kind of convincing way.
