Like many, I love the idea of exploring, going from town to town, just to immerse myself in the environment, almost more than dungeons and combat. I think about this a lot for developing my #AgeOfSingularity Ultima VI fan recreation project.
The primary focus right now is making sure the game feels nourishing to explore even WITHOUT dungeons or treasure or combat. Just walking down the coastline, or down the paths, i want that to feel good on its own. my main philosophy is "immersion before gameplay" Part of my gamedev code, the COTA code, is about 'existence before gameplay', so you should be able to just exist in the environment as a normal person would, then things like quests and combat are a layer on top of that.. as in, I need the world to feel good to exist in, before you can expect me to start caring about saving it.
I hope that idea spotlights how suffocating so many AAA games (cough Witcher 3) feel; when you can't go into houses and sit in chairs, lie in beds, or cook food, what is the point of saving the world?
But you might say, "If the game is just about exploration and existing rather than being about combat, nobody would want to play it."" Tell that to Animal Crossing, The Sims, or Stardew Valley. For sure I plan to have combat in #AgeOfSingularity, but it's important we frame the fact that a game can be about MORE.
I'm working on a whole big thing about the COTA Code, which is about bringing back the simulation aspects of games without sacrificing the modern fun to make things anesthetically abstract or mathy. But for now, here's a section of a video I did for Project Ultradeep, in which I talk about the general ideas:
