Is there a worse case of 'illusion of choice' than the open world rpg with no secret areas?

Is there a worse case of 'illusion of choice' than the open world rpg with no secret areas?

I was playing some recently released open world rpgs -not sandbox mind you, just rpgs with an overworld map to explore. You know what i noticed?

In almost all recent examples i tried every place on the map was part of the story. The entire world was an illusion of none linearity in a world where it was straight A to B experiences to story dump points. The world was a void between them with nothing. Run around tapping A hoping for a secret? good luck homeslice there aint shit.

This made me think of RPG's in the 1990's, an immediate example would be Final Fantasy 8 and its "Deep Sea Research Facility" also known as "The island closest to Hell".
In the very top corner of the world map, not on the map at all, there is a small island. On it you find the remains of an abandoned and in disrepair facility looking like something out of Jurassic Park 20 years after it all went to shit and got abandoned. Going inside rewards the player with a massive dungeon where deep core drilling has woken up deep sea horrors and one of the secret 'ultimate bosses' every FF game has thats stronger than the story finale boss.

You are never told about it, its just there waiting to be found. Its not on any map, never mentioned, you can complete the game never knowing its even there. Which is what makes it a joy to discover.

So why dont rpgs with overworlds do this anymore? Lazyness? lack of creativity? or simply smaller budgets with increased dev times for main story content production?

I feel like we have lost a key point to these kinds of games over the years. It was the journey, not the destination that mattered and nowadays the journey is so often a straight line between cutscenes.

what a shame.

Yep.
The opposite, the massive budgets means the developers have become terrified of players not seeing their content. Ever since that fucking early 2000's study which showed few people completed games. Ever since then I can guarantee you the execs have shit their pants thinking "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I SPENT ALL THIS MONEY AND PLAYERS ARENT SEEING IT?!" since they view games not as artistic endeavors but instead as commodities where you put money into it and get money out, with the player buying game time.

Thus the idea of someone getting an authentic experience out of a game is lost in the translation from investment to product to return of profit. They see it as a paid activity, "they pay money and get game time" rather than "They pay money and get a particular experience". Because that is far more difficult to quantify, especially for people who have no interest in video games (or more likely from that generation, look at them with disdain).

This is also why marketing budgets are so bloated. It's very difficult to find the connection between "putting more money into game development, and profit" but very easy to see the connection between "putting more money into marketing, and profit".

I blame Activision for this.

Not saying they shouldn't be blamed, but the blame has to go around to a lot more than just Activision.

The "spend more on marketing than the game will make, recoup profit in cut content as dlc" all started with call of duty 3. Thats patient zero.

bioware games

Fallout 4 is the biggest offender

The deep roads in DA origins was such a big disappointment.

No it wasn't.

Your standards would have to be rock bottom to call that anything more.