Here's an example we might agree on: Fallout 3.
Now, for those of you who haven't played Fallout 3 - all five of you - it's a very open-world game, with two remarkable points: 1) you can pretty much walk anywhere you want at any point in the game once you've left the tutorial zone (you will get atrociously murdered if go step in the wrong zone though, but you're still free to try); 2) there's a quicktravel system that allows you to blink from one place to another provided you've explored said place.
What I found awesome with exploring the world in Fallout 3 was that while I very much did get lost, I always had something to help me - without relying on a map - figure out where I was. Some times it was the Potomac river. Other times it was a monument, or some sort of
unusual hotel.
So whenever I was out in the open, I could easily know where I was headed. Once I was in an urban zone, however, I felt like I was really in a major city: the underground metro tunnels running all over the place, the large avenues, small backstreets.... I had a general sense of direction, as in "Oh I can see the Washington Monument from here, that's where I want to go", but from one blocked street to another collapsed building, both crawling with supermutants, it was tough. And I loved. Every. Minute. Of. It.
I wouldn't expect the same experience from the Witcher. Novigrad may be a large city, it isn't a deserted megalopolis like Nuked-Washington. But that feeling of wandering without being lost, that's something golden I very much hope to find again.
