Only reason for a game to be open world is if it is a sandbox/survival game in which the open world actually serves a purpose. So games like Minecraft, Dragon Quest Builders, Don't Starve actually benefit from being open world, because you need to tear that world apart for resources, and a small linear world would be unable to effectively serve that necessity. Games like The Elder Scrolls, Dragon Quest, and Fallout should only have a SMALL open world at most. There's no reason to mess with the pacing of an RPG by forcing in a huge open world with nothing in it. Games like Assassin's Creed, The Evil Within and Batman Arkham should flat out never have been open world, because that kind of world design negatively impacts the oppressive nature of the genre, its stealth based gameplay, or both. Tl;dr the main reason open world games are becoming so stale and uninteresting is because developers keep cramming them into a game, without understanding the strengths and weaknesses of that kind of world design. I have yet to see an open world game that was both A) Not a sandbox or survival game, and B) benefitted from being open world.