Review in progress:

I'm about 30 hours in and I definitely understand why this won Goty on so man publications. Even as a big fan of Ragnarok I knew that game was flawed and I had problems with it so I wasn't mad that it lost to Elden Ring despite not playing Elden ring at the time. So far I don't have any major problems with Elden ring at all and its just a wonderful experience that actually gives you back the sense of wonder that so few open world games give you now.

To me this takes all of the good things I liked about Botw, like the exploration, the freedom to go and do whatever you want, the lack of map checklist like ubisoft games give you, and actually gives you great combat on top of it (Botw's combat is so wonderfully mediocre). Can't wait to continue and finish it.