I have a bleed build so I'm pretending the final boss doesn't exist. Only open world game I can think of that I felt like genuinely cared about my continued inspiration to play, super intuitive exploration incentives continued even into the final hours (I wanted the Haligdrake Talisman+2, so I needed the other half of the secret medallion, so I finally went back for Niall, beat him, and had a blast in Mohgwyn Palace, etc, just one late example of something that happened dozens of times throughout the playthrough). Recursive, rewarding, brilliantly paced, from hour zero to hour 80.