What Generally Keeps You Invested In Games?

[Kriven]

Teleporting/flying/whatever is a fine way to get around Empty Overworld Syndrome. It also helps to make the areas both engaging and memorable... a lot of times it's easy to get lost in large fantasy worlds because they have forests and hills for the sake of "realism" and they just copy/paste the same assets, or barely altered assets, repeatedly... and it can be difficult if like "So... am I trying to go over that autumn-emblazed hill.... or that one? Or is it the one to the left?"