>>21742747I liked pic related because it has a similar concept of what you're trying to say.
Though the whole concept got destroyed by the fact you were forced to take the alternate path and said path was pretty linear too.
They should make more routes where there's a main road that connects the cities so you can speedrun the game but where at the same time you can go offroad and find a more wild area full of optional mazes and weird stuff. Kids won't get lost because of the main road, meanwhile people who want to explore will go off-road and spend a lot of time exploring.