>>58745204Even modern GTA has this issue. GTA V mostly.
In most older games, you could put these issues into "the technology is limited", but many programmers were clever back then.
GTA 3? Put some "hidden" side missions and the whole hidden items sidequest.
GTA VC? Leave some open areas you didn't programmed or was cut, and add easter eggs inside them.
San Andreas? Probably the best: you have girlfriends, gang wars, side jobs, hidden side jobs, gyms, secret items, tags, tourism photographies, easter eggs. Even going to the tallest mountain in the game let you play a small sport race. Everywhere had something fun to do or find.
GTA Stories are more like expansions from the original games, so you can replay missions now.
GTA 4 started to show some mistakes, but even the side games have interesting things: in 4 you had places to hangout in (most) of the islands, Lost and Damned gave you a crew that could improve and bike races where you could kick or drop your opponent, and in the Ballad of Gay Tony you had super races and air drops.
In GTA V, most of these things are just dropped around the map with no care, and finding 10 of the 100 items no longer gives you cool rewards (just like how 4 only gave you a helicopter after killing the 200 birds). And there's only one or two places to hangout. Want to play darts? Have fun driving all the way to the one place in the middle of nowhere with the only dart board (GTA 4 had 3: one in Dukes, another in Algonquin, and if you had the Playboy X crib you unlocked a third one).
Most sandbox games are no longer fun to lose yourself. The only thing close are the Yakuza games, but those focus in one neighbourhood and not an entire city.
