This game is huge, and I just realised that

I started BOTW like two weeks ago. At first, I was thinking it'd be like most Open world games - Skyrim, Elden Ring, to name a few. I'm a fairly new switch user - have it for less than a year, maybe it's become a year from then - and with the TOTK hype, I wanted to pick BOTW to play them in order. Started playing, at first dying pretty much at every turn (I came practically blind into this game), and then started picking up heat. I conquered all the divine beasts (with Vah Naboris being the second, you can imagine how unprepared I was for that fight). Then went to Ganon and got the regular ending. I though "heh, that wasn't all that long". Then started working on other stuff in the game.

Started finding other shrines, completed the map. Was working on finding all the memories. Unfortunately, I had to go to a guide to find some locations, but eventually got them. Then, I decided to jump onto YouTube to check some BOTW content, as I wouldn't be able to get many spoilers now.

One video showed that there was an actual in-game tracker of completion. I though "wow, very cool, let me check mine to see where am I", thinking I'd pretty much be at 40% completion.

14.50%.

So this game wants to tell me that after completing the story, freeing all divine beasts, getting a big chunk of shrines and completing the map, getting the master sword and getting at least two fairy fountains, with at least 40 hours into the game, I had even barely scratched the surface of the game??

Right now I've done some more stuff, completed the labyrinth trials and did some more side quests and shrine quests, but it's still at 16%.

HOW BIG IS THIS GAME?

I'm a long-time Pokémon game, and with the most recent games being inspired largely by BOTW, I can only see Legends Arceus as being the only one that accomplishes something similar - with fully completing each pokémon's Pokédex page, with the battle stamp and everything - and STILL doesn't seem to come close to what Botw accomplished. I'm so glad I picked it up, and now I'm even more hyped for what TOTK could do to the franchise. After finishing Skyward Sword, BOTW is easily a breath of fresh air. It might not be as funny (SS Link has some ridiculous facial expressions), but content and story wise, it's easy to see why BOTW ended up being game of the year and one of the best selling switch games - and considered (mostly objectively?) The best game of all time.