From VG247: “What is it that makes the open world genre appealing?
I would argue its this: possibility. Hence the familiar refrain of you can go there that accompanies open world preview trailers or screenshots showing us distant mountain ranges the promise that you, and perhaps even the developers themselves, never know exactly what you might find when you venture out. The innate appeal of being uncertain about what lies beyond the horizon is what these games are predicated on.”
Source: N4G PC Outer Wilds' solar system only highlights the shallowness of No Man's Sky's infinite universe