I'm of the age where I remember seeing Link stand on a staircase with his feet at two different levels in Wind Waker and going "holy shit, it doesn't get any more realistic than this" so I don't think I'll ever understand the obsession with ultra super realism.

Good animation and AI are important, but those things don't bloat a game up to 100 gigabytes. Demanding a unique 8k texture on every blade of grass does, and an insane amount of time gets spent on making sure each rock is unique. As a result, budgets are inflated to the point where they basically have no choice but to do two things: sell their soul to a lucifer-adjacent publisher like Ubisoft, and implement tons of scummy micro transactions and predatory business practices.