The checklist still exists in your head with a game like BotW. It's just how the brain works. Having it in the game just helps materialize it for convenience, but I can also get why people want to make their own.
Funny, I found Horizon to be the more stressful of the two games. Zelda was 90% relaxation with moments of intense combat or puzzles. Horizon was a relatively non stop barrage of combat wherever you went.