Ok. Then show me a single modern open world game with this level of hands-off freedom. Seriously. I want to play it.
If you're saying BotW isn't anything new for other, modern devs, I need to know which games you're talking about, because I want to play them.
Morrowind. I'm a huge fan of Zelda and BotW, but Morrowind offers as much freedom as BotW in many ways. It's not as organic of a game, nor does it feel as good combat wise, nor do the NPCs feel as charming.
But as far as freedom is concerned, Zelda sort of feels like a modern day Nintendo-like execution of what Morrowind promised for the future of games 15 years ago, but no one else (until now) was ever able to realize.
Like BotW, all of Morrowind's gameplay is governed by a series of rules (but in this case, they are not physics based). But I can craft a spell in Morrowind to increase my acrobat skill then jump over entire mountains if I wanted to. In fact, here's a video of someone who managed to jump from one end of the game to the other:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whz-LQlbI-U
You can do all sorts of crazy stuff like this. But in no way is it as approachable or enjoyable to play as BotW. It's definitely a classic that you may really enjoy though. It's not like the modern Bethesda games that followed it either. It's a great open world.
Just don't go into it expecting BotW or Nintendo-like polish. It's janky as fuck and feels like the whole world is held together by spit and glue. But if you give it a chance, you will find that there's a really really deep game there.