shyt like that is why I was heavily fukking with RDR2 and still do. You can just get lost in the world itself and forgot about side missions and even the story. It's like playing Skyrim with mods and shyt. To this day, I still haven't fought Alduin at the end of the story lol.
I regret rushing thru RDR2...I beat it in like 2 days (played back to back 12 hours days smmfh) in anticipation of online mode which turned out to be a serious dud initially...I guess I was expecting it to be a wild west version of GTA online...but I remember hunting for the legendary bear I think it was and I came upon a waterfall...the scenery was beautiful...I’m not letting R* completely off the hook tho...granted they do it better than most but they’ve mastered providing the illusion of a complete open-world experience...missions/gameplay can be very restricted @ times tho