I've always felt that these open-world sandbox games that get praised endlessly nowadays were borderline nihilistic. If you can do anything, then nothing matters and nothing actually stands out. Nothing has weight and the game doesn't have anything to say.
The idea that more options within the framework of a game mean that it's "better" at depicting freedom is so silly and childish to me, since it will always be constructed within the limited frameworks of video games anyway. It's a childish understanding of what expression is.
For example, the recently released Baldurs Gate 3 bored me out of my mind, since you could literally do anything you wanted, and nothing actually matters. Which is supposed to represent its message about freedom or something?

And yet, all games that say "you can do anything you want" are ultimately self-contradictory. As video games are confined by their hardware etc., so are humans confined within the metaphysics of reality. They can only make their choices within the frameworks of reality.

Therefore, games should just try to present a creative framework to challenge the player with, and it's alright if that's heavily minimalized or constricted. After all, a game should do what's best to tell its message, instead of doing everything, and therefore, doing nothing.