Take The Witcher 3, for example its insistence that the player must first approach a signpost in order to fast-travel anywhere - as opposed to simply opening the map and selecting a destination - is completely arbitrary.
However, I’ve noticed a trend in nearly all open-world games of the past five years to just kind of… wilfully restrict a player’s ability to get anywhere quickly. Quick, easy adventuring for the Dragonborn on-the-go. That being said, I have never reached the end of one of these adventures and thought “do you know what would be good? Trudging twenty miles back to the nearest town to collect my reward.” When I finish exploring an ancient tomb in Skyrim, for example, I get topside as quickly as possible, open my map, and fast-travel to the nearest town to turn in whatever trinkets I’ve found and cash in my chips. The beauty of a good RPG is that you’re never truly lost adventure waits for you in every corner of the world. Your senses prickle with delight at the mere hint of a new quest, a new mystery to solve, a new path to follow that you only found because you were sidetracked anyway. Or a dying warrior, propped up against a tree as he draws his final breaths. Or the dilapidated ruin of a strange shrine, illuminated by a soft white light. I’ve put hundreds of hours into open-world RPGs in my lifetime, and there’s a special kind of glee reserved for that moment when you’re making your way through a gloomy forest, roots as thick as a man’s arm snaking along the ground beneath your feet, sunlight barely penetrating through the heavy canopy overhead when suddenly… you spot a cave entrance, overhung with glistening cobwebs. Let me start by saying that exploration is important. That’s a lot of places to visit… Good thing that Skyrim lets me fast travel at any time
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