The Blood of Dawnwalker "isn’t that big" because its small team with Witcher 3 vets would rather prioritize "layers" and "didn't want to make an open world for, like, 400 hours"

You see, Blood of Dawnwalker has a 30 day or so time limit to complete the 'main quest', and you can also tackle any quest when the sun sets to show your more bloodthirsty side, drastically altering how certain parts of the game play out.

I don't mind a time limit per se, but I prefer if it leans more towards "generous".

Tell a great story and you don't need 400+ hours open world.

People can easily get disinterested or sidetracked with life in an open world game and never end up returning to play it. A linear-ish great story will play like a movie which will improve playability years later