Pacific Drive

i wouldnt call it arbitrary, that stuff is only in the intro since the game has a handful of indepth mechanics that have to be explained. there's always going to be story objectives that you follow to progress if you want to get to further parts of the game, akin to hades. its not a free-roam game, but for the most part you are on your own. youll be going in the zone, getting energy and materials, moving to the next area, rinse and repeat, extracting, managing your goods and repairing at the garage, and then going back out to do it all again.

story bits are frequent at the beginning but as the game goes on, additional dialogue gets delegated to an optional button prompt, while core dialogue for mission objectives play automatically (but only apply when doing the main story). dont be fooled by the introduction, it lets you hold the wheel after you learn the important stuff.