I like this game. But--BUT. Gaddamn it the backtracking is annoying.
It's like everything is tight and with deliberate pacing during the main quest. Optional forks do not bring you in entire regions, you follow the plot, and get the deed done. And then you get some side haunting cases (green ones) and many bring you to explore new regions. That's fine. But that's when the road forks start to become overwhelming. If you're a completist it is annoying especially because many paths are actually reserved to side quests, so exploring on your own is disincentivized. When you get to the lesser side quests (grey one) you basically have the map available but fast travel points are so few and far between you have to remember how to reach some areas (and game being samey as fuck does not help), while fighting AGAIN the same boring enemies, with no way of fleeing (I tried, they aggro forever, and during aggro no interaction points are available). As said, you get at times 5 lines of dialogue for 5 mins of backtracking. I fuckin hate it. Finally, during the backtracking, all the traversal stuttering rears its ugly head, being choppy as fuck during all the tight squeezes you need to pass through.
It is fuckin grueling and, as a completionist, I managed to preserve my sanity only by admitting I will do the haunting cases and not the rest of the quests and/or the open world activities which are honestly, bottom of the barrel.
I like this game. But I pretty much preferred Vampyr and it's gameplay loop.
