Although I appreciate GoW, TLOU2, RDR2 and others like Horizon Zero Dawn I still think BOTW is the best game that has come out in the last decade and one that really rekindled my love for gaming at a time I was a bit out of it.
I know that since story and narrative are such important factors that BOTW falls short in that regards vs the other I mentioned, but gameplay is so good it makes up for it. I also think the story in BOTW is the best done in a Zelda game but the presentation of it made people hate it.
We keep seeing thread of new mechanics found in the game. Nothing huge but it was the huge amount of these small attention to detail gameplay bits that made the game so memorable. Getting hit by lighting the first time, discovering another world puzzle in the 100th hr or play, waking up on Eventide island, climbing to the top of a peak or to the bottom or a ravine and the you find the hidden item or shrine you thought might be there. The rewards or exploration and messing around with the mechanics is so damn big.
I think in these other amazing games I mentioned you see a lot of these surprises in character animations, lines of dialogue or reaction to the environment, but almost never do you see them in the gameplay department like in BOTW.
imagine if in RDR2 you went to the bottom of some ravine and found some random treasure, not necessarily having to wait for the map or anything. I wish these other games would rewards exploration in better ways but I think they do have a better balance. To me in BOTW the reward was exploration itself since the seeds and other items were just meh, but the reward or exploration was so so good. In these other games the reward of exploration is not as big but the rewards themselves are.