In 77 it's rare to see npcs riding motos where that's been normal in gta since at least VC. There are a few places like stores to interact but in most of it they're just props. RS games have much more interactivity w stores, car washes and such.
The challenges in GTA and RDR are well known by now. 77 added these in here and there but were really not that good. They literally added a GTA autogenerated recurring gigs 3 years after release. And even later got the ability to do Claire,nces same 4 racing missions without the story element, no new tracks. We did have the ncpd scanner which ran into the 50ish number but it's the same thing like go there disable or kill everyone combat thing, grab the item on the ground and done. If you were just a completionist and good at sneaking you could just grab the marker and not bother w the combat lol
There were no collectibles default in 77, someone added that in via mods. There WERE the death scenes there but most would never find the vast majority of them and a whole mod Fixers Hidden Gems was made to point them out across the world. I don't need to go into this for gta, especially gtaV which had multiple different versions of them like spaceship parts and such.
The hideouts in 77 could be bought but there was little need to go back to them except mission related. GTAs had various versions of this, the most memorable to me being Franklins hollywood hills mansion. Other than forcing save only there, which I think 5 did, there's never been too much need to go back. gta4 also had this req as the others did too, console focused there no doubt. We could never buy the edgerunners mansion in normal gameplay in 77 which is a shame really, it's by far the best one. Later you can get Kerrys Mansion as a place you can shower and such but I don't think you can sleep there. Would have been nice to purchase Dennys mansion or do something with the gated dead casino that's farther back.
In 77 unless you had a psycho level system and used mods its empty in many places which makes no sense for a city with that size of infrastructure. A smaller world would have made more sense for that game. The world comes off as a pretty stage, whereas GTA worlds are part of the interactivity and have a life of their own, if not as pretty as 77. RDR2 was good at this also but not that hard when it's going to be much more empty for obvious reasons.
There's a lot more random strangers to do stuff w in gta-rdr games then 77 which had none afaik. TW3 you could wander around and pickup rando missions and such also, a much better open world also. So there was more than just pretty graphics to induce exploring. I'm by nature an explorer so did it anyways in 77 but many would need a payoff to go to the next hill and such and after a bit of exploring knowing there's nothing it's hardly worth it. This is a huge problem in the vast badlands also, other than ncpdr and missions there's not much there to do or payoff, no unique weapons or items. The same goes for the protein farms and the desert airport region, vast wasted filler really. In GTA5 and San Andreas I had the idea of a James Bond playground type of world which was awesome from a fun gameplay aspect and the exploration had some cool side stuff like biking, racing and etc
GTA worlds are grounded in some relation to real places which is a strength as it limits the hot air we got in Night City. They are vastly better open worlds. And fantasy open worlds like TW3 do have limitations also like no tech other than magick so its by horse or walk outside of fast travel. Driving wasn't well done in 77 either, terrible handling, and they later added in the obnoxious gang stuff making it even more miserable. The racing or lack thereof was mentioned. 5 had cartoon handling but it was predictable and fun, 4 had more realistic which in some cases is better but in others is terrible, bikes come to mind there.
The idea that someone is going to chase you down like in the gangs mechanic is laughable, that's not real unless under very specific circumstances it wouldn't be a general always on sort of thing but the jewtrannies at cpdur have retardation so think this is what's needed. Overdoing it in search of "look at what we did" mentality like a child that craves attention and accolades.